Data:
[quote]Why are you building this?
We want to bring a dose of reality to the Internet of Things hype. data.sparkfun.com is a free, robust service for use with all of your projects. The underlying engine is open source so if you don’t want to use our servers you can install phant on the server of your choice.
Wait, this is totally free? What’s the catch?
Yep. There are limits, but we wanted to give our users a good, free place to store data and give data scientists more fun things to analyze. Our hope is that you buy a SparkFun widget to connect your next beehive.
How do I use it?
We thought data storage should be as easy as string concatenation. First, create a stream and you’ll receive a public url and a private key. Then, using the hardware of your choice (Ethernet shield, RasPi, BBB, Electric Imp, WiFly) simply create a string with the data you want to post. Here’s a simple example:
http://data.sparkfun.com/input/Jxyjr7DmxwTD5dG1D1Kv?private_key=gzgnB4VazkIg7GN1g1qA&brewTemp=33.4
Go ahead and try it! Paste the string above into a browser window and hit return. You should see a confirmation message. Then view the results on the the public stream. Congrats! You just added some data to the internet.
What types of projects would benefit from this service?
Almost anything. Your weather station in the backyard. A classroom of kids working on science experiments. A community concerned with pollution and crowdsourcing data collection. The weight of your pug’s food dish. You get the idea. If your project can send an http request, you can push data out to our servers.
How much data can I push?
Each stream has a maximum of 50mb. After you hit the limit, the oldest data will be erased. (These limitations can be removed if installed on your own server). Logging is limited to 100 pushes in a 15 minute window. This allows you to push data in bursts, or spread them out over the 15 minute window.
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Phant:
[quote]Phant is a modular node.js based data logging tool for collecting data from the Internet of Things. It is the open source software that powers data.sparkfun.com, and is actively maintained by SparkFun Electronics.
Phant is short for elephant. Elephants are known for their remarkable recall ability, so it seemed appropriate to name a data logging project in honor of an animal that never forgets.
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