Update from Farm-Team: Main hub server part 2 (introducing the ioBroker)

In our proposal we had planned to use Eclipse Kura project as our main gateway platform. Due to a change in our team structure we (the farm team) were short of a second developer.

At the beginning, and during the first tests we were using an open source message broker called the ioBroker as our main gateway platform. With the submission deadline advancing we decided to stick to the ioBroker as we had prior experience with it and already had configured the server which gave us all the features we needed.

The ioBroker is a Node.js based open source platform which is ARM and x86/x64 compatible. It integrates a lot of other open source nodes (adapters) and provides us with the following features:

• Object and state management: Data retention and management
• Node-RED: Quick prototyping and an easy way to wire up all of the devices, listener, APIs, etc). 
• Easy remote system administration with a web application
• User management, multiple UI possibilities and much more... (see our next blog posts)

The Github page states the following:
"ioBroker is an integration platform for the Internet of Things, focused on Building Automation, Smart Metering, Ambient Assisted Living, Process Automation, Visualization and Data Logging. It like a software f.e. fhem, OpenHABor the thing system."

See Github link below

Installing the ioBroker on the Raspberry Pi

A detailed set of instructions can be found here. Please note that the Raspberry Pi (1) needs a different version of Node.js than the one provided in the Raspbian repositories. 

After installing the ioBroker you should be able to start it by call the iobroker script in your ioBroker root directory. This script basicall calls the iobroker.js-controller (controller.js) script with Node.js. Make sure that you have a symbolic link from "node" to "nodejs". You can check this by typing:

node -v 

on your command line.

Otherwise add the symbolic link with:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

If everything is good you can start the iobroker with

iobroker start

Go to http://<youripadress>:8081/

You should see the iobroker.admin web application.

Installing Node-RED:

One can easily install Node-RED from the admin web app:

or in the command line (iobroker root directory):

iobroker install <adapter> (in this case the adapter is called iobroker.node-red)

or you can directly install it by using npm:

npm install iobroker.node-red

Other adapters (nodes) can be installed in the same way.

Administrating your adapters (nodes aka instances)

This can be done from the instances tab in the admin web interface:

Or from the command line interface:

Links:
https://github.com/iobroker/iobroker
https://www.npmjs.com/package/iobroker.node-red
https://nodered.org/
http://www.iobroker.net/?page_id=5106&lang=de