The IoTBox was born out of the realisation that we needed a physical “tool” to show how we can interact with other systems – such as IBM Maximo. We have always talked about how easy it is to integrate – but how could we prove it?.

The IoTBox started with the ability to use REST calls to update systems with temperature readings. This was useful, but hardly IoT!. Next, MQTT support was added – the temperature can be sent, along with Button presses to an MQTT broker and the RGB LED and screen can be changed with MQTT messages. This, combined with Node Red, allows us to manipulate messages,  create alerts and provide ‘intelligence’ to the small processor in the IoTBox.

However, although we can talk to our servers and pcs across the Internet – this is not really cloud based.

With this in mind, I decided to also add the ability for the IoTBox to talk with IBM’s Internet of Things Foundation. This cloud offering is free to use for development and includes services such as Node Red, Real Time Analytics, Time Series databases and of course – Watson!.

The IoTF Real Time Analytics Team have made some great enhancements recently: The ability to create alerts from sensor values – this includes E-mail, Node Red calls and now IFTTT integration!.

The IoTBox will use both modes of IoTF – Quickstart (no registration required) and Registered (allows the full use of IoTF).

The new IoTF Registered mode allows the LED and OLED screen to be controlled by the IoTF cloud.

For example, a cloud based Maximo offering can create a  work order based on a temperature reading from the IoTBox. The LED on the IoTBox could turn blue and a message on the screen will alert the user to the new work order number.

This is now very easy to do!. In the following post, I will detail the full steps required to connect to IBM’s IoTF cloud service.