Get Started with Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit - SparkFun Thingdev

services	platforms	author
iot-hub, stream-analytics, event-hubs, web-apps, documentdb, storage-accounts	arduino	hegate

Get Started with Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit - SparkFun Thingdev

This page contains technical information to help you get familiar with Azure IoT using the Azure IoT Starter Kit - SparkFun Thingdev. You will find two tutorials that will walk you through different scenarios. The first tutorial will show you how to connect your Azure IoT Starter kit to our Remote Monitoring preconfigured solution from Azure IoT Suite. In the second tutorial, you will leverage Azure IoT services to create your own IoT solution.

You can choose to start with whichever tutorial you want to. If you've never worked with Azure IoT services before, we encourage you to start with the Remote Monitoring solution tutorial, because all of the Azure services will be provisioned for you in a built-in preconfigured solution. Then you can explore how each of the services work by going through the second tutorial.

We hope you enjoy the tutorials! Please provide feedback if there's anything that we can improve.

Don't have a kit yet?: Click here

Running a Simple Remote Monitoring Solution with the SparkFun Thingdev
Using Microsoft Azure IoT to Process and Use Sensor Data to Indicate Abnormal Temperatures

Running a Simple Remote Monitoring Solution with the SparkFun Thingdev

This tutorial describes the process of taking your SparkFun Thingdev kit, and using it to develop a temperature, humidity and pressure reader that can communicate with the cloud using the Microsoft Azure IoT SDK.

1.1 Tutorial Overview
1.2 Before Starting
- 1.2.1 Required Software
- 1.2.2 Required Hardware
1.3 Create a New Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring solution and Add Device
1.4 Connect the DHT22 Sensor Module to your Device
1.5 Add the SparkFun Thingdev to the Arduino IDE
1.6 Install Library Dependencies
1.7 Modify the Remote Monitoring Sample
1.8 Build Your Remote Monitoring Sample
1.9 View the Sensor Data from the Remote Monitoring Portal
1.10 Next steps

1.1 Tutorial Overview

In this tutorial, you'll be doing the following:

Setting up your environment on Azure using the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring preconfigured solution, getting a large portion of the set-up that would be required done in one step.
Setting your device and sensors up so that it can communicate with both your computer, and Azure IoT.
Updating the device code sample to include our connection data and send it to Azure to be viewed remotely.

1.2 Before Starting

1.2.1 Required Software

Arduino IDE, version 1.6.8. from www.arduino.cc (Earlier versions will not work with the AzureIoT library)
Sensor interface library from Adafruit

1.2.2 Required Hardware

SparkFun Thingdev kit
- A microB USB cable
- A desktop or laptop computer which can run Arduino IDE 1.6.8

1.3 Create a New Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring solution and Add Device

Log in to Azure IoT Suite with your Microsoft account and click Create a New Preconfigured Solution

Note: For first time users, click here to get your Azure free trial which gives you 200USD of credit to get started.

Click select in the Remote Monitoring option
Type in a solution name. For this tutorial we’ll be using “SparkFunSuite” (You will have to name it something else. Make it unique. I.E. "ContosoSample")
Choose your subscription and desired region to deploy, then click Create Solution
Wait for Azure to finish provisioning your IoT suite (this process may take up to 10 minutes), and then click Launch

Note: You may be asked to log back in. This is to ensure your solution has proper permissions associated with your account.

Open the link to your IoT Suite’s “Solution Dashboard.” You may have been redirected there already.
This opens your personal remote monitoring site at the URL <Your Azure IoT Hub suite name>.azurewebsites.net (e.g. SparkFunSuite.azurewebsites.net)
Click Add a Device at the lower left hand corner of your screen
Add a new custom device
Enter your desired device ID. In this case we’ll use “SparkFun_w_DHT22”, and then click Check ID
If Device ID is available, go ahead and click Create
Make note of your device ID, Device Key, and IoT Hub Hostname to enter into the code you’ll run on your device later

Note: The Remote Monitoring solution provisions a set of Azure IoT Services in your Azure account. To avoid unnecessary consumption, you may want to disable the simulated devices created with the solution (go to the devices tab, select the device simulators one by one and click on deactivate in the left menu. And once you are all done with the solution you can completely remove it from your subscription from the azureiotsuite.com portal.

For additional reference, refer to the following:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/iot-suite-remote-monitoring-sample-walkthrough/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/iot-suite-connecting-devices/

1.4 Connect the DHT22 Sensor Module to your Device

Using this image as a reference, connect your DHT22 and SparkFun Thingdev to the breadboard

Note: Column on the left corresponds to sensor and on the Right to board. On the image, the board is place between 10 and 30 and sensor between 1 and 9.

For sensor pins, we will use the following wiring:

Start	End	Cable Color
VDD (Pin 1G)	Pin 24J	Red cable
DATA (Pin 2G)	Pin 23J	White cable
GND (Pin 4G)	Pin 25A	Black cable

Start	End	Connector
DHT22 (Pin 1I)	DHT22 (Pin 4I)	DHT22
NULL (Pin 2H)	Pin 1F	330 Ohm Resistor

For more information, see: Adafruit DHT22 sensor setup.

At the end of your work, your SparkFun Thingdev should be connected with a working sensor. We'll test it in the next sections.

1.5 Add the SparkFun Thingdev to the Arduino IDE

You will need to install the SparkFun Thingdev board extension for the Arduino IDE:

Follow the instructions here. There you will see how to add a URL pointing to Spark's repository of board extensions, how to make the SparkFun Thingdev board selectable under the Tools menu, and how to get the Blink sketch to run.

1.6 Install Library Dependencies

For this project, we'll also need the the following libraries:

DHT Sensor Library
Adafruit Sensor Library
Adafruit DHT Unified

To install them, click on the Sketch -> Include Library -> Manage Libraries. Search for each library using the box in the upper-right to filter your search, click on the found library, and click the "Install" button.

We will also need the latest Azure IoT Library.

Go to https://github.com/stefangordon/AzureIoT/ and follow the instructions under "Adafruit Feather M0"

Lastly we will also need the latest esp8266 Arduino library

Visit https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino and follow the instructions for "Using git version"
- Make sure you're using Python 2.7.x!

1.7 Modify the Remote Monitoring sample

Unzip the example code, and double-click the file remote_monitoring.ino to open the project in the Arduino IDE.
You will be prompted to creat a folder. Do this, and move the other files in the folder into the newly created child folder
In the project, look for the following lines of code:

static const char ssid[] = "[Your WiFi network SSID or name]";
static const char pass[] = "[Your WiFi network WPA password or WEP key]";

Replace the placeholders with your WiFi name (SSID), WiFi password, and the device connection string you created at the beginning of this tutorial.
Save with Control-s
Open up the file remote_monitoring.c
Look for the following lines of code and replace the placeholders connection information (this is the Device information that you obtained in the Remote Monitoring console):

static const char* deviceId = "[device-id]";
static const char* deviceKey = "[device-key]";
static const char* hubName = "[hub-name]";
static const char* hubSuffix = "azure-devices.net";

Save with Control-s

1.8 Build Your Remote Monitoring Sample

Double-click the reset button (located by the USB input) on the SparkFun Thingdev to put it in boot-loader mode. The red LED will fade in and out to show bootload mode.
On windows, the COM port will disconnect, and a new one will appear. Use Tools -> Port -> COM to re-select it.
Build and upload the code using Sketch -> Upload.

Note: As of 1.6.8, the Arduino IDE doesn't properly show "Upload Completed", even when it succeeds.

There should now be a green LED on your SparkFun Thingdev. Re-select the COM port if necessary, and then open the Serial Monitor. After 15 seconds you should see a measurements update.

Note: When first starting you will likely see a “Fetching NTP epoch time failed” error – This is normal, and it trying to sync with Azure. This can take even up to 30 seconds to find a NTP server to sync with. One it is synced, it should start transmitting from there.

1.9 View the Sensor Data from the Remote Monitoring Portal

Once you have the sample running, visit your dashboard by visiting azureiotsuite.com and clicking “Launch” on your solution
Make sure the “Device to View” in the upper right is set to your device
If the demo is running, you should see the graph change as your data updates in real time!

Note: Make sure to stop your remote monitoring solution once you have completed this to avoid unnecesary Azure consumption!

1.10 Next steps

Please visit our Azure IoT Dev Center for more samples and documentation on Azure IoT.

Using Microsoft Azure IoT Services to Identify Temperature Anomalies

This tutorial describes the process of taking your Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit for the SparkFun Thingdev, and using it to develop a temperature and humidity reader that can communicate with the cloud using the Microsoft Azure IoT SDK.

2.1 Tutorial Overview
2.2 Before Starting
- 2.2.1 Required Software
- 2.2.2 Required Hardware
2.3 Connect the Sensor Module to your Device
2.4 Create a New Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and Add Device
2.5 Create an Event Hub
2.6 Create a Storage Account for Table Storage
2.7 Create a Stream Analytics job to Save IoT Data in Table Storage and Raise Alerts
2.8 Node Application Setup
2.9 Add the SparkFun Thingdev to the Arduino IDE
2.10 Install Library Dependencies
2.11 Modify the Command Center Sample
2.12 Build Your Command Center Sample
2.13 Next steps

2.1 Tutorial Overview

This tutorial has the following steps:

Provision an IoT Hub instance on Microsoft Azure and adding your device.
Prepare the device, get connected to the device, and set it up so that it can read sensor data.
Configure your Microsoft Azure IoT services by adding Event Hub, Storage Account, and Stream Analytics resources.
Prepare your local web solution for monitoring and sending commands to your device.
Update the sample code to respond to commands and include the data from our sensors, sending it to Microsoft Azure to be viewed remotely.

2.2 Before Starting

2.2.1 Required Software

Git - For cloning the required repositories
Node.js - For running the Node application
Arduino IDE, version 1.6.8. (Earlier versions will not work with the Azure IoT library)
Sensor interface library from Adafruit.

2.2.2 Required Hardware

SparkFun Thingdev IoT kit
- A microB USB cable
- A desktop or laptop computer which can run Arduino IDE 1.6.8

2.3 Connect the Sensor Module to your Device

Using this image as a reference, connect your DHT22 and SparkFun Thingdev to the breadboard

Note: Column on the left corresponds to sensor and on the Right to board. On the image, the board is place between 10 and 30 and sensor between 1 and 9. Additionally, when counting the - pins, start from the right and count in, as these do not align with the numbers indicated on the board.

Start	End	Cable Color
VDD (Pin 1G)	Pin 24J	Red cable
Pin 19A	Pin 6A	Red cable
DATA (Pin 2G)	Pin 23J	White cable
GND (Pin 4G)	Pin 1-	Black cable
GND (Pin 25A)	Pin 21-	Black cable
Pin 20A	Pin 3A	Green cable

Start	End	Connector
DHT22 (Pin 1I)	DHT22 (Pin 4I)	DHT22
NULL (Pin 2H)	Pin 1F	330 Ohm Resistor
GRN LED (Pin 2C)	Pin 3C	Green LED
RED LED (Pin 5C)	Pin 6C	Red LED

For more information, see: Adafruit DHT22 sensor setup.

At the end of your work, your SparkFun Thingdev should be connected with a working sensor. We'll test it in the next sections.

2.4 Create a New Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and Add Device

To create your Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and add a device, follow the instructions outlined in the Setup IoT Hub Microsoft Azure Iot SDK page.
After creating your device, make note of your connection string to enter into the code you’ll run on your device later

2.5 Create an Event Hub

Event Hub is an Azure IoT publish-subscribe service that can ingest millions of events per second and stream them into multiple applications, services or devices.

Log on to the Microsoft Azure Portal
Click on New -> Internet of Things-> Event Hub
After being redirected, click "Custom Create", Enter the following settings for the Event Hub (use a name of your choice for the event hub and the namespace):
- Event Hub Name: thingdevEventHub
- Region: Your choice
- Subscription: Your choice
- Namespace Name: Your Project Namespace, in our case “SparkFun2Suite”
Click the arrow to continue.
Choose to create 4 partitions and retain messages for 7 days.
Click the check at the bottom right hand corner to create your event hub.
Click on your SparkFun2Suite service bus (what you named your service bus)
Click on the Event Hubs tab
Select the thingdevEventHub eventhub and go in the Configure tab in the Shared Access Policies section, add a new policy:
- Name = readwrite
- Permissions = Send, Listen
Click Save at the bottomof the page, then click the Dashboard tab near the top and click on Connection Information at the bottom
Copy down the connection string for the readwrite policy you created.
From the your IoT Hub Settings (The Resource that has connected dots) on the Microsoft Azure Portal, click the Messaging blade (found in your settings), write down the Event Hub-compatible name
Look at the Event-hub-compatible Endpoint, and write down this part: sb://thispart.servicebus.windows.net/ we will call this one the IoTHub EventHub-compatible namespace

2.6 Create a Storage Account for Table Storage

Now we will create a service to store our data in the cloud.

Log on to the Microsoft Azure Portal
In the menu, click New and select Data + Storage then Storage Account
Choose Classic for the deployment model and click on Create
Enter the name of your choice (We chose thingdevstorage) for the account name, Standard-RAGRS for the type, choose your subscription, select the resource group you created earlier, then click on Create
Once the account is created, find it in the resources blade or click on the pinned tile, go to Settings, Keys, and write down the primary connection string.

2.7 Create a Stream Analytics job to Save IoT Data in Table Storage and Raise Alerts

Stream Analytics is an Azure IoT service that streams and analyzes data in the cloud. We'll use it to process data coming from your device.

Log on to the Microsoft Azure Portal
In the menu, click New, then click Internet of Things, and then click Stream Analytics Job
Enter a name for the job (We chose “SparkFunStorageJob”), a preferred region, then choose your subscription. At this stage you are also offered to create a new or to use an existing resource group. Choose the resource group you created earlier (In our case, SparkFun2Suite).
Once the job is created, open your Job’s blade or click on the pinned tile, and find the section titled “Job Topology” and click the Inputs tile. In the Inputs blade, click on Add
Enter the following settings:
- Input Alias = TempSensors
- Source Type = Data Stream
- Source = IoT Hub
- IoT Hub = SparkFun2Suite (use the name for the IoT Hub you create before)
- Shared Access Policy Name = iothubowner
- Shared Access Policy Key = The iothubowner primary key can be found in your IoT Hub Settings -> Shared access policies
- IoT Hub Consumer Group = "" (leave it to the default empty value)
- Event serialization format = JSON
- Encoding = UTF-8
Back to the Stream Analytics Job blade, click on the Query tile (next to the Inputs tile). In the Query settings blade, type in the below query and click Save:

SELECT
    DeviceId,
    EventTime,
    MTemperature as TemperatureReading
INTO
    TemperatureTableStorage
from TempSensors
WHERE
   DeviceId is not null
   and EventTime is not null

SELECT
    DeviceId,
    EventTime,
    MTemperature as TemperatureReading
INTO   
    TemperatureAlertToEventHub
FROM
    TempSensors
WHERE TemperatureReading>25

Note: You can change the 25 to 0 when you're ready to generate alerts to look at. This number represents the temperature in degrees celsius to check for when creating alerts. 25 degrees celsius is 77 degrees fahrenheit.

Back to the Stream Analytics Job blade, click on the Outputs tile and in the Outputs blade, click on Add
Enter the following settings then click on Create:
- Output Alias = TemperatureTableStorage
- Sink = Table Storage
- Storage account = thingdevstorage (The storage you made earlier)
- Storage account key = (The primary key for the storage account made earlier, can be found in Settings -> Keys -> Primary Access Key)
- Table Name = TemperatureRecords*Your choice - If the table doesn’t already exist, Local Storage will create it
- Partition Key = DeviceId
- Row Key = EventTime
- Batch size = 1
Back to the Stream Analytics Job blade, click on the Outputs tile, and in the Outputs blade, click on Add
Enter the following settings then click on Create:
- Output Alias = TemperatureAlertToEventHub
- Source = Event Hub
- Service Bus Namespace = SparkFun2Suite
- Event Hub Name = thingdeveventhub (The Event Hub you made earlier)
- Event Hub Policy Name = readwrite
- Event Hub Policy Key = Primary Key for readwrite Policy name (That's the one you wrote down after creating the event hub)
- Partition Key Column = 0
- Event Serialization format = JSON
- Encoding = UTF-8
- Format = Line separated
Back in the** Stream Analytics blade**, start the job by clicking on the **Start **button at the top

Note: Make sure to stop your Command Center jobs once you have completed this to avoid unnecesary Azure consumption!

2.8 Node Application Setup

If you do not have it already, install Node.js and NPM.
- Windows and Mac installers can be found here: https://nodejs.org/en/download/
  - Ensure that you select the options to install NPM and add to your PATH.
- Linux users can use the commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo apt-get install npm

Additionally, make sure you have cloned the project repository locally by issuing the following command in your desired directory:

git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/iot-hub-c-raspberrypi-getstartedkit.git

Open the command_center_node folder in your command prompt (cd path/to/command_center_node) and install the required modules by running the following:

npm install -g bower
npm install express nconf tough-cookie azure-event-hubs azure-iot-device azure-iot-device-amqp azure-iothub azure-storage body-parser
bower install

Open the config.json file and replace the information with your project

{
    "port": "3000",
    "eventHubName": "event-hub-name",
    "ehConnString": "Endpoint=sb://name.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=readwrite;SharedAccessKey=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa=",
    "deviceConnString": "HostName=name.azure-devices.net;DeviceId=device-id;SharedAccessKey=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa==",
    "iotHubConnString": "HostName=name.azure-devices.net;SharedAccessKeyName=owner;SharedAccessKey=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa=",
    "storageAcountName": "aaaaaaaaaaa",
    "storageAccountKey": "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa==",
    "storageTable": "storage-table-name"
}

Now it is time to run it! Enter the following command:

node server.js

You should then see something similar to:

app running on http://localhost:3000
client connected

Visit the url in your browser and you will see the Node app running!

To deploy this project to the cloud using Azure, you can reference Creating a Node.js web app in Azure App Service.

Next, we will update your device so that it can interact with all the things you just created.

2.9 Add the SparkFun Thingdev to the Arduino IDE

You will need to install the SparkFun Thingdev board extension for the Arduino IDE:

Follow the instructions here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-thing-development-board-hookup-guide. There you will see how to add a URL pointing to Spark's repository of board extensions, how to make the SparkFun Thingdev board selectable under the Tools menu, and how to get the Blink sketch to run.

2.10 Install Library Dependencies

For this project, we'll also need the the following libraries:

DHT Sensor Library
Adafruit Sensor Library
Adafruit DHT Unified

To install them, click on the Sketch -> Include Library -> Manage Libraries. Search for each library using the box in the upper-right to filter your search, click on the found library, and click the "Install" button.

We will also need the latest Azure IoT Library.

Go to https://github.com/stefangordon/AzureIoT/ and follow the instructions under "Adafruit Feather M0"

Lastly we will also need the latest esp8266 Arduino library

Visit https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino and follow the instructions for "Using git version"
- Make sure you're using Python 2.7.x!

2.11 Modify the Command Center sample

Unzip the example code, and double-click the file command_center.ino to open the project in the Arduino IDE.
You will be prompted to creat a folder. Do this, and move the other files in the folder into the newly created child folder
Look for the following lines of code:

static const char ssid[] = "[Your WiFi network SSID or name]";
static const char pass[] = "[Your WiFi network WPA password or WEP key]";
static const char* connectionString = "[Device Connection String]";

Replace the placeholders with your WiFi name (SSID), WiFi password, and the device connection string you created at the beginning of this tutorial.
Save with Control-s

2.12 Build Your Command Center Sample

Build and upload the code using Sketch -> Upload.

Note: As of 1.6.8, the Arduino IDE doesn't properly show "Upload Completed", even when it succeeds.

There should now be a green LED on your SparkFun Thingdev. Re-select the COM port if necessary, and then open the Serial Monitor. After 15 seconds you should see a measurements update.
Data is now being sent off at regular intervals to Microsoft Azure. When it detects something out of range, you will see the LED you’ve set up turn from green to red!

Head back and run your Node application and you will see the most recent updates and any alerts show up there.

Note: Make sure to stop your Command Center jobs in Stream Analytics once you have completed this to avoid unnecesary Azure consumption!

2.13 Next steps

Please visit our Azure IoT Dev Center for more samples and documentation on Azure IoT.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
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command_center		command_center
command_center_node		command_center_node
img		img
remote_monitoring		remote_monitoring
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md

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Get Started with Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit - SparkFun Thingdev

Running a Simple Remote Monitoring Solution with the SparkFun Thingdev

Table of Contents

1.1 Tutorial Overview

1.2 Before Starting

1.2.1 Required Software

1.2.2 Required Hardware

1.3 Create a New Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring solution and Add Device

1.4 Connect the DHT22 Sensor Module to your Device

1.5 Add the SparkFun Thingdev to the Arduino IDE

1.6 Install Library Dependencies

1.7 Modify the Remote Monitoring sample

1.8 Build Your Remote Monitoring Sample

1.9 View the Sensor Data from the Remote Monitoring Portal

1.10 Next steps

Using Microsoft Azure IoT Services to Identify Temperature Anomalies

Table of Contents

2.1 Tutorial Overview

2.2 Before Starting

2.2.1 Required Software

2.2.2 Required Hardware

2.3 Connect the Sensor Module to your Device

2.4 Create a New Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and Add Device

2.5 Create an Event Hub

2.6 Create a Storage Account for Table Storage

2.7 Create a Stream Analytics job to Save IoT Data in Table Storage and Raise Alerts

2.8 Node Application Setup

2.9 Add the SparkFun Thingdev to the Arduino IDE

2.10 Install Library Dependencies

2.11 Modify the Command Center sample

2.12 Build Your Command Center Sample

2.13 Next steps

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