I recently coded a simple program that uses sockets to communicate for a synchronization of two clients. Then I'm wondering now if popular applications such as game agents(ex. the League of Legends game client, Steam game manager agent, etc...), streaming services(ex. youtube, twitch...), os update agents(windows, linux, mac os...) and so on are using sockets at the very bottom of whole communication among computers, or else there are proprietary architectures that are used only for those applications' communications respectively.
if those popular applications use sockets basically, please recommend books that tell about the architecture of programs using sockets with somehow reliable structure(that is, programs that can handle the broken pipe problem and other well known problems for sockets).
Thanks in advance for all answers!
I am a web developer and I am starting to learn about the world of IoT.
Because of the vaccines arrival to my country (Argentina) I got asked to build 80 temperature sensors to monitor them and I have some questions about it.
What would be the best way to connect all of them to the cloud?
If I use for example aws iot platform, do you know how much it would cost monthly for just sending
and storing temperature logs for each sensor (remember, there are 80 of them)?
Is there any language/environment/protocol that works better for IoT? Because it's a constant flow
of lightweight data...
Is there a better way to connect them to the internet besides using esp32 modules for
each?(I saw a tutorial that said it's possible to connect some more to a single esp32 module)
If you have any advice I'd love to hear it. I know how to code but when it comes to backend and specially server stuff I have a lot to learn.
Costs are directly related to the amount of data you send, process and store. You'd have to check the price lists for each cloud service you plan to use. If we assume that you'll be sending 1 temperature reading (with associated data such as timestamp, device id, ...) every 10 minutes using reasonable protocols (MQTT, JSON) then the total costs for all 80 devices would be perhaps a few dollars per month. The total database storage will accumulate over time and you'll be charged more, but honestly the amount of data under these conditions is ridiculously low.
An ESP32 is cheap, has WiFi and enough performance to send data to cloud. You can connect this micro to AWS IoT or Google Cloud IoT using the relevant libraries from either: AWS library or Google IoT library. These libraries decide the questions of language and protocol on the microcontroller side - it's C and MQTT/HTTPS (but avoid the HTTPS, MQTT is much more practial). You can use JSON for the actual temperature data message. The microcontroller development takes place with either ESP IDF (a bit lower-level C environment) or Arduino (a bit higher-level C/C++ environment). Those use FreeRTOS as the OS on micro (note that the IoT libraries work on almost anything).
A practical alternative to ESP IDF and Arduino (especially for a web dev) is Mongoose OS where you can do much of the development work in JavaScript (not all, though). It has high-level libraries for both AWS and Google IoT (which still use the same underlying MQTT/HTTPS client, I assume).
By far the easiest way to connect the ESP32 modules to Internet is to have each connect to a WiFi AP. If the single WiFi AP doesn't cover all devices, add more until they do. ESP32 does have a mesh networking library, but I would hesitate to recommend it to newbies.
I have a device that provides a constant stream of output data through a serial port. I want to use this data and display it usefully in an app. I am open to both Bluetooth or WiFi connections. I'd rather use bluetooth but from what I have read so far bluetooth is a non-starter without the MFI program so my focus is mostly on a wifi connection. I haven't worked with any serial I/O in any apps before.
This product caught my eye as a simple solution for the transmission. Will this product serve the purpose I'm looking to use it for? Is there a better option that I have?
http://www.usconverters.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=404
I have very limited ios development experience and programming in general, I'm probably a little over my head here but anxious to move forward with the project. I appreciate any helpful information.
What is the best way to realize wireless communication between an embedded system (based on an AVR controller) and the iPhone? I think there are only two options: either WiFi or BlueTooth. The range is not really a problem, since both devices should stay in the same room.
I have no idea, if there are any useful WiFi boards that can be connected to an AVR based microcontroller system (or any small microcontroller), any hints would be highly welcome.
I guess the better solution would be BlueTooth, but there is also the problem: which BlueTooth board is best suited for attachment to an AVR system, and is it possible to use the iPhone BlueTooth stack for (serial) communication over BlueTooth with the AVR device.
I hope that somebody already realized such a system and can give some helpful tips...
You can get modules for both WiFi and Bluetooth that will connect to an embedded system through a UART interface, however a WiFi module will have far more processing power than your AVR microcontroller, often with spare capacity and I/O to execute additional user code, so connecting one to an AVR maybe somewhat redundant in many cases.
Bluetooth modules are simpler, less expensive, and the data-rate is better matched to the AVR's capabilities. For example these Parani modules. I have used them between an embedded system and a Laptop PC's Bluetooth, so given appropriate communications software, there is no technical reason why it could not be used with an iPhone I think. However this may be the flaw, on the PC the device was recognised as a virtual serial port, I don't know whether iPhone supports 'legacy' communications in quite the same way.
For comparison, a WiFi solution
From what I know, BlueTooth is very limited on the iPhone: There is only very few BlueTooth-Profiles implemented, and - even if they can be extended with a jailbroken iPhone - I doubt this is easy to use from the application layer.
On the other side, transferring via WiFi requires a lot of processing power and memory since much more things have to be implemented before you can even start transferring data: 802.11, cdma/ca, arp, tcp. That's a big task.
Is it an option to build a hardware extension to the iPhone ? You might be able to get the serial connection and power out of the dock connector. Then even ZigBee could be very helpful.
Here's an article you might find helpful. I would lean toward a WiFi solution just because of the added flexibility available.
http://www.embedded.com/design/networking/215801088
-t
Some of the other people at the office have done AVR <- Bluetooth -> Symbian and AVR <- Bluetooth -> PC solutions without trouble. There is lots of info, reference designs and source available. I have no idea of how hard it would be to use Bluetooth on Iphone.
The exact module is probability also not important as long as it got some type of serial interface (I2C,SPI) to interface to the AVR and some source code show how to use the module.
Is it an 8-bit or 32-bit AVR? For the AVR32 processors there's support
for WiFi in the Atmel 1.5.0 Software Framework using SD-card-mounted
WiFi modules from HD Wireless (http://www.hd-wireless.se), including
an IP stack (lwIP). Be aware that you need Ad-Hoc (IBSS) support to
connect directly to the iPhone.
There is WiSnap kit. It can connect directly to a standard RS232 interface or through the TTL UART interface to embedded processors. We are planning to use it in our project. It also has Ad-Hoc support.
There are some usage examples and an iPhone application for connection setup.
http://serialio.com/products/mobile/wifi/WiSnapKit1.php
What are you trying to communicate between your AVR and the Iphone? The Iphone is made for the web along with everything apple (which AVR's are decidedly not). So what works well is an embedded device that exposes a web-interface. Like the Transmission bittorrent client on Linux. Also nowadays many low-power small form-factor linux platforms exist that will allow you to do this.
For instance Gumstix has an ARM based platform that runs linux and includes WiFi (Overo Fire).
I'm kind of curious how I should approach a problem with iPhones and communication between two phones.
I have an idea for an application that needs to send data between two known phones. The problem is that the data could be very small or very large. I want to have intermediate storage on a server and a messaging layer, but I want there to be performant means to communicate between devices for shorter, unimportant messages.
You always hear about networking and client to client communication with popular platforms and protocols, but I'm curious what people's thoughts are on doing p2p style communication with an iPhone.
I'm pretty sure it should (and can) be treated as just a simple addressable machine... so I would have to build NAT traversing network code into the iPhone itself. A thought I had would be some sort of UPnP situation where I would ask to NAT a particular port for communication to the devices... but I guess I could just as easily turn it into a polling situation.
Granted, I understand that Apple will have a "push" mechanism for developers eventually but I want to get the app out the door before hand...
Just curious about thoughts on this type of thing... any thoughts on multi-player game situations would also directly apply to (and benefit from) this question.
Have you given the WiTap sample from Apple a try? It addresses the issue of discoverability (via Bonjour) and connectivity (via basic TCP). It may not be as robust as what you are looking for, but it's worth a look:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/samplecode/WiTap/index.html
Look at the docs for Game Kit in the iPhone 3.0 SDK. It allows iPhones to connect to one another locally with Bluetooth, or via wi-fi/3G. It addresses both peer-to-peer and client-server architectures. It provides unreliable and reliable links.