IoT Cloud Platforms☁

🔘Several previous posts have mentioned the 🔗Ubidots and 🔗Thingspeak IoT cloud ☁ platforms, conveniently accessed from a web-browser, that have been used with some of our sensor based projects to capture, visualise and analyse 💹 the sensor measurements. Two others, 'Arduino IoT Cloud' and 'Thingsboard', have been found and tried out in conjunction with the PMS5003 Particle Concentration Sensor; ( see 8 April & 16 June ). Setting up was quick and straightforward, following the typical process for such platforms of creating an IoT 'thing', assigning 'variables', associating a 'device', programming & connecting the device, & designing a 'dashboard'; our device is a "D1 Mini Esp32" micro-controller board.

The 🔗Arduino IoT Cloud is an entirely cloud based platform, including an editor for writing and compiling the project firmware, which can then be downloaded from the cloud ( depending on the subscription plan ) to the device, from anywhere in the world 🌐. Nothing is required to be installed locally on a pc 💻or connected to it other than a browser and internet connection. The dashboard shown in the image below is constrained by a maximum of  5 cloud variables under the no-time-limit free 🆓 plan. In general, the widgets to populate the dashboard tend to be the standard, classic ones.

Example of Arduino IoT Cloud dashboard - desktop version

An App "Arduino IoT Remote" on a mobile device 📱provides a mobile friendly version of the dashboard.

An account was opened for the 30 day free trial period of the 🔗Thingsboard cloud 'Maker' version. There is a large selection of attractive widgets for the dashboard, sorted by various categories. For example, under the "Air 🜁 Quality"  category there are numerous widget designs specifically for the measurement data relevant to air-quality. Some were chosen for the dashboard shown in the image below

Example of a Thingsboard dashboard

🌀IoT = Internet of Things.