Tag: thingspeak

Twilio Rickrolls You Using Their API

ThingSpeak

I have been working with the Twilio API for a few of my projects. I have used Twilio to call me when disk space is running low on a server or to call my house and request its status. Twilio is a cloud-based communications platform for sending and receiving text messages or placing phone calls. Twilio is wrapped up nicely with a RESTful API so ThingSpeak or MATLAB can use it without a lot of setup.

Tonight, I was following a beginner tutorial that I wrote for using Twilio and ThingSpeak, and I noticed that their voice example plays a friendly greeting and then by surprise Twilio starts playing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, for the world’s geekiest rickroll.

Twilio’s example points to this Url: https://demo.twilio.com/docs/voice.xml.

If you look closer you will see the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
    <Say voice="alice">Thanks for trying our documentation. Enjoy!</Say>
    <Play>http://demo.twilio.com/docs/classic.mp3</Play>
</Response>

Go ahead and click: http://demo.twilio.com/docs/classic.mp3

Open Source IoT Debug Tool for ThingSpeak and Particle

ThingSpeak

Often when building IoT projects, you end up wondering what data is being sent to a cloud service like ThingSpeak. The IoT Debugger tool allows you to see the data inside a ThingSpeak channel in a table view. The ThingSpeak Logger shows you data as the channel gets updated. This is an easy way to see if you are sending bad data or null data. The project is open source and available on GitHub.

IoT Debug Tool

Features of IoT Debugger

  • ThingSpeak Data Logger
  • Particle.io Webhooks Manager
  • Settings are saved in LocalStorage
  • Built using HTML5, Bootstrap, and jQuery
  • Open Source!

Demo and download the source code for IoT Debugger on GitHub.

 

CheerLights with LIFX Wi-Fi Light Bulbs

CheerLights

My mom asked me to setup a CheerLights lamp in their living room to stay connected with me. I was thrilled that she asked me to do this for her.

CheerLights, BTW, is one of my projects that synchronizes color lights to the same color all around the world by sending a Tweet mentioning “cheerlights” and a color name.

“@CheerLights Let’s go Blue!”

For my mom, I wanted the setup to be easy. I have made @cheerlights with Arduino, Philips Hue, and Particle. But, all of these solutions are very DIY and require some programming to get working. I looked around for an alternative solution. I discovered the LIFX A21 Wi-Fi Smart LED Light Light Bulb. What makes this solution ideal for my parents home is that there is no hub needed – just Wi-Fi. The LIFX bulb is currently $99 at Amazon, but I found it in my local Best Buy store for $59! This means that the LIFX so far is the cheapest way to join @CheerLights and have a really nice display in your house.

LIFX Wi-Fi Light Bulb

Installation Steps:

  • Connect your phone to your Wi-Fi network
  • Install the LIFX mobile app on your phone
  • Connect the LIFX led bulb to any light socket and turn it on
  • Open the app and go to “Add Bulb”

LIFX Cloud:

Once your bulb is linked to the app, you will be notified that the bulb requires a software update. Once this happens the bulb will be connectable by the LIFX Cloud API. Sign into https://cloud.lifx.com/ and generate your secret key. Make sure to save this key somewhere so you can use it to setup ThingSpeak.

ThingSpeak Setup:

  • Signup for ThingSpeak
  • Create a ThingHTTP by selecting Apps -> ThingHTTP
  • ThingHTTP Settings:
  • Create a TweetControl for each color that you want to display
  • TweetControl Settings for “blue”:
    • Check “Anonymous TweetControl”
    • Trigger: blue
    • ThingHTTP Action: Select “LIFX Cloud API”

Testing:

Now, that you have everything setup. We get to have fun. Test everything out by sending a Tweet using Twitter.

“@CheerLights Let’s go Blue!”

Not only does your light turn blue, but thousands of other lights on the @CheerLights project will turn blue at the same time.

Visit CheerLights.com for more information about the project!

Send Your Windows Server’s Disk Free Space to ThingSpeak Using PowerShell

ThingSpeak

I manage a lot of servers. One of the things that I am always curious about is how much disk space is left on my servers. I know there are a lot of ways to track this, but almost always it seems the service that I am using changes on me or breaks over time.

My super simple solution for tracking server disk space is to use Windows PowerShell and ThingSpeak. I went to the trouble to release the code to GitHub, so that you can try this out for yourself. This can be used on any Windows Server as long as you have the ability to execute PowerShell scripts. ThingSpeak gives you a place to store data from anything. In this case, I am sending my disk free space to ThingSpeak once per day by scheduling a Windows Task.

Check out the open source code on GitHub!

Internet of Things Pittsburgh Kicks Off on the Global Internet of Things Day April 9th

Talks

I have started a new Meetup — Internet of Things Pittsburgh (#iotpgh) — this meetup is open to all steel city innovators looks to explore the emerging  Internet of Things. Join me as your host on the first meetup on April 9th at 6pm at the TechShop Pittsburgh.

IoT Pittsburgh

In each meetup we will feature the following:

  • Current state of IoT
  • Privacy and Security
  • Technology trends
  • Business cases
  • Open discussion
  • IoT project demos
  • Industry presentations

Follow us on Twitter using the hashtag: #iotpgh and join us on Meetup.com.