Non-sparkdevices running sparkdevices code?

Hi;

i was wondering about the following;
i have a lot of arduinos. the unos, the megas, the dues, a lot of different ones. they are all using nrf2401l to chat to eachother.

i have now purchased a batch of 10 sparkdevices. is there any way i can integrate my other arduinos in this mesh?

thanks!

I think probably the easiest way to do this would be to add an NRF2401L to one of the Cores so that the mesh network can be brought into the Spark system through one of the Cores. Definitely something for us to think about as a potential Shield…

thanks Zach;

i think it’s more of a type of question aimed at, can i run the spark code on my “normal” arduino as well thus making this a really universal piece of software?

Zach is the only one who can answer this for certain, but I’d imagine as the Spark Cloud is open source, you’d have to run it yourself to connect to your other devices, as I don’t think the free solution provided by Spark will run on non-Spark devices.

@henriquepss Yes, this is generally correct, although I will also say that it’s not an issue we’ve totally worked out yet.

You can run the local Spark Cloud and have your Arduinos connect to it, and that should all be well and good. If you want to connect them through our Spark Cloud, we don’t currently have a solution in place for this. I’d like to implement some sort of system where you can pay some small fee (a couple of bucks) to “provision” access to the Spark Cloud for your non-Spark devices (an Arduino or anything else with a microcontroller and an internet connection).

Is this something that folks might be interested in?

Yes! I guess for my own selfish reasons, I would like to be able to make my own board to fit my needs, upload the software and access it through the Spark Cloud. I am lucky enough to have all those tools at my disposal. I currently work for a funded kickstarter project (http://nodesensors.com) doing hardware design. Nice design on the board!

@zach;
I guess I’m not making my point correctly;
i’ve got a load of arduinos (those things go off dirt cheap, starting at 8 dollars and up to 14 for a mega), some really cheap soldering boards and nrf2401ls and i’m playing with a mesh.
and yes, you could say i’m cheap :smile:

so i have all this, I also ordered 10 spark devices, so yes, I think I’m a decent backer :smile:

the one thing i did not think about, and is now going to bite me in my behind, is that i am risking to have 2 completely disconnected clouds. my spark cloud and my other devices cloud. which means i will have to spend time and effort to make them talk to eachother.
it would be great and a true hommage to open source if you would say, oh, and here’s how you can make the spark cloud talk to other arduino devices.

if that means i have to run my own local linux server or windows server, that looks like a very reasonable thing to do. i don’t see why you should be providing server capacity for things that are not your product.

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@korneel Understood, and you’re definitely a good backer! The thing you should keep in mind is that we’re really talking about two different networks: the Spark network is an internet-based network, using IP-based standards. Your NRF2401L network is a mesh network, using a completely different set of standards. So if you want the two to interface, you need some kind of bridge between the two networks. I think the easiest way to do this would be to connect one of your NRF2401L nodes to one of your Spark Cores over UART, and use serial communications to bridge the two networks.

@zach
yup, that makes sense :slight_smile: but i’m now thinking if i could make any arduino talk to a local spark cloud, why not simply exchange my thrown together shields by actual wi-fi shields :smile:

i have no use for disjointed networks, so if something like this would be released, that would be great

anyway, i believe there were plans to release the spark cloud to run locally, are there any timelines on that?

I suppose you could do that, but wouldn’t it be more expensive to add Wi-Fi shields to your Arduinos than to simply replace them with Spark Cores?

In any case, we’ll be releasing the local Spark Cloud in September, when we deliver the Core.

The node is very cool. It looks like an apple designed sensordrone :smile:

let me revive this conversation now we know more …

considering the firmware, would it be possible to compile this for existing arduino’s?
i’m running mostly mega’s, and have a bit of a strange http post/get system setup to make them communicate, would be great if i could simply use the spark cloud for that.

what are your thoughts?

i know, shameless kick, but still no answer…

I have 2 very simple questions I guess;
1)If I have arduino devices with either a ethernet or wifi connection to my network, can I add those to my sparkcloud?
2)when will the spark cloud be released, is there a beta version available?

@korneel sorry for the delay!

  1. In theory, yes - but the STM32 does have to do a bit of heavy lifting to handle encryption. We might open up a non-encrypted path for super low power stuff like an 8-bit Arduino. We do plan to make the Cloud portable to other hardware, and we’d love to make it work with an Arduino, but we don’t have this one totally figured out yet.

  2. The Spark Cloud will go live for everyone when the Cores are released in October. Beta testers have access through their beta Spark Cores but that’s all we’ve opened up so far; it takes a lot of hand-holding to work with the beta before we’ve documented everything, so we can’t open it up more broadly quite yet.

Hope that helps!

that is great news Zach!

i have quite the amount of Arduino’s and network shields\wifi shields and other hardware handy and would love to work with you on getting this to work.
I also have quite the server farm at home, so running the cloud locally is not an issue :smile:

encryption is not high on my wishlist since it will all run locally. would you be interested in working on this with me? I have 10 sparkcores coming in, and have approx 15 “normal” arduinos at home already

@zach
just a quick bump, you might have missed this, since I have arduinos lying around and connected all over the place, could I help testing these connecting to the spark cloud? I can easily fire up servers or whatever you need to get this testing done. I think it would be a great addition if you could launch with a cloud of things :smile:

@korneel We’re still doing a lot of development work on both the Cloud and the communications library for communicating with the Cloud, so unfortunately I don’t think it’s ready for this kind of testing. October! :slight_smile:

@zach
did you miss me? :wink:
it’s october :slight_smile: would love to do some testing… i have a server ready to run some code :smile:
Korneel

Coming soon; patience :slight_smile:

@zach ; first of all, great progress!

second, is the original plan of adding non-spark core devices (just regular arduino’s or arduino mega’s with an ethernet shield or wifi shield) still a go?