ThingSpeak looks to be a new Pachube clone. Even though the implementation is different, the idea is exactly the same. I think this ‘contest’ is a thinly disguised marketing effort, but 50 bucks is 50 bucks!
Cool. What is simpliest way to post some update to their site if I don’t want to read a bunch of stuff. Have a simple example to posting thermo data? tia
Well, it’s not so thinly disguised. The idea was to get people to really look at the features and it is working!
If you take a deeper look you will see geolocation, status messaging, data processing, alphanumeric support, and apps for connecting to Twitter, Twilio, etc.
Data logging is only one part, but it’s a necessary part.
(There is a secret part of the contest that awards even more for creativity. It’s a secret though.)
@ erich - your submission was great, looking forward to seeing what you do next. I like the turtle idea.
@ ThingSpeak - I did take a thorough look, and I agree you do have more to offer than the ‘competition’. Getting the word out online can be challenging, and the contest idea is great. I did not mean to imply otherwise. I do have some technical questions I’ll post on your forum…
@ William - temperature certainly seems to be overdone as an example project on many of these forums, but it is a simple way to highlight other functionality. I’ll put up the code I used after work. Basically you add some parameters to a url and do a GET.
@ William - I used a console app to grab the data (served as xml) from the Panda and update the feed, so this code is running against the full .NET framework. The demo code on ThingSpeak goes directly from gadget (NetDuino) to feed using (obviously) only NETMF.
private static void UpdateThingSpeak(float temp)
{
string data = string.Format("field1={0}", temp.ToString("F1"));
// Create a request using a URL.
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://api.thingspeak.com/update?key=[ThinkSpeak Key]&" + data);
// Set the Method property of the request.
request.Method = "GET";
// Get the response.
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
// Display the status.
Console.WriteLine(((HttpWebResponse)response).StatusDescription);
// Get the stream containing content returned by the server.
var dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();
// Open the stream using a StreamReader for easy access.
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
// Read the content.
string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd();
// Display the content.
Console.WriteLine(responseFromServer);
// Clean up the streams.
reader.Close();
dataStream.Close();
response.Close();
}
Ok thanks. I was having trouble understanding if Post was required or could just use Get as examples both ways and bunch of fluff in between. That helps clear it up in a clear chunk of .net, thanks.
well, not so clear… i updated the comments to reflect it’s a get, not a post, which i tried first. I tend to get carried away with commenting code on public forums :
The post approach worked, but took a bit to format the fairly long string just right. Don’t need that complexity for a simple feed like temperature. From what I can gather, a post would be good for updating other fields that don’t have a one to one relationship with the data, like lat/long for geocoding if your sensor was moving around.
Since the site seems to be new, there’s not a lot of user added ‘how to’ help yet, like there is here. Hence the $50 bait to get something up on their forum.
Sure thing, but it’s really not GHI specific stuff, and it is not NETMF… didn’t want to add something there that was not very relevant, but will Maybe we can get an ‘Off Topic’ section over there, as well.
The idea was to get people to really look at the features and it is working!