A quick start guide for Deploying and Configuring Node-RED as an Azure WebApp

7th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

Introduction

I’ve been experimenting and messing around with IoT devices for well over 10 years. Back then it wasn’t called IoT, and it was very much a build it and write it yourself approach.
Fast forward to 2017 and you can buy a microprocessor for a couple of dollars that includes WiFi. Environmental sensors are available for another couple of dollars and we can start to publish environmental telemetry without having to build circuitry and develop code.… [Keep reading] “A quick start guide for Deploying and Configuring Node-RED as an Azure WebApp”

Getting started developing Custom Actions for the Google Assistant (Home)

22nd of September, 2017 / / No Comments

 

Introduction

Whilst I was in the USA recently I bought myself a Google Home. My home already had Hue Lights, Chromecast on a couple of TV’s and I’m a big user of Spotify (Premium). It was very quick to get it up and running and doing simple tasks, but I started thinking about what custom things I could get it to do. Could I get it to call custom/private API to get some information and let me know the result?… [Keep reading] “Getting started developing Custom Actions for the Google Assistant (Home)”

How to use a Powershell Azure Function to Tweet IoT environment data

29th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76015/BlogImages/FunctionIOTWeather/Azure%20Function%20Twitter.png

Overview

This blog post details how to use a Powershell Azure Function App to get information from a RestAPI and send a social media update.
The data can come from anywhere, and in the case of this example I’m getting the data from WioLink IoT Sensors. This builds upon my previous post here that details using Powershell to get environmental information and put it in Power BI.  Essentially the difference in this post is outputting the manipulated data to social media (Twitter) whilst still using a TimerTrigger Powershell Azure Function App to perform the work and leverage the “serverless” Azure Functions model.… [Keep reading] “How to use a Powershell Azure Function to Tweet IoT environment data”

How to use a Powershell Azure Function App to get RestAPI IoT data into Power BI for Visualization

29th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Overview

This blog post details using a Powershell Azure Function App to get IoT data from a RestAPI and update a table in Power BI with that data for visualization.
The data can come from anywhere, however in the case of this post I’m getting the data from WioLink IoT Sensors. This builds upon my previous post here that details using Powershell to get environmental information and put it in Power BI.  Essentially the major change is to use a TimerTrigger Azure Function to perform the work and leverage the “serverless” Azure Functions model.… [Keep reading] “How to use a Powershell Azure Function App to get RestAPI IoT data into Power BI for Visualization”

Command and control with Arduino, Windows Phone and Azure Mobile Services

24th of January, 2015 / / 1 Comment

In most of our posts on the topic of IoT to date we’ve focussed on how to send data emitted from sensors and devices to centralised platforms where we can further process and analyse this data. In this post we’re going to have a look at how we can reverse this model and control our ‘things’ remotely by utilising cloud services. I’m going to demonstrate how to remotely control a light emitting diode (LED) strip with a Windows Phone using Microsoft Azure Mobile Services.… [Keep reading] “Command and control with Arduino, Windows Phone and Azure Mobile Services”

Microsoft Windows IoT and the Intel Galileo

4th of December, 2014 / / 4 Comments

You might have seen one of these headlines a while back: ‘Microsoft Windows now running on Intel Galileo development board’, ‘Microsoft giving away free Windows 8.1 for IoT developers’. Now before we all get too excited, let’s have a closer look beyond these headlines and see what we’re actually getting!

Intel Galileo

With a zillion devices being connected to the Internet by the year 2020 a lot of hardware manufacturers want to have a piece of this big pie, and Intel got into the game by releasing two different development boards / processors: the Intel Galileo and more recently the Intel Edison.… [Keep reading] “Microsoft Windows IoT and the Intel Galileo”

IoT – Solar & Azure

18th of November, 2014 / / 6 Comments

Ever since we got our solar system installed about two years ago, I’ve been keeping track of the total power generated by the system. Every month I would write down the totals and add it to my Excel spreadsheet. Although it’s not much work, it’s still manual work… yes all 2 minutes every month.

So when the whole “Internet of Things” discussion started at our office (see Matt’s blog “Azure Mobile Services and the Internet of Things“) I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at doing this using Azure – even if it was only to prove the IoT concept.… [Keep reading] “IoT – Solar & Azure”

Publishing to Azure Event Hubs using a .NET Micro Framework Device

21st of October, 2014 / / 6 Comments

In previous posts, Kloudies Matt Davies and Olaf Loogman have shown how we connect Arduino based devices to the Azure platform. Preferring the .NET Micro Framework (NETMF) platform myself, I thought it time to show how we can publish senor data to Azure Event Hubs using a NETMF connected device.

.NET Micro Framework

Like Arduino, the .NET Micro Framework is an open source platform that runs on small, microcontroller based devices or “things”as we call them now in the world of the Internet-of-Things (IoT).… [Keep reading] “Publishing to Azure Event Hubs using a .NET Micro Framework Device”

IPv6 – Are we there yet??

15th of October, 2014 / / No Comments

The topic of IPv6 seems to come up every couple of years. The first time I recall there being a lot of hype about IPv6 was way back in the early 2000’s, ever since then the topic seems to get attention every once in a while and then disappears into insignificance alongside more exciting IT news.

The problem with IPv4 is that there are only about 3.7 billion public IPv4 addresses. Whilst this may initially sound like a lot, take a moment to think about how many devices you currently have that connect to the Internet.… [Keep reading] “IPv6 – Are we there yet??”

Azure Mobile Services and the Internet of Things

30th of July, 2014 / / 11 Comments

The IT industry is full of buzzwords and “The Internet of Things” (IoT) is one that’s getting thrown about a lot lately. The IoT promises to connect billions of devices and sensors to the internet. How this data is stored, sorted, analysed and surfaced will determine the amount of value it is to your business. With this in mind I thought it’s time to start playing around with some bits and pieces to see if I could create my very own IoT connected array of sensors.… [Keep reading] “Azure Mobile Services and the Internet of Things”