Hello everyone! Has anyone tried to make a pop3 email checker with the Spark Core? Would be interested in seeing some example code.
not without SSL support, you’d have to be crazy
I guess that was a pretty valid question from @ChrisE given that he might be a beginner?
you'd have to be crazy doesn’t seem really helpful IMO.
We are all here to learn and grow as a community and we should be more mindful of how we approach the questions i guess? 
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If wanting to learn makes me crazy, so be it…
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hey ChrisE, a possible solution is having a script on a website that you could request and that script would do the heavy lifting with SSL, the spark core has a limitation with SSL because of the memory requirements. It might not be ideal but it is a workaround 
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Thanks Iv4n, I will try that.
@Iv4n, @ChrisE this is exactly what you need to do… for now. @bko may have some great advice on this as well. There are plans in the works that will make it possible for you to create cloud “workers” that your spark will call to do its SSL (and other) heavy lifting. There is no ETA as of yet, but is is coming!
Oh… that sounds cool and extremely useful.
Some (many?) e-mail providers will still allow you to do unencrypted POP3 over TCP port 110. SMTP can sometimes be a pain depending on your ISP, though. Both protocols were initially plain-text (and still are on ports 110 and 25), but POP3S and SMTPS (their SSL-encrypted counterparts) are definitely becoming more prevalent.
To that end, however, I would recommend you set up a “worker” somewhere, whether it be on a server/site you have access to, or via the Spark cloud when it becomes available. I’m sure web and e-mail will be two of the first set of workers created that everyone can share!
Sometimes your ISP will let you access pop3 without SSL/TLS on your side their network (not from outside the ISP’s network). I know lots of ISPs do that for SMTP (mail transmit) so that devices like printers/scanners that can email documents.
You should check your ISP for instructions on setting up emails from a printer/scanner.
Webhooks or workers, the coming Spark feature should handle this when it comes. You can setup your own host to do that now as a temporary solution.
suggesting that people use unencrypted logins or 3rd party proxies isn't really helpful IMO
Hi @sej7278
I guess it depends–my personal email on the general internet, you are right I probably wouldn’t risk it.
But what if my house has an email account just for the purpose of providing status and logging sensor data. Within certain limits, I can see how this could work.
Lots of organizations likes churches and clubs have RSS feeds for their events. This could be a similar idea with a different medium, email. Email is a lot easier to set up and more familiar to folks than would be setting up an RSS feed, even though both are easy for the tech savvy. And when you have multiple contributors, they just send email to the org’s account.
I think you are right to urge caution, but there are times I think it would be OK.
That was my initial thought more or less. I have a asp.net web service that receives orders. I thought of sending order status emails to a dummy email address that I could check from the Spark. But of course there are better ways to do it… I could send a POST directly to the spark… I just realized The idea is to have some party sounds and lights every time an order arrives… Well I am new to all this… but already in love with the Core. Such clever little thing!
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