Exploring the Internet of Things Using Ruby

Exploring the Internet of
Things with Ruby
Lone Star Ruby Conf 2012

The Oh No Moment

(aka – I am going to have to drink my urine)

Whoami

Mike Hagedorn
@mwhagedorn

github.com/mwhagedorn

Agenda

 Internet Of Things in General
 Ruby and USB
 The IOT Printer
 The IOT Display

Internet of Things?

Objects-> Internet -> Servers

“Listen to your world, talk to the Internet”
http://supermechanical.com/

IOT Devices

 Arduino
 Rasberry Pi
 Twine

The USB Lamp Project

http://www.thekua.com


 libusb gem
 open a context
 browse for your device NOT Easy!
 open the device
 send message
 close device


 Lots of Questions
 How do you send messages?
 What is the form of the messages?

Use The Source Luke…

void USBLamp::init() {
char data1[8] = { 0x1f, 0x02, 0x00, 0x2e,
0x00, 0x00, 0x2b, 0x03 };
send(data1, sizeof(data1));

char data2[8] = { 0x00, 0x02, 0x00, 0x2e,
0x00, 0x00, 0x2b, 0x04 };

char data3[8] = { 0x00, 0x02, 0x00, 0x2e,
0x00, 0x00, 0x2b, 0x05 };
}

Use The Source Luke…

void USBLamp::send(char *bytes, int size) {
…
CALL(usb_control_msg(…))
…
}

Array#pack & String#unpack

 pack
 Array of numbers to a binary string
[97,98,99].pack("c*")
=> "abc“

 unpack
 Binary string to array
"abc".unpack("c*")
=> [97,98,99]

Use Terminal!

 You can monitor the serial port via Terminal
> ls /dev/tty.*
> screen <dev> <baud-rate>
 End with cntrl-A, cntrl-

IOT-Assistant
github.com/newsinternational/iot-assistant

Architecture

OAuth Tweets
Calendars

Suiting It To Me

Calendar Tasks News Twitter

(Oauth)

Omnifocus Challenges

 How can I get my tasks exported?
 How can I get them up to the server?

Exporting Omnifocus tasks

#!/usr/local/bin/macruby
framework 'Foundation'
framework 'ScriptingBridge'

OFOC = "com.omnigroup.Omnifocus”
@of = SBApplication.applicationWithBundleIdentifier(OFOC)
load_bridge_support_file 'Omnifocus.bridgesupport'

@doc = @of.defaultDocument

tasks = []
@doc.flattenedTasks.get.each do |task|
tasks << task
end

How can the server get this?

 Omnifocus tried to solve this
 Have to expose your desktop on internet
 More work than most people want to do

HpObjectStore Helper

 Uses Fog
def tasks_dir
@connection.directories.get("omnifocus")
end

def update_tasks_file(content)
tasks_dir.files.create(:key => "tasks.json",
:body => content)
end

Update Cloud Bucket

 Run a chron job from my desktop server
 All my omnifocus installs are already synced
 Server gets a current task list

Outlook

 Need my calendar
 Don’t want to deal with corp security
 Use the same omnifocus technique

Agenda

 Internet Of Things in General
 Ruby and USB
 Ruby and RFID
 The IOT Printer
 The IOT Display

The IOT Display

Original Inspiration:

http://bit.ly/vlMMvr

32X8 Led Panel

http://bit.ly/wyuE5V

Using IOT-A

 Already had an infrastructure
 Already had a datasource
 Format didn’t make sense for LED Display

User-Agent

 Use two different User-Agent header values
 User-Agent:IOTDisplay
 User-Agent:IOTPrinter
 JSON representation for display

Memory and the Sad Panda

 Standard JSON parser took up too much
memory
 Char strings storage
 Had to give up a key feature

HP Cloud For Free!

https://www.hpcloud.com/free-trial

@mwhagedorn

Thanks!

https://github.com/mwhagedorn/IOTDisplay.git
https://github.com/mwhagedorn/iot_printer_remote.git
https://github.com/mwhagedorn/iot-assistant.git
https://github.com/mwhagedorn/thingspeak.git

Exploring the Internet of Things Using Ruby

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