IBM Client Center Montpellier

{ Lab 3 }

IoT application in IBM Cloud

with Node-RED and IBM Watson

April 2020 – Version 2.4

IBM Client Center Montpellier IBM Cloud - Watson Days

Authors: B. Marolleau, C. Bacle, C. Lalevée

March 2020 - v2.4

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Agenda

Before Starting _________________________________________________________________ 4

1. Hands-on presentation ________________________________________________________ 5
Section 1. Overview ____________________________________________________________________ 5
Section 2. Prerequisites _________________________________________________________________ 7
2. Create your Node-RED application _____________________________________________ 8
3. Create sensor and a new flow ________________________________________________ 15
Section 1. Sensors & IoT _______________________________________________________________ 15
Section 2. Node-RED flow: creation & importation _________________________________________ 16
Section 3. Insert IoT Data in Cloudant DB ________________________________________________ 19
Section 4. Process IoT Data with Watson _________________________________________________ 21
4. Create a dashboard application in Node-RED __________________________________ 23
Section 1. Import Node-RED Dashboarding capability ______________________________________ 23
Add extra nodes to your Node-RED palette _______________________________________________ 25
Section 2. Create a simple Node-RED Dashboard _________________________________________ 31
Section 3. Add voice alert on dashboard (Optional) ________________________________________ 35
5. Create a dashboard in Watson IoT Platform (optional) __________________________ 38
Section 1. Create new device in Watson IoT Platform ______________________________________ 38
Section 2. Node-RED: redirect sensor data to IBM IoT Platform _____________________________ 42
Section 3. IBM Watson IoT Platform: create dashboard _____________________________________ 45
6. Physical Device – MQTT Connection __________________________________________ 52
Section 1. Simulate your device _________________________________________________________ 57
Section 2. Create a MQTT Device on a micro-controller ____________________________________ 61
Section 3. Data Visualization from MQTT Subscribers Apps _________________________________ 64

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Before Starting

This hands-on required to have an IBM Cloud account. If you don’t, you can create
one here: http://bluemix.net/.

• Open a browser and access to IBM Cloud: https://console.bluemix.net.

• If you have an IBM Cloud account, click Log in, and enter your IBM ID credentials.
If you don’t have an IBM Cloud account, click Create a free account. Enter your email
address, and additional information required. You will receive an email with activation link.
Once activated, you could use your new free IBM cloud account: log in.

• Select organization, location and space to use during this lab.

• If needed, free resources (GB / #Services) in your IBM Cloud Organization & Spaces to run
the lab exercises.
If you encounter a resource contention (error message saying you are out of resources),
clean up your spaces by deleting existing Apps or Services.

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1. Hands-on presentation

Section 1. Overview
In this hands-on session, you will create a Node-RED application in IBM Cloud to collect, store
and display virtual sensor data.

Node-RED (https://nodered.org/) is a flow-based programming tool, originally developed by the

IBM Emerging Technology Services team (in early 2013) and now a part of JS Foundation.
Traditional development can be very technical, but Node-RED enables you to concentrate on
the logic of your workflow and allows fast prototyping.
Node-RED consists of a Node.js-based runtime with a flow editor accessed through a web
browser. Within the browser, you create your application by dragging nodes from a
customizable palette into a workspace and start to wire them together. With a single click, the
application is deployed back to its runtime.

Session objectives are:

• Create & modify an application using Node-RED in IBM Cloud
• Discover new services & Node-RED to consume or create services (IoT / database…)
• Discover Watson services
• Discover Watson IoT Platform
Find below lab overview (with exercise numbers).
Exercise 6 (optional) requires a micro-controller (Huzzah, Arduino, etc) or a Windows /
Linux / Mac desktop with node.js installed.

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Expected results are :

• Your Node-RED application is operational (using Node.js runtime), accessing Cloudant
& IoT platform (QuickStart)

• Your Node-RED app is online (reachable from the Internet), & will be connected to a
temperature simulator (sensor)

• Optionally, you are able to provide 2 dashboards: one with voice alert implemented in
Node-RED, the second designed and hosted in Watson IoT Platform

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Section 2. Prerequisites
The required file used during this lab can be downloaded the JSON files from
• http://ibmcloud-watson-day.mybluemix.net/files/Lab3_IoT_Flow.v2.1.json
• http://ibmcloud-watson-day.mybluemix.net/files/Lab3_IoT_Dashboard.v2.1.json

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2. Create your Node-RED application

__ 1. In IBM Cloud Catalog, choose Software category
Search for “node” , select Node-Red App , fill in the form. Click on Create

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At this point, you have created the application and the resources it requires, but you have not
deployed it anywhere to run. This step shows how to setup the Continuous Delivery feature
that will deploy your application into the Cloud Foundry space of IBM Cloud.

__ 2. On the next screen, click the Deploy your app button (1) to enable the Continuous
Delivery feature for your application.

__ 3. You will need to create an IBM Cloud API key to allow the deployment process to
access your resources. Click the New button (1) to create the key. A message dialog
will appear. Read what it says and then confirm and close the dialog.

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__ 4. The Node-RED Starter kit only supports deployment to the Cloud Foundry
space of IBM Cloud. Select the region (2) to deploy your application to. This
should match the region you created your Cloudant instance in.

__ 5. Select the region (3) to create the DevOps toolchain.

__ 6. Click Create (4). This will take you back to the application details page

__ 7. After a few moments, the Continuous Delivery section will refresh with the
details of your newly created Toolchain. The Status field of the Delivery Pipeline
will show In progress. That means your application is still being built and
deployed.

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__ 8. Open your IBM Cloud Resource list by selecting the sidebar menu (1) and then
selecting Resource List (2)

__ 9. You will see your newly created Node-RED Application listed under the Apps section
(1). You will also see a corresponding entry under the Cloud Foundry apps section
(2). Click on this Cloud Foundry app entry to go to your deployed application’s details
page.

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__ 10. From the details page, click the Visit App URL link to access your Node-RED Starter
application.

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__ 11. Run the wizard to configure authentication: secure your editor with your own credentials
so only authorized users can access it (Node-RED has its own authentication system).
Don’t check Allow anyone to view the editor, but not make any changes and Allow
anyone to view the editor.

__ 12. On wizard last step screen, click on Finish to start Node-RED.

__ 13. Node-RED is a browser-based editor that makes it easy to wire together flows that can
be deployed to the runtime. In the case of IoT, Node-RED is really powerful to quickly
test all the possibilities that IBM Cloud offers with different kind of services.

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Your Node-RED app has a public URL like any web app (you defined it in step 2).
Click on Go to your Node-RED flow editor and use the credentials provided before.

__ 14. You now have access to the Node-RED UI.

Keep the existing default flow and create a new flow: click +. You will use it in next
exercise.

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3. Create sensor and a new flow

Section 1. Sensors & IoT
__ 1. Open a new window or tab in your browser.
__ 2. To create a sensor simulator, connect to http://ibm.biz/iotsensor
There are 3 simulated sensors:
• Object temperature
• Temperature
• Humidity

The simulator (from IBM Cloud IoT Quickstart) connects automatically and starts
publishing data.
It must remain connected to visualize the data.
Use the simulator buttons to change the simulated sensor readings. Data is published
periodically.

Note: Instead of using your desktop browser, you can use your smartphone.
__ 3. Identify your virtual device ID (top right corner) : copy it. You will use it in next section.
Warning: if you reload this page, the device ID changes.

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Section 2. Node-RED flow: creation & importation

__ 1. Go back to Node-RED window
__ 2. From left panel, drag and drop nodes to the workspace
• Chose the Input node ibmiot
• Add an output debug node
• Link them

__ 3. Configure IBM IoT by double clicking on it :

• Authentication: Quickstart (means it is a simple authentication – for demo
purposes)
• Device ID : <The value from Section 1, step 3 - Generated by the Simulator>

__ 4. Click Done & deploy your flow by clicking the Deploy button (top right).
__ 5. Check the Debug Panel on the right side while you are playing with the sensor
simulator. You should receive Device (sensor = web app. you opened in other window)
data as the IBM IoT Node subscribed to this particular Device topic.

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__ 6. Delete the whole flow by selecting all the nodes & pressing the ‘Delete’ key.

__ 7. Now import a new flow. A flow can be exported and imported using JSON file.
Open link http://ibmcloud-watson-day.mybluemix.net/files/Lab3_IoT_Flow.v2.1.json to
display code in JSON format. You can also open the file you downloaded previously.

__ 8. Select all and copy it

__ 9. Click on the top right button near Deploy.
Select Import, Clipboard & copy/paste the content of the JSON file in Current flow.

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__ 10. Click on workspace to paste imported nodes

__ 11. Fill in the Device ID field in the IBM IoT App In node.

__ 12. Click Deploy to deploy the new Flow.

Modify the Device Temperature & check the Debug logs.

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Section 3. Insert IoT Data in Cloudant DB

Let’s insert the event data coming from the Device sensors in a Cloudant database!
Remember that you already have a Cloudant service deployed for Node-RED. You will use it to
store your data.

__ 1. Add a Cloudant Node (Cloudant OUT node in the Storage Category) & link it to the
temp function node

__ 2. Configure it:
• Service : Cloudant service name bound to your Node.js runtime.
As Node.js is already bound to a Cloudant Service, the service name should appear
in the Drop-down list.
• Database: name of your choice (lower case)
• Name (node): name of your choice
Click Done.

__ 3. Deploy your new flow (Deploy button)

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__ 4. From your IBM Cloud Dashboard (IBM Cloud window of your browser), start the
Cloudant dashboard by clicking on the line of Cloudant service

__ 5. Click Launch button to start Cloudant console

__ 6. Select Database icon in left panel, then your database name (defined in step 2).

__ 7. Have a look to the inserted data in the database. Click on record to see content.

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Section 4. Process IoT Data with Watson

__ 1. In IBM Cloud windows, add a « Watson Language Translator » service to your existing
Node-RED application. From Catalog, click on Language Translator in Watson
category.
Select Lite plan, then click Create. Service is deployed.
__ 2. From Language Translator dashboard, Connections menu, click on Create
connection.

__ 3. Connect service to your Node-RED application

__ 4. Accept the restage step to actually bind the service to the app.
__ 5. While it is restaging (~3 minutes), take a look at Service Credentials. This information
is useful if you want to invoke your Watson Service from any program (running in IBM
Cloud or outside IBM Cloud)
__ 6. Go back to Node-RED window.
If you get a connection error message, your application restaging is not finished. Wait.
Try to refresh page.

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__ 7. Go back to the Node-RED environment.

Add Language translator node and link it between the template (safe & danger) &
debug nodes (cpustatus).

__ 8. Configure the Watson language translator node:

• Name (of your choice)
• Mode: Translate
• Domains: Conversational
• Source: English
• Target: French (or Spanish, Portuguese & Arabic)
Note: The user/password fields are not necessary & do not appear in the node settings
if a Watson Language Translator service is properly bound to Node-RED application.
__ 9. Deploy your flow & check the logs (debug tab).

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4. Create a dashboard application in Node-RED

Section 1. Import Node-RED Dashboarding capability
__ 1. At the top right-hand side of the page, click the ‘burger’ menu:

__ 2. Click Manage palette:

__ 3. In the sidebar that appears on the left-hand side of the page, click the Install tab:

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__ 4. In the search field, type node-red-dash:

__ 5. Next to the nod-red-dashboard result, click install

__ 6. Click Install

Note: In the current configuration of your Node-RED application, you probably get an error
message

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In that case, please use the following procedure to add additional nodes (like node-red-
dashboard) to your Node-Red App:

Add extra nodes to your Node-RED palette

Node-RED provides the palette manager feature that allows you to install additional
nodes directly from the browser-based editor. This is convenient for trying nodes out,
but it can cause issues due to the limited memory of the default Node-RED starter
application.

The recommended approach is to edit your application’s package.json file to include the
additional node modules and then redeploy the application.

This step shows how to do that in order to add the node-red-dashboard module.

1. On your application’s details page, click the url in the Continuous Delivery box.
This will take you to a git repository where you can edit the application source
code from your browser.

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2. Scroll down the list of files and click on package.json. This file lists the module
dependencies of your application.

3. Click the Edit button

4. Add the following entry to the top of the dependencies section (1):

"node-red-dashboard": "2.x",

"node-red-contrib-scx-ibmiotapp" : "0.x"

Note: Do not forget the comma (,) at the end of the line to separate it from the next
entry. This is an example, you have to copy the list of nodes you want to add. Above,
we are adding node-red-dashboard and ibmiotapp nodes.

Add a Commit message (2) and click Commit changes (3)

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At this point, the Continuous Delivery pipeline will automatically run to build and deploy
that change into your application. If you view the Delivery Pipeline you can watch its
progress. The Build section shows you the last commit made (1) and the Deploy
section shows the progress of redeploying the application (2).

Note: If your Continuous Delivery Service expired, you’ll get a Warning Message. In
that case, go to your Resources List, choose your Node-red Cloud Foundry App,
delete and recreate the Continuous Delivery Service attached to your app as shown
below (Delivery Pipeline part) – specifying Existing Git Repository, unselecting the
Issue Tracking check box.

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Once the Deploy stage completes, your application will have restarted and now have
the node-red-dashboard nodes preinstalled.

__ 7. Note the additional dashboard nodes on the palette : Dashboard category.

__ 8. Note also that there is a new dashboard tab in the right-hand sidebar:

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TIP: This dashboard tab may be used to add new tabs, menus etc. to the visualization
dashboard. There are also two available themes – light and dark.

Section 2. Create a simple Node-RED Dashboard

In this section, you will create a simple dashboard for sensor data using new dashboard nodes
installed.

__ 1. In the current Node-RED tab, import the file named Lab3_IoT_Dashboard.v2.0.txt

(previously downloaded): Menu > Import > Clipboard.
Click current flow then Import.

__ 2. Click on workspace to paste new nodes.

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__ 3. Connect new nodes to existing…

1. Temperature to temp
2. Humidity to IBM Iot App In
3. Object Temperature to IBM Iot App In
4. chart to temp

2 1

__ 4. Deploy the flow: Deploy

__ 5. Connect to http://<YOUR_APP_HOSTNAME>/ui (URL generated by Node-red-
dashboard node) to see your new dashboard. Change value on virtual sensor app. to
see impact on gauges and lines.

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__ 6. Customize your dashboard using Dashboard tab

• Theme: use Dark style

• Site: as below, change Title, 1x1 Widget Size, Group spacing

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__ 7. Deploy and check your dashboard.

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Section 3. Add voice alert on dashboard (Optional)

In this section, you will add a voice node allowing your app to tell say message when
temperature change. To do that, you will deploy a new Watson service: Text to Speech.

__ 1. In the IBM Cloud window, click Catalog then Watson category.

Click on Text to Speech service to create your own instance.

__ 2. Enter a name for your service and click Create.

__ 3. On new service dashboard, click Connection, and connect Text to speech service to
your Node-RED application: Connect.

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__ 4. Accept to restage application and wait for your Node-RED application to restart.

__ 5. When restarted, in Node-RED environment, add an Audio out node (category

Dashboard) and a text to speech node (category Watson) to your flow

__ 8. Connect nodes as below

1. Test text change to language translator
2. Test text change to text to speech
3. text to speech to audio out

2 3

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__ 9. Configure text to speech node to

• use the language your translated to (as configured before in language translator
node)
• place the output on msg.payload (check box)

__ 10. Configure audio out node

• Set group to chart [IoT sensor]
• Check Play audio when window not in focus

__ 11. Deploy the flow: Deploy

__ 12. Do you hear something ?
Try to change temperature in virtual sensor app.

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5. Create a dashboard in Watson IoT Platform (optional)

Section 1. Create new device in Watson IoT Platform
__ 1. Switch back to your browser window open on IBM Cloud environment.
__ 2. From your dashboard, click on name of application created in exercise 2, to open
application dashboard.

__ 3. From left panel, click on Connections to see bound services.

Click Internet of Things Platform service.

__ 4. Click Launch button to open your Watson IoT organization dashboard in a new
browser tab. You are now connected to the IBM Watson IoT Platform dashboard. With
the platform you can manage your devices, store and access your data.

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__ 5. From left panel Settings menu, activate the Last Event Cache feature :
By using the Watson IoT Platform Last Event Cache API, you can retrieve the last
event that was sent by a device. This works whether the device is online or offline,
which allows you to retrieve device status regardless of the device's physical location or
use status. Last event data of a device can be retrieved for any specific event that
occurred up to 7/45 days ago.

__ 6. You are now going to register a new device in your organization: first adding a device
type, then the device. Click on Devices menu from left panel.
Click on Device Type, then Add device Type button

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__ 7. Choose Device and put a name (case sensitive) for your device : virtualsensor
Click Next.
You don’t need to add Device Information.
Click Done.

__ 8. Click Browse and click on Add Device button on the right

__ 9. Select Device Type you created before.

Give Sensor1 as device’ name (it will be your Device ID), click Next.

__ 10. Click Next again: you don’t need any metadata.

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__ 11. For the security part, it is recommended to you to provide a simple token (between 8
and 36 characters long and should contain a mix of lower and upper-case letters,
numbers and symbols). If you skip this, a token will be automatically generated but this
one won’t be easy to use for the next steps of this hands-on.
Click Next.

__ 12. A summary of your device details appears. Copy all these information in a text editor or
as a screenshot. The token is unrecoverable.
Click Done.
__ 13. In the Security menu on the left panel, click Connection Security and change security
settings to accept non-SSL connections : TLS Optional

__ 14. Your device is created. You are now going to update your Node-RED application.

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Section 2. Node-RED: redirect sensor data to IBM IoT Platform

__ 1. Switch back to your browser window opened on Node-RED development interface.
__ 2. Add a Function node and connect it to IBM IoT App In existing node

__ 3. Open new node. Name it Format Device Payload and insert following code

// Create MQTT message in JSON

msg = {
payload: JSON.stringify(
{
d:{
"temp" : msg.payload.d.temp,
"humidity" : msg.payload.d.humidity,
"objectTemp": msg.payload.d.objectTemp
}
}
)
};
return msg;

Click Done.

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__ 4. Add an ibmiot out node and connect it to Format Device Payload node.

__ 5. Open ibmiot out node and configure it as below.

• Authentication : Bluemix Service
• Output Type: Device Event
• Device Type: virtualsensor (cf. Section 1, step 7)
• Device Id: Sensor1 (cf. Section 1, step 9)
• Event Type: update
• Format: JSON
• Data: <json sample>
(Enter simple JSON sample like {d:{“temp":28,"humidity":79,"objectTemp":24}}
• Name: Send to IoT Platform

Click Done.

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__ 6. Click Deploy to deploy your updated Node-RED flow : ibmiot nodes should now be
connected.

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Section 3. IBM Watson IoT Platform: create dashboard

__ 1. Switch back to your browser window opened on IBM Watson IoT Platform interface.
__ 2. In left panel, click Device menu

__ 3. Click on Sensor1, your previously created device. Click on State to see the last device
status, and last values of your Sensor1 device (remember that Sensor1 receives data
from Node-RED, Node-RED receives data from your IoT sensor Web app).

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__ 4. You can also click on Recent events to see the last 5 payloads

__ 5. We are now going to create a simple dashboard using IBM Watson IoT Platform.
From left panel, click on Board.

__ 6. You can see that you already have some card. Have a look at Usage Overview. You
can see cards about devices connected and data transferred.

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__ 7. Click < (top left corner).

Click on Create New Board.

__ 8. Click < (top left corner).

Click on Create New Board.
Enter a name to your new board: Sensor1

__ 9. Click Next, then Summit.

__ 10. Click on your new board

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__ 11. Click on Add new card button

Select Line Chart. Click Next.

__ 12. To collect data from your device, select Sensor1. Click Next.

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__ 13. To select value to display, click on Connect new data set, and fill form as below.
Click Next.

__ 14. Change the card size to XL (you can change others parameters, if you want).
Click Next.

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__ 15. Enter a card title. Click Summit.

__ 16. Your new card is available and displays live temperature values from Sensor1

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__ 17. Following same steps (from 11 to 16), create 2 cards (gauges) to display Humidity and
Object temperature.

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6. Physical Device – MQTT Connection

Credit : https://github.com/phthom/PracticalIBMCloud/

Section 1. Register your Device

Create and Register your device with IoT Platform service. Follow these steps to get access to
this service.

Task 1. Go back to the Dashboard

Click on IBM Cloud on the top left part of the screen and Click on your application IoTxxx:

Task 2. IoT platform access

At the bottom of the screen, you should see 2 services (one is the Cloudant database and the
other one is the Internet of Things Platform service). The IBM Internet of Things Platform
service lets your apps communicate with and consume data collected by your connected
devices, sensors, and gateways.

Our recipes make it super easy to get devices connected to our Internet of Things cloud.

Your apps can then use our real-time and REST APIs to communicate with your devices and
consume the data you've set them up to collect.

Click on the IoT Platform service. This is launching the IoT platform console.

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Task 3. LAUNCH IoT Dashboard

Click the LAUNCH green button. it can take a few minutes.

Task 4. Select Devices

On the left (the little circuit):

Task 5. Add a device

Click Add Device button

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Type a name for the Device type : DeviceType1 and a device ID : 100i700

Click Next

Task 6. Fill the device information

Enter Device information :

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Task 7. Security - Provide a token

Type a token : MyToken1 Click Next and Add to add a device.

Task 8. Summary

Review all the information and type Done

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Take a note of all the device security information.

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Section 1. Simulate your device

We are going to simulate a device on your laptop by using a node application and connect this
device to IoT Platform.

Note that every language provides MQTT Libraries for publishing and subscribing to MQTT
events – C , C++, C# , Python, Node.js & javascript, Java. etc.

In this exercise, we will use a Node.js library “ibmiotf” for connecting to our IoT Broker (Watson
IoT service).

We will also use a more generic and lower level library ‘mqtt.js” for publishing events.

Task 1. Device Simulator

On your machine, open a terminal window or a command line window, create a new directory
for DeviceSimulator and get the git clone of the simulator app :

mkdir DeviceSimulator

cd DeviceSimulator

Task 2. Clone the simulator application:

git clone https://github.com/gmagie/device-simulator-for-ibm-iot

cd device-simulator-for-ibm-iot

Task 3. Configure your simulator application

Depending of your operating system, duplicate and rename a file called .env.example

MacOS or Linux cp .env.example .env

Windows copy .env.example .env

Edit the .env file with a text editor of your choice (nano, vi or notepad) and Replace all the
values with the one you saved earlier.

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Double check all the fields and Save the file.

Task 4. Review and Start the simulator

Review first app.js using your favorite editor (notepad, vscode, vi etc.)

vi app.js

Start node with the following command :

Note: Node.js has to be installed on your Desktop first.

Refer to https://nodejs.org/en/download/

npm install

node app.js

At this point you should see this running application (simulating a device) is connected to the
IoT platform service and some data (temperature, pressure and humidity) is being sent to the
platform.

Task 5. Check the received messages on your IoT Broker

At this point, go back the IoT platform dashboard:

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Our device should be connected and you should see some date coming.

Click on the device and scroll the page to the sensor information:

Click on the recent events: to see all the events coming from the simulated device (our
application) :

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Section 2. Create a MQTT Device on a micro-controller

In the previous section, we used the ‘ibmiotf’ library for subscribing events to a MQTT Broker.
Let’s use a generic library ‘mqtt.js’ , that allows us to directly use the MQTT Broker and the
MQTT protocol with our Watson IoT Broker – an alternative to the ibmiotf library.

Task 1. Install MQTT Libraries on your Micro-controller *OPTIONAL

On a Micro-controller (ESP8266 Adafruit Huzzah, etc), we can use a similar library like
explained below:

Fig. Soure & complete Lab using a ESP8266:

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Use-MQTT-With-the-Raspberry-Pi-and-ESP8266/

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Task 2. Install mqtt.js in Node.js - Physical device Simulation

From your current directory:

npm install mqtt -g

The previous command install mqtt node.js packages, and the mqtt command line which allows
you to use mqtt.js without coding in Node.js

Task 3. Use mqtt.js using mqtt CLI

Use your OrgID , Device Type, Device ID, Token used in the previous section:

Replace the variables by your own values from your .env file. Below a sample script (bash for
Linux or Mac) . On Windows, remove the backslashes and use a single line command with
your variable set:

. .env

mqtt pub -h ${iotf_org}.messaging.internetofthings.ibmcloud.com \

-p '8883' \
-i d:${iotf_org}:${iotf_type}:${iotf_id} \
-C mqtts -u use-token-auth \
-P ${iotf_authtoken} \
--qos 0 \
-t 'iot-2/evt/update/fmt/json' \
-m '{"d":{"temp":28,"humidity":79,"objectTemp":24}}'

Note 1 : You can see all the MQTT protocol options by using mqtt –help
-i : DeviceID
-C mqtt | mqtts
-t : topic
-P: password or token

Note 2: the Watson IoT Broker respects naming conventions and format , documented here
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSQP8H/iot/platform/devices/mqtt.html

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Check the received messages on your IoT Broker, like in the previous section:

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Section 3. Data Visualization from MQTT Subscribers Apps

Validate the device connection and visualize the data in Node-RED.

Task 1. Suscription from Node-Red

Then go back to the Node-RED flow editor. With your mouse, select all the flows and boxes in
the Flow 1 and clear the Flow 1. The screen should looks like that after the clear:

Drag the ibmiot input node from the left section and drop it on to the center app development
environment. Drag the debug output node from the left section and drop it on to the center
app development environment to the right of the ibmiot node. Connect the 2 nodes. It should
look like this:

Double click the IBM IoT node. Update the Authentication section to Bluemix Service and
update the Device id section to the DeviceID of your simulated device i.e. 100i700

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Click Done

Click Deploy on the top tight section (Note, anytime there is a change in the app, the Deploy
button turns red and it needs to be deployed for the change to take effect). The green icon and
connected should appear below the IBM IoT flow.

Go to the **debug tab **on the right section of the node-red and you will see the MQTT data
being sent from the device to the node-red. If you click on the cursor in front of the object, you
will see the temperature, pressure, humidity …

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You can enhance this flow with a lot of features (logic, database …) and play with Node-RED.

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An alternative way is to use the MQTT Node as shown below:

Successful exercise !

You learned how to use the IBM Internet of Things, Node-Red and a Node application to
implement MQTT messages to send and collect metrics.

____________________________ END OF LAB _____________________________

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