Realtime.io and Iota – a solution for the Internet-of-Things

Choosing an Internet-of-things platform can be a challenge, not only due to the ever-increasing range of options in the marketplace – but also the ease of working with the platform to meet your end goal. With this challenge in mind we introduce the Realtime.io/Iota system from iobridge – a system suited to real time monitoring and control.Realtime.io is a technology platform that enables easy development of near real-time Internet-of-Things applications for developers and manufacturers. The Realtime.io platform is a complete, end-to-end solution of hardware, firmware and a cloud platform for the Internet of Things which allows developers to integrate Internet connectivity into their product designs relatively easily with minimal effort required for either hardware or software development.Realtime.io Cloud Server and Iota technology are aimed at making it easy and cost effective for manufacturers to Internet-enable their products, either in new or existing designs. The Realtime.io cloud server technology acts as a bridge between embedded devices or products running Realtime.io Iota software and user software running either in-browser or in the form of smartphone applications – which allows your devices or products to be monitored and controlled conveniently over the Internet.

Despite being easy to use with minimal development effort, Realtime.io also provides some flexibility in how it is integrated for more advanced developers with existing hardware platforms.You have the flexibility of choosing your own hardware and developing your own user interfaces or letting ioBridge do it for you. The Realtime.io connected Iota hardware modules from ioBridge provide 12 GPIO pins, eight of which are usable as either digital I/O or as ADC inputs. These embedded Iota modules are available with either Wi-Fi or Ethernet hardware for connectivity between the device and your LAN (and hence the Internet).Although you can use the Iota hardware modules for relatively easy hardware development of a new product, or relatively easy integration into an existing microcontroller-based design (for example with a simple UART connection between the Iota module and the existing microcontroller).Commercial users who already have their own custom Wi-Fi or Ethernet-enabled hardware have flexible options in how they integrate with the Realtime.io cloud platform, giving Realtime.io an advantage over some competing platforms such as Electric Imp where their hardware card must always be used.Rather than using an Iota hardware module with its integrated firmware, you have the option of licensing the Iota firmware library for integration into your existing embedded hardware design, if your design includes an appropriate microcontroller along with Ethernet or Wi-Fi connectivity.In either case, for commercial licensing, Realtime.io collects a royalty fee either per Iota hardware module provided or per unit of customer hardware shipped integrating Iota firmware. Easy to use breakout boards and development kits are available for hardware development and experimentation using either the Ethernet-connected or Wi-Fi connected Iota hardware modules.No port-forwarding, dynamic DNS or complicated firewall reconfiguration is required for an Iota-connected hardware system to talk to the Realtime.io cloud service via the Internet, and initial setup of Wi-Fi credentials is easy, making installation and initial deployment of Realtime.io-connected hardware relatively easy for any user.The combined infrastructure of Realtime.io and Iota was created to provide a near-instant communications link between devices and applications, providing near-real-time two-way operation for both monitoring and control with a software latency of typically less than 10 milliseconds.Typical end-to-end delays are only about 100 milliseconds, most of which is the unavoidable ping time across the Internet to the Realtime.io server. This is very desirable, since high latency can significantly detract from user experience with Internet-of-Things connected hardware solutions in applications such as home automation.Everything is API driven, and easy to use for both hardware developers and web developers. By providing API abstraction, Realtime.io enables developers to prototype their connected project ideas easily and then transition to production hardware and software designs very quickly, without requiring expertise in both electronic and software engineering.ioBridge provides a web API that can be used by Realtime.io customers to develop their own custom applications or to integrate with their own or other third-party systems.Realtime.io allows you to create web applications based on HTML5, CSS and Javascript with interaction with physical devices, social networks, external APIs, and ioBridge web services. The Realtime.io App Builder allows you to build web apps directly on the Realtime.io platform, with an in-browser code editor, JavaScript library, app update tracking, device manager, and single sign on with existing ioBridge user accounts.The web client API allows you to interact with Iota-enabled devices connected to Realtime.io cloud servers. This API provides access to HTTP streaming from one device or multiple devices, access to GPIO registers on your devices (and therefore hardware interaction and control), and administrative information such as access to the connection state and IP addresses of the network of connected devices.The Realtime.io system holds much promise, and through a four year development period the system can deliver on the promises of reliable, secure and scalable integration with new and existing products.If your organisation is considering bring new IoT-enabled products to market, looking to update existing disparate nodes to a contemporary networked environment – or you have some great ideas and not sure how to start, we can help you at any and all stages of the required processes.We’re ready to offer our experience and know-how on this and every other stage of product development to meet your needs. As we say – “LX can take you from the whiteboard to the white box”. So for a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design.Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.