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Why you should use MQTT in IoT projects and why SAP should support it

Why you should use MQTT in IoT projects and why SAP should support it

Published by Jan Penninkhof on March 17, 2015

While designing an IoT device, there are multiple options to connect them. Once of the considerations should be the protocol being used to chat to other devices or to a server. Previously, I would have easily chosen to make the interface REST based and have done so with Jeenode project a few years ago. But REST is not ideal as it is designed around a simple request/response model. So you ask “did my account balance change” and the response is returned “no it did not”. So you check again a few minutes later, and get the same response. Sound like…

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How to program an ESP8266

How to program an ESP8266

Published by Jan Penninkhof on March 17, 2015

It is not difficult to program an ESP8266, especially if you already have some experience with embedded devices such as the Arduino. An ESP8266 actually works quite similar to an Arduino. Although you can barely speak about an operating system, your program is embedded in firmware and using some hooks, it is possible to run custom code. In most Arduino sketches the most important hooks are setup() and loop(). Setup is called when the Arduino is booted up (or reset), while the loop routine runs over and over again forever. The ESP8266 works in a more or less similar way,…

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Setting up the ESP8266 Open SDK

Setting up the ESP8266 Open SDK

Published by Jan Penninkhof on March 15, 2015

It seems that a large part of the ESP8266 community has moved to the esp-open-sdk toolchain. And for a reason: the esp-open-sdk is much easier to install and update. Besides that, the esp-open-sdk replaes many of the proprietary libraries with open source versions.

Just as an exercise, I decided to give this toolchain a try as well, starting with a bare Ubuntu 14.04 (server) installation as its foundation again. It was my goal to make the same blinky run, but this time through the use of the esp-open-sdk toolchain.

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Getting started with the ESP8266

Getting started with the ESP8266

Published by Jan Penninkhof on January 30, 2015

I’ve always loved to play with Arduino’s, but also thought it was underequiped. There must be at least something that connects it to a network and should have at least a radio on board. Because of that I got really excited about Jeenodes, which had a RF12B radio on board (really good for low-energy, battery operated stuff), and was a couple of factors smaller than an Arduino at the same time. But that was back-then. Theres a new kid on the block that offers a very nice set of features, and doesn’t only just have a blip-radio built-in, but has…

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