Having worked out most of the kinks with using Arduino Pro Minis with RF24 radios to automate various things in my RV, it’s time to connect my private RF24 network to the Internet. I’m doing this primarily to allow integrating my Echo’s Alexa voice capabilities into the network. I purchased and have been waiting on the new Digistump Oak parts to integrate WiFi, but after months of waiting for it, and a couple recent delays, I decided to move forward getting familiar with the Particle.io build environment using the readily available Particle.io Photon part.
OMG, this $19 part is amazing! We’re talking immediate WiFi connectedness. The team at Particle.io has done an amazing job of providing a web-based Arduino environment. Connection to their servers was super easy, and the tutorials provided on their website will get you up and running quickly.
Since it’s web based, I can create and/or update code using my computer, or (at least eventually) any web browser, including the one on my iPad or iPhone 6+. I attempted to edit some code on my iPhone 6+, but while the IDE displayed within Safari ok, editing appears to be broken at this point. Judging by how well everything else is working, I expect that those geniuses at Particle will have this fixed before long.
I highly recommend taking a look at the Particle.io Photon.
Well done, Particle.io!