Particle, a cloud platform for Internet of Things has added official support for the Raspberry Pi.
With the popularity of IoT projects on the Pi, the world’s most popular low-cost computer seems a natural fit for the world’s most popular IoT platform.
“Particle is a scalable, reliable, and secure Internet of Things device platform” comments Jonathan Gladbach, Particle’s Head of Growth. It "enables businesses to quickly and easily build, connect, and manage their connected solutions."
You can sign up for a free account on the Particle website and download the software to your Pi running Raspbian.
With an account, you can use either the Particle Build web IDE or Particle Dev desktop application. You can then select your remote device and program it. It offers access to numerous community libraries.
Particle is popular
“Particle’s tools are now used by 70,000 engineers in more than 170 countries,” says Jonathan. “[They] are being used by many Fortune 500 companies to develop and manage fleets of new IoT products.”
A key feature is the ability to run Arduino Wiring code on the Raspberry Pi. This makes it much easier to hook up electronics components to the cloud. You can then control them using a Raspberry Pi.
“No more complicated tooling, setup, or scripting to perform simple tasks like trigger a pin, blink an LED, or read a sensor value,” explains Jonathan. “With Particle’s Raspberry Pi Agent, you can now program in C and C++, making these tasks easy.”
Webhooks are tightly integrated into Particle’s event system. Projects can be integrated with IFTTT, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
Use cases for Particle include home automation, remote monitoring, resource management, triggers and buttons, and asset tracking.
The Particle website includes Raspberry Pi tutorials to get you up and running with suggested projects, including a security camera. Check out Adafruit’s demo video, too.
