Webhook from Particle Photon to Thigspeak

In one of my old blog post we already had a introduction about the Particle IoT platform.As we discussed there particle events have many application and can be integrated to many other IoT services like webhooks,Thingspeak,IFTTT,Ubidots, etc.In this post i am going to share that how to create a webhook to thingspeak from particle.
It is very simple ,actually we are just using the particle event (particle.publish) here.No tactical coding is needed to send data to thingspeak from particle using webhook.for demo purpose i am just showing how to visualize varying analog voltage graphically in thingspeak.Here i am using a potentiometer to change the analog voltage.You can change it to any other sensor and visualize data graphically.even you can embed this graph into your personal site.

Wire up your particle photon as shown in the above circuit.Then open particle Web IDE and upload the below code to your photon.The code is simple it is just publish an event which is publishing the analog voltage on pin A0 in every 1 minute.

void setup(){
pinMode(A0,INPUT);
}
void loop() {
// Get some data


int value=analogRead(A0);
String val=String(value);


// Trigger the webhook
Particle.publish("value", val, PRIVATE);
// Wait 60 seconds
delay(60000);
}


Now we have published an event named "value". We can see the updates of this event in particle console.

Now we can create new  integration .For that select new integration in console and select webhook

You can see the above screen.Now we have to create a channel in thingspeak and fill the data to above form.Now open thingspeak and create a new account if you are new to thingspeak .Then create a new channel and note the channel API

Now we can fill the webhook form in particle console.Fill the boxes like below

• Event Name=value
• URL=https://api.thingspeak.com/update
• Request type = POST
• Device = Your device name

Now press advance setting tab and fill the boxes  

• api_key: YOUR_API_KEY
• field1: {{PARTICLE_EVENT_VALUE}}

now the webhook to thingspeak is created.Now you can see graphical representation of your sensor values in thingspeak

You can also embed the graph in your site also.

MQTT Publish And subscribe Using RaspberryPi,Esp8266,And Particle Photon

     



  

Current trend in DIY is IoT based projects. The present professional  electronics engineering industry is also now focusing to IoT.There are many existing protocols are there for making connection with your device with Web.If we need real time data in every second or less than that,We will need a fast internet connectivity protocol.And it should use very little bandwidth.Here we have MQTT.

MQTT is an extreamly light weight connectivity protocol which is mainly used for machine to machine /IoT applications.It was formerly known as MQ Telemetry Transport.it is a publish/subscribe based messaging protocol for use on the top of TCP/IP protocol.MQTT is very helpful where network bandwidth is limited.Many IoT companies uses MQTT for their applications.

There are several MQTT brokers are available In this example we are using mosquitto broker.In MQTT there is several methods are defined like

1.Connect

2. Disconnect

3.Subscribe

4.Unsubscribe

5.Publish

As DIY hackers we also make use of MQTT in our projects .Many of the boards supporting WiFi is also supports MQTT.Here I am going to discribe MQTT broker in Raspberry Pi.And MOTT Client in Raspberry Pi,Particle Photon,esp8266.

I have no plan to explain the MQTT protocol ,but i would like to explain how it can be implemented  in our DIY project.In MQTT protocol we will have broker and clients.clients are those which can publish and subscribe to some topics created in broker.Broker is responsible for all fitering and all.ie broker will receive all messages and it will send those messages to corresponding subscribed clients.MQTT client libraries are easly available for many devices and in many coding languages.

It is very easy to set up a MQTT broker in linux system.As this blog is mainly explaining DIY projects I would like to Explain how to install MQTT broker in Raspberry Pi,which is one of the best toy of an electronics hobbyists.And I will be sharing how to set up MQTT clients(publish/subscribe) in Raspberry pi, Particle photon,esp8266,which are main tools in IoT hardware prototyping.All these are inspired from community.So I would like to thank all bloggers in community.

First we can Setup a MQTT broker in our Raspberry pi.For installing Mosquitto broker follow the steps below.

How to install MQTT broker in Raspberry pi

First we have to import repository package for mosquitto into our raspberry pi.For that  open the Raspberry pi terminal and run below commands.I used a Raspberry Pi 3 in jessie with 16GB microSD card 

wget http://repo.mosquitto.org/debian/mosquitto-repo.gpg.key

sudo apt-key add mosquitto-repo.gpg.key

Now we have to make available this repository to apt by using below command

cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

Now follow below commands

sudo wget http://repo.mosquitto.org/debian/mosquitto-wheezy.list

sudo -i

for updating pi

sudo apt-get update

apt-get update

After updating we can install mosquitto MQTT broker running below command

apt-get install mosquitto

How to install MQTT Client in Raspberry pi

So  now we successfully installed MQTT broker in our Raspberry Pi.Now we can install MQTT client by below command

apt-get install mosquitto-clients

Now the client library for MQTT is installed

So we successfully installed MQTT.Now we can start publishing and subscribing to some topics.

How to use MQTT client as Publisher

To publish a data “wiring_it _my _way ” to  a topic named “color”we can use the below commands

If the broker is installed in the same Raspberry pi

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t color -m wiring_it_my_way

If the broker is installed in different Raspberry pi

mosquitto_pub -h 192.168.0.114 -t value -m wiring_it_my_way

How to use MQTT client as Subscriber

If the broker is installed in a different system then for subscribing a topic named “color” just run the below command

mosquitto_sub -h 192.168.0.114 -t color             

Here the IP in the command is lP of broker  raspberry pi/system

if the client is running in the same raspberry pi where broker is installed then use the below command for subscribing a topic named “color”

mosquitto_sub -h localhost -t color

ESP8266 as MQTT client

   As we know  ESP8266 WiFi Module is a self contained SOC with integrated TCP/IP protocol stack that can give any micro controller access to our WiFi network.Also we can program the ESP8266 directly from our arduino IDE.There many libraries available for ESP8266 in the community.I am sharing two code snippets .One is for publishing using ESP8266 and the other is for publishing and subscription.

Here our broker is set upped in raspberry pi so we have to note the IP of the raspberry pi and include in our ESP8266 arduino code.

Here given code is only basic code please make your own variety with sensors and actuators have fun.And please share in comments  I used an ESP8266-12

 

 

 

 

 

 Particle Photon as MQTT client

In one of my previous post we have discussed about the particle module,which is one of the best choice for IoT based prototyping.Particle web IDE contains MQTT libraries in it.By including those libraries we can easly subscribe or publish to a MQTT topic.Here also we have to give IP address of our pi in Particle code.

.

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include "MQTT/MQTT.h"

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include "MQTT/MQTT.h"

#include "MQTT/MQTT.h"
String sensor;
byte server[] = { 192,168,0,115 };//the IP of broker
void callback(char* topic, byte* payload, unsigned int length);
MQTT client(server, 1883, callback);

void callback(char* topic, byte* payload, unsigned int length) {
    char p[length + 1];
    memcpy(p, payload, length);
    p[length] = NULL;
    String message(p);

    if (message.equals("RED"))   
        RGB.color(255, 0, 0);
       
    else if (message.equals("GREEN"))   
        RGB.color(0, 255, 0);
    else if (message.equals("BLUE"))   
        RGB.color(0, 0, 255);
    else if (message.equals("wiring_it_my_way"))   
        {RGB.color(255, 0, 0);
        delay(1000);
        RGB.color(0, 255, 0);
        delay(1000);
        RGB.color(0, 0, 255);  
        delay(1000);}
    else   
        RGB.color(255, 255, 255);
    delay(1000);
}

void setup() {
    pinMode(A0,INPUT);
    RGB.control(true);
    client.connect(System.deviceID());
    if (client.isConnected()) {
        client.subscribe("color");//color is the topic that photon is subscribed
        client.publish("fun", "hello");//publishing a data "hello" to the topic "fun"
       
    }
}

void loop() {
    int sensor_value =analogRead(A0);
    sensor =String (sensor_value);
    if (client.isConnected())
        client.loop();
         client.publish("value", sensor);//publishing a sensor data  to the topic "value"
        
   
     
}   

when i heard the name MQTT for the first time i thought it will be very difficult for a hardware geek like me.But the broker set up was very easy and straight forward.It makes MQTT very easy.Regarding quality there are methods in MQTT to retain messages,confirmation etc.I don't have a plan to explain those in this post.Now make your own project in MQTT in whichever platform you like and please let me know your ideas in comments.  


 you can find the hackster project here







PARTICLE CORE the best hardware choice for IoT based prototyping

Future world is the world where everything is connected.Nowadays electronics engineers researches mainly on IoT-internet of things.we need internet of everything.There are many boards and modules in market which helps hobbyists to develop their prototypes and play with connected things.Arduino is already providing Ethernet shield ,WiFi shield for connect the device into internet.Raspberry Pi is also came up with their WiFi and LAN.especially their latest Raspberry Pi3 has inbuilt Bluetooth and WiFi

But in this blog post  i am going to explain my experience with a cool microcontroller board other than Arduino and Raspberry Pi.That is Particle core - a microcontroller board with inbuilt WiFi module and cloud connectivity.(https://www.particle.io/)

Particle core

Particle is core is one of the amazing and cool stuff for electronic engineers,hobbyists and prototype makers.This board can be easily connected to internet as easily as we connect our smartphones to internet.

• It uses ARM 32-bit Cortex™-M3 CPU Core as its brain
• The WiFi module is CC3000

Some of its features makes this board extra cool.

1.This board can be coded remotely.

    Yes you can code this board far away from your hardware.Because Particle uses a

web IDE,the code is debugging from their cloud and uploading it to Particle core via internet.All you need is set up your account in particles web IDE(https://build.particle.io/build/) you will have a  unique id for your particle.if you keep connected the particle with WiFi you can code it from anywhere in the world.

2.Arduino like language.

     No need to study a new language for programming your particle.The coding language used for Particle is very much similar to arduino C.So any arduino hobbyist can easily play with particle.

3. Particle variables

    Particle variable is another cool thing.you can send particle variable data into cloud.it can easily see using URLs which is based upon your devices unique id.It have its own API.Also if you are using

Particle Dev(a desktop application)  in your computer,you can easily watch the current value of particle variables.All you need to do  is just declare your variable as particle variable by simple command,then the data will be in the cloud.No need of any long coding (https://docs.particle.io/reference/firmware/core/)

4.Particle Functions

   These are cloud functions.You can easily trigger value from cloud and controll your device according to that function. This is also working using particles own rest API (https://docs.particle.io/reference/firmware/core/)

5.Tinker the mobile App

Tinker is a mobile app which can use in your smartphones.if you upload the corresponding code for tinker in your particle core you can control all pins of your device using your phone.you can make a pin HIGH or LOW or can write and read analog values.

(https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/tinker/core/)

6.connection with IFTTT

Particle is a verified channel in IFTTT services. You can write conditional statement actions using this.

For eg;if you want a mail notification/sms/push notification when your particle variable value is below or above(like your room temperature is x ) that is so easy with IFTTT and particle

Check my personal recipe ( https://ifttt.com/myrecipes/personal/34813588)

7 .Arduino like pins and Protocols

Particles pins are similar to arduino.but its voltage output is 3.3V max.Particle supports protocols like UART,SPI,I2C,