Automating
IFTTT
“If This Then That” is a great free web
service found at http://ifttt.com and provides a
lot of very useful things.
The basic premise is that there is a
trigger then an action. You set up “Channels” as they call them for your
devices, be that hardware, software or simple time and date data from providers
on the internet.
Weather Channel
The Weather channel gives you many triggers, such as time, date, weather, sunrise and sunset. These last two are useful if you want your Lego model to light up at night.
This is the output if you send the results to your
eMail
Littlebits Cloud Device and Channel
The simplest way to test out the service is
to use the LittleBits and Weather channels together.
The LittleBit channel is very easy, it just
sends an on or off to the WiFi connected Cloud connected bit. You can buy a
starter bundle that contains all you need to light a house simply, and
individual components can be bout separately if you want to head this way.
Remote Controls
Bricks WWW controls
Blynk
Tablet Devices
No end of stuff here.
Software
In this world you can be all over the place
when inspiration hits, or you are forced to spend moments waiting for a bus to
arrive or a Doctor to see. These times are great for thinking through your
ideas and perhaps making some notes.
Given this, I’ve always kept on the lookout
for solutions that allow me to get on with things when outside of my normal working
environment. I have always favored Apple equipment, but by no means
exclusively. The ability to link up your devices can be done on numerous
platforms so that your ideas are transferred. Software out there that are the best
are the ones that don’t focus on one platform. I list here a few items that may
be of interest which I have used whilst doing the projects in this book, as
they have enhanced my Lego and digital life in some way.
Dropbox
Dropbox, in a nutshell, creates a folder on
your computer that replicate the files in it automatically on all your computers.
I’m a big fan of Dropbox and I use it to
keep all my code synchronized over my computers so I can work on it wherever I
am. Any file you add or edit on one device is automatically synced with your
other devices, and the cloud as well.
You can use it free for enough cloud
storage space to easily do hobby projects. Visit http://dropbox.com to sign up,
and have a place to easily put your files in a folder that will automatically
synchronize with all your devices.
iCircuit
I use an iPad to keep notes and draw out
the circuits for projects. My favourite is ICurcuit, which you can pick up from
the App Store for the iPad or iPhone, and helps immensely understanding how
your circuits will work.
Omnigraffle / Visio
For creating diagrams you can use good old
fashioned pen and paper or use various software packages.
The apple pencil or Scribble pen 53 both
provide easy natural interfaced that are a lot easier than a mouse.
You can get Omnigraffle for the Mac, in
both iPad and Desktop versions. On the PC the similar package is Microsoft
Visio.
Sublime Text
The Sublime Text editor is my favourite on
both the Windows and Mac platforms, it's identical on both, and has an amazing
amount of plugins you can add to it including the ability to compile and run
your Arduino code straight from it.
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