Monday, April 04, 2011

Pachube - Social Networking for Nanodes?

For a few days I have had the Nanode prototypes running code and transferring data via Pachube.

Nanode uses the Pachube API with simple CSV data, so that any message or command packet which can be coded into a few bytes of CSV can be broadcast from the publishing Nanode to many subscribing Nanodes. This is effectively Tweeting for low cost, resource limited microcontrollers.

A Nanode, fitted with sensors can send a message out through Pachube, and expect its subscribers (followers?) to receive and act upon it within 5 to 10 seconds.

In the same way that Twitter is not for the verbose - Nanode communications need to be short and to the point. About 5 bytes and a checksum is optimum. Those bytes can contain sending address, destination address and command bytes. Could a micro-tweet be social networking for microcontrollers, and central to the Internet of Things?

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