ioBridge Blog » XBee

Candy Dispenser is a Twilio, Twitter, and ioBridge Mashup

hans — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:17:16 +0000

Halloween would not be complete without some novel electronics to spook the trick-or-treaters. Noel Portugal created a system that allows you to send text messages or tweets to his Halloween Candy Dispenser to drop some treats into your bag. Commands are relayed from the web via the ioBridge IO-204 to his microcontroller controlled candy dispenser. There’s a big red button in case you forgot your mobile phone in your Iron Man costume.

Internet-enabled Halloween Treat Dispenser

Noel wrote a web application using Oracle Application Express that connects all the parts together. At the heart of the design is an Arduino-based microcontroller that drives the servo-based dispenser mechanism. The commands are relayed from the web app to the Arduino using the ioBridge IO-204 via XBee radios. The Internet connectivity part is what allows tweets (@tweetfortreats) or text messages processed by Twilio to control the candy dispenser. The web application makes use of the ioBridge Widget API to parse commands from the Internet.

ioBridge IO-204 Module with XBee Radio

Just think of where this type of technology can go? Vending machines?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjC1UhfDdEU

If you are interested in learning more, Noel has put together an Instructables so others can create their own DIY Halloween project this year. There’s also more information on Adafruit, MAKE, Hacked Gadgets, and Noel’s My Web of Things blog. Happy Halloween!

ioBridge Tide Alerts on MIT’s Technology Review Blog

hans — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:57:47 +0000

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.

Green Pond Tide Monitoring Site

Christopher Mims, journalist at the MIT Technology Review, writes, “We’re talking about the Internet of Things. Using an ultrasonic level sensor to bounce sound waves off the sea surface in order to determine its height, an XBee radio to send that data to a receiver on shore, and most importantly, an ioBridge IO-204 to relay that information to servers in the cloud, Cape Cod resident and ioBridge hobbyist Robert Mawrey is able to broadcast to his entire community near real-time data on actual sea level.”

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.

Tide Level Charts

Wireless LED Sign – XBee + ioBridge

hans — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:43:34 +0000

OharaRP created a wireless LED scrolling sign that displays messages received from the Internet. The sign uses an array of 8×8 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.