3 ms·

Thingsquare out of private beta

6 points by erbdex 11y ago

cvburgess 11y ago
How does this fit in with offerings from Apple and Google? Edit: Specifically HomeKit and Brillo(?)
- adunk 11y ago
  Adam, Thingsquare CEO here. The Thingsquare platform connects products with smartphone apps, which is similar to what many other platforms do, including HomeKit, Brillo, and Parse's IoT platform. Unlike other platforms though, Thingsquare allow secure remote access even for products that aren't always in range of WiFi or BLE. We're using a self-healing wireless mesh so that products can cover large installations and work nicely even in places with poor WiFi.
  - erbdex 11y ago
    How will a 6LoWPAN mesh fare against WiFi/BLE meshes, as the market seems to move towards the latter?
    - adunk 11y ago
      Not sure the market really is moving towards WiFi/BLE - there is a lot of talk about BLE meshing right now, but so far haven't really amounted to much it seems. The strongest part of 6lowpan meshes right now is that it supports sub-GHz communication, which has much longer range and less interference than 2.4 Ghz. In the end though it doesn't really matter which radio technology is being used, as long as it gets stable Internet connectivity. Once you're there, the backend is easy to reach.
- erbdex 11y ago
  This is the cloud part of sensor data storage, webhooks etc. HomeKit/Brillo give- 1. A consistent API to interface developers as well as, 2. Standardized data format so that different vendor devices can connect.
krapht 11y ago
Huh. I'm interested in playing around with this, but the free developer account requires you to use pre-qualified hardware. In my case, I already have a designed device. Why don't they expose an API?
- adunk 11y ago
  Adam, Thingsquare CEO here. We could expose a device API, and might do so in the future, but exposing an API means that we'd have to maintain that API for the foreseeable future. We do have an API for connecting apps and server-side software, but devices currently have to connect using our Thingsquare client firmware.

6 points by erbdex 11y ago

cvburgess 11y ago

How does this fit in with offerings from Apple and Google? Edit: Specifically HomeKit and Brillo(?)

adunk 11y ago
Adam, Thingsquare CEO here. The Thingsquare platform connects products with smartphone apps, which is similar to what many other platforms do, including HomeKit, Brillo, and Parse's IoT platform. Unlike other platforms though, Thingsquare allow secure remote access even for products that aren't always in range of WiFi or BLE. We're using a self-healing wireless mesh so that products can cover large installations and work nicely even in places with poor WiFi.
- erbdex 11y ago
  How will a 6LoWPAN mesh fare against WiFi/BLE meshes, as the market seems to move towards the latter?
  - adunk 11y ago
    Not sure the market really is moving towards WiFi/BLE - there is a lot of talk about BLE meshing right now, but so far haven't really amounted to much it seems. The strongest part of 6lowpan meshes right now is that it supports sub-GHz communication, which has much longer range and less interference than 2.4 Ghz. In the end though it doesn't really matter which radio technology is being used, as long as it gets stable Internet connectivity. Once you're there, the backend is easy to reach.
erbdex 11y ago
This is the cloud part of sensor data storage, webhooks etc. HomeKit/Brillo give- 1. A consistent API to interface developers as well as, 2. Standardized data format so that different vendor devices can connect.

krapht 11y ago

Huh. I'm interested in playing around with this, but the free developer account requires you to use pre-qualified hardware. In my case, I already have a designed device. Why don't they expose an API?

adunk 11y ago
Adam, Thingsquare CEO here. We could expose a device API, and might do so in the future, but exposing an API means that we'd have to maintain that API for the foreseeable future. We do have an API for connecting apps and server-side software, but devices currently have to connect using our Thingsquare client firmware.