“The Internet of Things” is one of those expressions that is bandied about nowadays with those-in-the-know nodding their heads to show that they know all about it. People like me nod as well, secretly vowing to google the expression at the earliest opportunity, refusing to acknowledge that we haven’t a clue. So, on Monday night Laura – the resident artist at SoSLUG (Southend Linux Users Group) – came along to tell us about her work at the Iotic Labs. And after the session I realised that I am beginning to comprehend . . .

At the start of her talk, Laura began by asking us what live data would be useful to us. Andy wanted bus travel times – the times of arrival of buses actually on the road, not merely an electronic display of the timetable. Someone mentioned weather data streamed to a garden watering system to turn it on if the weather was dry. I began to understand that the Internet of Things connects data streams that are ‘out there’ to allow users to extrapolate and use the data they need for their own project.

It is always helpful when approaching something new to ‘have a go’. So Laura gave us the link to the website that we needed to get going. Logging in was incredibly complicated, I think because we were using the beta version. With Laura’s patience we all logged on and created a “thing” for ourselves. I chose a raindrop and coloured it green and called it “My First Thing”. Next we had to download various files from Github so that our thing would appear on the blank screen. I had been working on my laptop so Laura recommended switching to a Raspberry Pi. Under her guidance I saved stuff from my laptop to transfer to the RPi. And it worked! My First Thing popped up on my RPi screen and started to download streams of data . . .

This morning I can still recall part of the set up process, but not all of it. No one was more surprised than I when my thing appeared on the RPi screen. The question is, am I able to retrace my actions to find what I did? I am registered and I have set up an account and the next step is to work out what connections I want to make and to use Python to make it work. Meanwhile I need to plan out what data I should like My First Thing to be linked to  on the Internet of Things . . . and I have to learn how to program my set-up using Python.

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