Taking mundane objects and connecting them to one another is one of the key intentions of the whole IoT phenomenon. In our next recipe, we will create a digital picture frame. However, ours is is not the typical off-the-shelf version where you load images from an SD card. Instead, we will use a combination of web services that are commonly used in IoT together with a wireless image player to update the digital picture frame dynamically and seamlessly from a smartphone.
The materials needed are as follows:
A smartphone with internet connectivity
The BBB powered by 5V
A Wi-Fi dongle
An LCD (5 inches or larger)
You will also need to set up two web service accounts:
Dropbox: The free plan is adequate (http://www.dropbox.com)
IFTTT: This is a free service (http://www.ifttt.com)
Using IFTTT
For this recipe, we will incorporate the If This Then That (IFTTT) web service. Although not perfect, IFTTT is a fun, rapid development...