Analytics for Sigfox with thethings.iO
If you are an Internet of Things enthusiast, you must know Sigfox. In case you don’t, keep reading. Nevertheless, this post is not only about the incredible things you can make with Sigfox but also how you can integrate it with an IoT platform such as thethings.iO.
What’s Sigfox?
Sigfox is a cellular style telecom that enables remote devices to connect using UNB (ultra-narrow band) technology. It appeared trying to solve the network problems that Wi-Fi range may cause (for example, it is short and 3G and 4G are expensive and use too much power while working) to make the Internet of Things easier.
Using Sigfox, you can transfer small amounts of data (each message can be up to 12 bytes of payload data). Any user can send between 0 and 140 messages per day, and if they want a 24 hours distribution, they can also send a maximum of one message every 11 minutes. This means that each message you send doesn’t contain much information.
Do you want to know how to connect a thing with thethings.iO and Sigfox? Then, watch this tutorial:
When Sigfox meets thethings.iO
As you have just seen, Sigfox is perfect for very low power operations. Messages transmitted must be small, which can be seen as a problem. Any user can downlink 4 messages of 8 bytes to the device, and the uplink is up to 140 messages of 12 bytes. Depending on the use case, this is just enough information to be transmitted.
Sigfox doesn’t understand or transform your payload, so you can read the message as is, allowing developers to parse the structured payload and play with bits and bytes. That means, that you cannot see any data or analytics using just Sigfox, and at the moment neither any business logic on the top of it.
With all these limitations, we have integrated Sigfox with thethings.iO, in order to pick up all the data generated and offer it to its users. Actually, it is more than that. Paying the price of a Sigfox device plus 1€ per year to thethings.iO you can get a full customizable analytics, cloud code with triggers and crons and real-time interaction from your Sigfox-connected devices.
In less than 5 minutes you can see your things’ data at thethings.iO panel. Awesome, right?
thethings.iO and Sigfox
As we have said, with Sigfox you only get Payload data (using binary language). To make it clever, using thethings.iO, data is translated to our JSON diagram, so you can know the exact temperature or humidity (or whatever) value of your device at any time in your Sigfox dashboard with thethings.iO.
You can find libraries for a couple of prototyping shields with Sigfox Antennas at our github account as Sigfox SDK for thethings.iO.
What we do at thethings.iO
At thethings.iO we connect devices or wearables to the Internet. We are a Cloud solution for companies that decide to build new cool things that can be connected to improve our lives. If you want to know more about us, you can create an account by clicking here, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or follow us on Twitter! Stay tuned and be the first in knowing the latest news of the IoT world and thethings.iO.
