When we imagine an Internet of Things powered world consisting of smart phones and appliances as well as the ability to gather weather reports and all other information right from within our living rooms, the first and foremost thing that comes to our mind is the primary level applications that will provide all these appliances with their much- needed power and intelligence. This intelligence garnered with the help of the Internet of Things- based applications will help us in living in a technologically- reformed world. All the sensors, networking chips and other necessities will only come to our rescue when these are efficiently used by a developer to form a class- apart Internet of Things application to run our smart homes, cars and appliances, etc.
The prime focus when creating an application for Internet of Things is to be placed on the things that will be connected together for sending/ receiving messages. It is to be noted that physical characteristics such as temperature, humidity, pulse rate, moisture, velocity, frequency, moving images, sound as well as light level will play an important role in the way these connected peripherals will be communicating with each other.
If you are looking forward to developing an Internet of Things application, then the main focus you have to pay is at the last two tiers of the product. This means that the user- interface is one of the most critical areas that seek maximum attention. This is also the reason why it is advised to built an Internet of Things application on top of an already- made Internet of Things platform. These ready- made platforms come with an ingestion tier that reduces the developer’s job to some considerable extent, leaving enough room for management, activation, provisioning and processing of incoming data. Some of the relevant Internet of Things platforms that you can use for setting up your Internet of Things application can be TheThings.io, Eclipse Internet of Things, The Things Network and Unification Engine among others.
Important Factors to Keep in Mind While Creating Applications for Internet of Things:
1. Rome Was Not Built in a Fortnight!!
First and foremost, it is not necessary for you to get it right in your very first try. Remember that the more and the faster you fail more room you are going to have for improvement. Keep a check on languages as well as technologies which guarantee a quick pace of development, such as the Google Weave.
2, Handling the Scale of Development
It should never be like this that you are connecting a single device one day and thousand the next!! The idea or application you are working on should be provided with ample time to handle the load switch because more burden can make your application and its connected devices prone to be broken. Also make sure that the software you are using is capable of accommodating all the updates as well as timely increase in the load so that there is no disruption experienced by the end- users.
3. Encourage the Use of Binary Messages
Always choose custom binary encoding in place of ASCII encoding, provided that the application or end device you are developing supports it. This will provide you with a relevant reduction in the bandwidth consumption of your device, which in turn is a great way of reducing the cost of overall development.
4. Encourage Outsourcing
The development market is going abuzz with new tools which can play a pivotal role in creating your Internet of Things application. With increased outsourcing, you will get more time to focus on the core areas of your application without having to waste time on elements like concurrency, networking as well as parsing which can be easily outsourced.