Book Image

Hands-On Internet of Things with Blynk

By : Pradeeka Seneviratne
Book Image

Hands-On Internet of Things with Blynk

By: Pradeeka Seneviratne

Overview of this book

Blynk, known as the most user-friendly IoT platform, provides a way to build mobile applications in minutes. With the Blynk drag-n-drop mobile app builder, anyone can build amazing IoT applications with minimal resources and effort, on hardware ranging from prototyping platforms such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi 3 to industrial-grade ESP8266, Intel, Sierra Wireless, Particle, Texas Instruments, and a few others. This book uses Raspberry Pi as the main hardware platform and C/C++ to write sketches to build projects. The first part of this book shows how to set up a development environment with various hardware combinations and required software. Then you will build your first IoT application with Blynk using various hardware combinations and connectivity types such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi. Then you'll use and configure various widgets (control, display, notification, interface, time input, and some advanced widgets) with Blynk App Builder to build applications. Towards the end, you will learn how to connect with and use built-in sensors on Android and iOS mobile devices. Finally you will learn how to build a robot that can be controlled with a Blynk app through the Blynk cloud and personal server. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on experience building IoT applications using Blynk.
Table of Contents (10 chapters)

Creating a Blynk app

The control user interface can be created with the Blynk app builder using four button controllers to move the robot forward, backward, left, and right:

  1. Open the Blynk app builder and tap New Project:
Choosing New Project
  1. In the Create New Project page, type in the project name, Robot Car. Under CHOOSE DEVICE, select the correct Raspberry Pi model. Then, under CONNECTION TYPE, select WiFi. If you're using a Raspberry Pi model 1 or 2, you should connect an external Wi-Fi dongle to the Raspberry Pi's USB port. The Raspberry Pi model 3 has a built-in Wi-Fi module, so you don't need to connect a Wi-Fi dongle to it. Finally, tap Create to build the project workspace:
Project Settings page
  1. Tap the OK button:
Auth token sending notification
  1. In the project workspace, tap the plus icon to open the Widget Box and add four buttons:
Inserting...