Want a free ioBridge Serial LCD?
ioBridge Serial LCD
All you have to do to get a free ioBridge Serial LCD is to “Name the Thing” over at Hacked Gadgets. The contest runs from March 13-19, 2010.
Alan Parekh has put together an amazing collection of projects on hackedgadgets.com and resources for electronics hobbyists, students, and tinkerers alike. We are subscribers to the RSS feed and always look forward to the posts.
Good luck!
Join the Steel City Makers for the first meeting of Make:PGH at the HackPittsburgh hack space. The meeting is free and open to the public which features a MakerBot 3D printer, mystery activities, and an ioBridge-based, iPhone controlled fighting Domo toy.
“Andy Leer will share with us his experiences using the ioBridge to create fun interactive web enabled dioramas. Find out how with a few minutes and some simple hardware you too can put almost anything on the web.”
Check it out…
Make: PGH: Meeting 1
Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 7pm – 9pm
Hack Pittsburgh
1936 5th Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
EasyDAQ is the creator of a wide range of relay controllers with USB, Ethernet, Serial, and XBee interfaces. EasyDAQ partnered with ioBridge to web-enable their serial relay control modules. The integrated system includes web-based control of up to 16 opto-isolated relays, a custom serial cable that interfaces the serial relay controller to the ioBridge IO-204 module, and an international / universal power supply.
EasyDAQ and ioBridge Serial Relay Controller System Overview
Web access is provided by the ioBridge.com platform via widgets and the Static Widget API. The API provides a conduit for commands sent by HTTP or HTTPS POST/GET requests. HTML, LabVIEW, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP and Ajax are access/programming options. Refer to the ioBridge Wiki for protocol and information on controlling the EasyDAQ SER8PRMx and SER16PRMxN relay cards using the ioBridge.com platform.
The system components are available for sale and worldwide distribution directly from EasyDAQ – visit EasyDAQ.biz for more information.
Any good SkyNet starts with a robot. Well, we are in luck…User “badcat89″ posted in our forum about a Web-enabled, Wireless Robot that is controlled via a web interface. We can imagine a swarm of robots controlled by data received from the web.
Web Powered Robot
The robot uses a pair of serial bluetooth adapters to form a wireless link with the ioBridge IO-204. The serial levels of the IO-204 are TTL and a circuit using the MAX-232 was required to allow the serial interface work properly. On the robot is a set of serial servo drivers that control the steering and speed.
IO-204 and Serial Bluetooth Adpater
The interface is standard web page using an embedded ioBridge.com serial widget to make the connection to the IO-204 base station module. You can control the direction and throttle by clicking on the itnerface and using the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard. The interface generates serial strings that the serial servo drivers react to when received. You can see the strings and the serial widget in the debug part of the web interface.
Web-based Robot Controls
Here is a YouTube video of the web powered robot in action -- looks like a lot of fun to drive. One step closer…
Eric Edwards of EJESolar.com created a system that takes solar energy and heats water for his home. He uses Sun Strip Solar panels to heat the water. With a single solar panel Eric is able to heat a 60 gallon tank to temperatures beyond 160°F. He uses the ioBridge IO-204 to data log and actively monitors the water heating system by getting alerts and updates on his mobile phone.
Water Tank and ioBridge IO-204
ioBridge IO-204 with Temperature Sensors
Eric monitors and data logs the temperatures of the the hot water storage tank, the collectors, and the outside temperature in real-time using the ioBridge IO-204 and temperature sensors. This data allows Eric to calculate BTUs collected per day and translate into a dollar figure to track savings. He has surrounded himself with the data to make sure there is no system damage, freezing, etc., by creating a web site to view the data, setting ioBridge message alerts, and using a Google Gadget to display the temperatures collected by the IO-204.
Visit EJESolar.com to see a live view of the data collected by the solar hot water system as well as some more details behind this solar hot water heating system. Ingenious!
Screen Shot of Solar Array and Collected Data (EJESolar.com)
Every year CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) publishes a forecast of the 5 Technology Trends to Watch. The 34-page report for 2010 includes insight into what trends will play a part in the technological landscape for consumers. 2010 trends include The Evolution of Digital Content, The Home Ecosystem, The Future of TV, Connected Cars, and The Smart Grid.
CEA writes about ioBridge technology in relationship to the home ecosystem. 2010 will be the start of the home becoming “smart”, where things start to speak and home automation, monitoring, and control collides with the web, mobile devices, and social networks. The ioBridge platform allows for a secure link between your house and the web – allowing sensors and controls to become a web service. 2010 will bring the integration of our technology into household devices, industrial controls, and enterprise resource management systems.
Those that “Do-It-Yourself ” can get started now and build cloud-based data logging apps, social network controls, and website applications with the ioBridge IO-204 and the ioBridge.com web services. Developers and integrators are already experimenting with and creating next generation products centered around the core technology behind ioBridge. CEA predicts that consumer products of this sort will be ubiquitous in 2010.
To read the entire report, visit CE.org producers of CES.
Santa vs. Domo
We wanted to take a moment and thank all of our customers, users, developers, and everyone that makes up the ioBridge Community. Our wish to you and yours is that you have a safe and happy holiday season. Enjoy your downtime, friends, and family. See you in the New Year!
Enjoy some projects…
Cheers.
Have you ever wanted to keep track of your fussy chickens? Watch them, listen to them, monitor their temperature? This project is beyond home automation, it’s Coop Automation.
ioBridge user known as “Automatr” posted in the ioBridge Forum about his project to automate his chicken coop so he could watch, listen, and monitor the chicken’s environment 24/7 from anywhere in the world via the web.
Coop Automation - Live Video and Audio
This is the first chicken cam for sure. The project is very well done. Complete with a day/night infrared web cam, microphone, automatic door, light sensor, temperature sensor, and the ioBridge IO-204 connecting the project to the Internet for remote monitoring. Automatr can track temperature, light levels, listen in, and watch his chickens on his dedicated website, FussyChickens.com. He also gets messages posted to him when his automatic coop door opens and closes.
If you want to tune in and watch/listen to the chicken coop, head over to FussyChickens.com where there is a live audio and video stream from uStream.
Thanks for sharing your coop with us. These chickens are not getting away with anything now.
Richard MacManus and the editors of ReadWriteWeb have complied the the Top 10 Products of 2009 covering a bunch of categories from web to mobile apps.
ioBridge is a Top 10 Internet of Things Product!
“Internet of Things” is the convergence of real world objects and the web. Allowing you to control and monitor things via web pages and web services. ioBridge has created a platform to allow any device to be connected to the web. From Twittering Toasters to Christmas Lights, our world-wide user community are creating an internet of things.
Visit ReadWiteWeb.com for more information and discover more about ioBridge and other Internet of Things products and services.
We are ecstatic to have this honor! Thanks!
Christmas lights are one way to celebrate the holidays. If you want to take the tradition further, why not web-enable your your xmas lights and let the world watch, control, and interact via the Internet. A couple of ioBridge users did just that -- they took their holiday lights to Griswold levels.
Nathan Kennedy of Pacific Lights and Kennedy Technology has created an interactive display of reindeer and Christmas Star stakes covered in Christmas lights. You can watch his display all the way from New Zealand and switch them on or off on his website. He uses the ioBridge IO-204 connected to an arduino to control the lights on his website. It’s lots of fun controlling someone else’s holiday display.
Christmas Lights Controlled via a Web Page
Noel Portugal of Oracle has created an interactive holiday lights display using a mix of technologies. The result is Christmas lights synchronized to songs that are selectable on a web page, www.xmas-box.com. Inside the box are solid-state relays to control the lights, an Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino Kit, and of course, the ioBridge IO-204 module to add some interactivity to his website. Noel details the procedure to create your very own Christmas Light Controller Box on Instructables.com and on his blog. On a related note, Noel also won third-place for his Dropping Spider ioBridge project featured on Instructables this Halloween! His neighbors must love him!
The Xmas Lights Controller Box in Action
Happy Holidays!