App & device help

  • Started
  • Last post
  • 7 Responses
  • Claymantis

    Hi,

    I working on a project and I need a general idea or understanding of how the electronic components could work with an app.

    It will basically a be a unit that has sensors inside that measure humidity, PH levels and a few other things. These measurement will be relayed back to app.

    So my understand you have a circuit board that hooks up to these sensors and the circuit board relays info back to the app, via wifi?
    How does that work?
    Does anyone have links on this kind of thing, so i can better understand it?

    Thanks very much

  • section_0140

    If you're using a Rasberry Pi or a Beaglebone, you could create a webserver (something Node or Go based would be my choice) on the dev board with the sensors hooked up.

    Then, you could simply visit the url of the web server from the app to get the data. Obviously, I'm skipping over lots of steps, but that's how I would do it.

  • mantrakid0

    Yeah the big questions mostly come down to:

    - What does the app run on (iOS? Android? MacOS, etc)
    - What 'device' runs the sensors?

    Essentially if you are sending data, then you need some sort of firmware or operating system on the thing that the sensors are connected to that both collects the data from the sensors and sends it to the (phone, computer, etc). How it collects data and how it sends the data is basically a software development job.

    If you used like a Raspberry Pi, your operating system is handled there (Linux), and now you're coding an application in an executable language on the Raspberry Pi that collects the data from the sensors, so now you need libraries in linux that can successfully receive data from however the data is being sent to it.

    Once you have a system getting the sensor data, you then need to build on the software side of it in any infinite number of ways to get the data to something else. That can either be giving access to the data on the device by a wireless, usb, bluetooth, etc type connection, in which case you would need libraries for that type of connection and code for the device to be able to give its data, then you'd need to code another application on the receiving end (iPhone, Android Phone, Playstation 7) that tells it what to do to receive the data and how to display / interface with it once it gets it

    Hope im not too far off on most of this. I haven't done anything like this really but have worked with a lot of systems and software development intended to be the 'end result' of many thousands of man hours of programming work to get the system / data communication in place.

    • amazing thanks man!Claymantis
    • Can't tell you about the device right now but it would probably be iOS for now.Claymantis
  • mugwart0

    look into QT - this has access to sensors and you can compile it to different OS's.

    This is very low level - so expect to be frustrated as hell but if you can learn/use C++ amazing - if you can get by in python - you'll get by.

    QML is pretty cool as well.

    I'm using this framework for my app so if you need help let me know. Its very frustrating but its very powerful.

    http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtsensors-…

  • mugwart0

    Also - is this a personal project? Or something you plan to sell?

    If a personal - go with audino or raspberry pi. Get loads of MAKE and Magpi magazine (all digital editions are free - get the issue to support them though)
    https://www.raspberrypi.org/magp…

    • (warning - all articles are written by smug 6 years - cunts making me feel old)mugwart
    • *16 not 6! bitter aging man heremugwart
  • Claymantis0

    Thanks so much for the help guys!

  • section_0140

    @mugwart What are you using to write apps in QT? Specifically, your IDE? I looked into it before for a cross platform desktop app, but there's no way I was paying $80 /month to use QT Creator.

    Especially considering that my use would be light at best. Did you use XCode or Eclipse or something else?

    Otherwise, it looks pretty awesome. I ended using MonoDevelop, which was kinda shit tbh. Especially when compared to XCode or Android Studio.

    • also I believe the $80 is for the full compile licence so you can package this up and sell it on as your own closed software (not open source)mugwart
    • You are correct! I think I'm just going to get a flat theme going with GTK. QT looks super nice though.section_014
    • it is, its also a pain! Let me know if you need a handmugwart
  • mugwart0

    @section_014 -- QT creator does come with a community edition - this is only allows you to compile at certain licences. This is fine until you want to release it at anything other than opensource

    I'm not using their IDE - its fucking horrible. I code C++ and use CMake not their compiler. Their compile language is nasty, bloats your app.

    CMake is great to compile but hard to learn.

    As to my editor - I've used pycharm, eclipse, even Flash's equivalent, sublime but the best by far is Vim.

    Vim is a fucking bitch to learn - but once you learn it - its the best hands down. Its free and open source.

    If this is too frustrating or you really need an IDE - there is sublime

    If you want something fancy -
    https://www.jetbrains.com/pychar…
    https://www.jetbrains.com/clion/…

    To be honest if you have a bit of time:
    http://www.vim.org/ (get a graphic view for this) (and yes their website is from 1994!)
    https://valloric.github.io/YouCo… (I still haven't fully get this working)

    • I'm no pro by a long shot. I still feel a novice - but I'm happy to helpmugwart