MIT’s Technology Review blog features an article about our tide level application. Along with a few ioBridge customers, we setup tide monitoring sites in Cape Cod that measure tide levels and environmental data in real-time. The data collected is used to alert people in the area of rising or falling tide levels, so you know when to bring your boat back to the dock. The sites are part of our growing sensor and control network all over the world built on top of the ioBridge platform.
The technology behind the tide monitoring sites is based around the ioBridge platform. We will be releasing our Pro hardware and web services soon available for commercial products and services. The tide alerts site is just one example of the new things we have in store.
We collect the data on our demo site for everyone to take a look at and sign up for email/SMS alerts. We will be opening up the feeds for others to build applications. Visit tidealerts.com to check it out.
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…
OharaRP created a wireless LED scrolling sign that displays messages received from the Internet. The sign uses an array of 8x8 LED modules connected together -- expandable to 16 segments. The LED’s are controlled by a MAX7219 controller board that can receive messages from an Xbee wireless module and is power by 5VDC (using a standard mini-USB plug). The sign has a wireless base station that forwards text and commands towards the sign relayed from Twitter or an ioBridge widget embedded on a website.
In this photo OharaRP sent IOBridge to the sign from his iPhone.
XBee Wireless LED Sign
If you would like to learn more about this project check OharaRP’s blog or watch his very instructional demonstration of his Wireless LED Sign Project on YouTube.
