thethings.iO iOS APP Demo

This is a simple APP for iOS developers that shows how to use thethings.iO API for building their own APP. This demo App is far from a production ready app.

The App covers the following API endpints:

• Register a new app user
• Login an app user
• Link a think. This operation asociates an user's thing to the user app.
• Get the values of a resource
• Post resource values

You can get a thethings.iO freemium account. All the documentation is at APP development Dev Docs.

Setup

Set project

This project works with cocoapods. You should install cocoapods gem and the libraries using the following commands:

gem install cocoapods
pod install

Once installed you should open the .xcworkspace file instead of .xccodeproj.

Setup TheThings.io API

To get working this demo app you need to configure your Panel Account as follows:

1. Create a product with a temperature resource.
2. Activate a thing for this product and get the thingToken and the thingID.
3. Create an App with a temperature resource. Get the AppId.
4. Annotate at the Constants.h file the AppId,thingToken and thingID.

Currently, to build a mobile app you need a premium account. If you have a freemium account and you are interested in building an App, please contact to the team at hello @ thethings.io

If you need help to complete any of this steps, you have a detailed description documented at Premium Panel Dev Docs.

Register and login

Your first task is to implement a registration/login form. When you register a new user at thethings.iO Platform, the user is automatically logged in into the system, so a session token is returned. You will need to send this session token every time you make a call to our API from an APP.

Link a think

Once the user gets access to the app, he has to associate their things in order to have access to the device data.

This procedure needs a thingToken (or the thingId) and a sessionToken. And it requires some kind of direct communication between the app and the thing. For example, when setting up the wifi for the thing and the ssid and password are sent to the thing, it’s a good moment to ask for the thingToken of the thing. With this thingToken, the App will be able to do the REST call to link the think to the user and store the relation at the platform.

Note that in order to link the thing the user must be logged in and the thing must be activated (i.e. have a thingToken)

At this demo, we have simplified this procedure hardcoding a thingToken at the constants.h file. On a production App, you'll have to ask the user for the thingToken or use other strategies to get the token (this is a decision of the product designer, contact at hello @ thethings.io for support on this topic).

Post and get a resource value

The App is a simple Thermostat temperature controller. You can increase or decrease the temperature of your recently created virtual Thermostast. Once you have linked your device, the app reads the last value stored and then you can modify the temperature. Every time you click on the + or - button the app sends to our cloud the new value.

You can see at our panel a graph that shows the evolution of the temperature.

At this demo, the thingId that you need to do the POST is harcoded at the Constants.h file. But the right way to get the device's thingId from an App is to use the endpoint GET Resources: https://api.thethings.io/v2/me/resources. This endpoint lists the user's resources and thingsId. ex:

[
  {
    "name" : "temperature",
    "things" : ["thingId1", "thingId2"]
  },
  {
    "name": "another resource name",
    "things" : ["thingId2", "thingId3", ...]
  },
  ...
]