Estimote, Octoblu, and the power of Internet of Things

This is a guest post by Moheeb Zara, Community Manager at Octoblu

There has been a lot of buzz about the Internet of Things (IoT) in the past two years–it seems like everyone is either thinking about or doing something with beacons and other connected devices. But what exactly is the Internet of Things? How does it benefit you? What can you build today that is an example of what’s to come? With Octoblu, you can bring IoT into your life today, in a meaningful way with tons of room for experimentation. In this example, we’ll get you set up using Estimote Beacons to create a variety of device-based internet interactions. IoT is about connecting people, places, things, and data and then building seamless interactions between them to improve quality of life.

What is this demo?

Let’s get started on building an Octoblu demo that uses your laptop’s hardware to detect nearby beacon broadcasts. We’ll use this to launch different webpages in your browser. This is an example of a basic use case where your application uses proximity and location to perform various interactions. For example, if you walk into your bedroom, the lights might automatically turn on to your preferred brightness/color. Or maybe you want to know if your dog or cat entered a certain room: you can play an audio sound to train it to stay away or trigger a text message to your phone. These are just a few basic use-case examples. The same principles learned here can be used to build customer loyalty apps, proximity-based marketing, alarms, dynamic environments, and much more.

What is Octoblu?

There are several parts to orchestrating this demo. The first is Octoblu, our web based environment for visually connecting and programming the Internet of Things. Octoblu is also used to manage devices and channel configurations. You can tie your various web services (channels) and connected devices to Octoblu and add logic in between. You can then deploy these interactions as cloud based apps in one click!

Connect Local Hardware through Gateblu

The second part is Gateblu, an application that links local hardware and devices to Octoblu through plugins. We’ll be installing a BLE beacon plugin that lets us see iBeacon broadcasts within Octoblu, where we can program some logic to do something with that information. This way, we can interact with other devices and web services connected to your Octoblu account.

Beacons

The final piece of the puzzle is the Estimote Beacon. The tutorial below, with accompanying video, walks you through using any number of Estimote Beacons to trigger specific actions. In this case it opens different web pages. We’re working to add support for motion, temperature, and even the Cloud API so you can take full advantage of the Estimote ecosystem. Until then, you can use Octoblu to build amazing presence based interactions to control anything from anywhere!

Register an Octoblu Account

The first thing you’ll need is an Octoblu account. Go to app.octoblu.com and sign up! Then be sure to take a look at the Getting Started Tutorial if you need extra guidance.

Install and Register a Gateblu Gateway

1. Download Gateblu for your operating system and run through the necessary steps
2. Once your Gateblu is up and running, press the info button to expose the Gateblu UUID. This is its address, which we’ll need for the next step
3. Go to the CONNECT page in your Octoblu account
4. Select “ADD NODE” and search “Gateblu”
5. From the drop down select “Add an Unclaimed Device”
6. You should see your Gateblu UUID. Select, name, and save it.

Install Plugins to your Gateblu

1. Go to the CONNECT page in your Octoblu account
2. Select “ADD NODE”
3. Select “beacon”
4. It may take awhile to finish initializing
5. After awhile you’ll see some options, leave these blank, name, and save it
6. Follow this process again for the “SHELL” plugin
7. When the options screen shows up, enter “open” for the command
8. Name and save

Import Estimotes Example Flow

This link will take you to an import screen. After importing, you will have a flow in your Octoblu account. It should automatically tie itself to the plugins we just installed. Upon deploying (pressing the play button in the top right), this flow will allow you to open webpages based on the presence of certain beacons. See additional comments if you need help understanding how to tie this functionality to your Estimote Beacon IDs.

Bonus Flow

This flow will show you how to use beacons to trigger different actions based on “near,” “immediate,” or “far” proximity states.

Moheeb Zara, Community Manager at Octoblu