The ThingBox Project - A ready to flash Raspberry Pi image that contains node-RED

[NiS]

Hi,

A team at fundatrix provides today part of their work: a free Pi image that anybody can flash without linux knowledge.

We believe this can lower the difficulties to make node-RED work embedded on a small device like the PI and thus make much more 

people enter into the Internet of Things world.

Can someone test it?

Don't hesitate to use the form on the site to report bugs with the image, missing parts in the documentation or to suggest new ideas for the next release.

Here it is: http://TheThingbox.io

Nicolas

Fundatrix.com

[Paul Reed]

Hi Nicolas, great idea, I'm sure it will help a lot of people venture into Node-red.

As Node-red is a rapidly developing product, what is in place within the image to update Node-red? for example was it installed via 'Git', so users can run a git pull to bring the installation up to date.

Oh, and nice, clear & concise website!

Paul 

[Nicholas O'Leary]

Hi Nicolas,

that looks very interesting - I know a couple of others who have created precanned images like this, but you've done a very nice job on the packaging.

I think Paul asks a good question on how exactly you're provide Node-RED on there. I'm also interested to know what version of node.js you're providing?

Nick

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[Doukas Charalampos]

Hi, 

Just installed it and played with it for a while. It runs Node-RED 0.6.0 and mosquitto 1.2.3. By default you get the broker and Node-RED running so you can simply access the UI from your browser. Beyond that you need to remotely login and use the terminal for additional things, like upgrades, installing node-red-nodes, restarting Node-RED, etc.

There is a root user already (I think the default pi/raspberry username/password does not work) with raspberry as a password (also mentioned in the thingbox faq). It's really a nice idea and a neat way to easily get started with Node-RED, can be very handy when e.g., you need to do a workshop and want to avoid all the hassle of installed node.js, etc.

There is space for improvements, like maybe a separate web interface for console errors or for installing node-red-nodes automatically or for upgrading, but at some point you would still need to do things through the terminal.

Overall it's a great work!

[NiS]

We got an enthousiast feeback for this project, with many ways for improvement!. Do not hesitate to send ideas to the team (using the form or thethingbox at gmail.com)  that works hard to enhance the thingbox.

Nicolas

Fundatrix.com

TheThingbox.io

 

[Dave C-J]

Hi 

are there explicit instructions for Linux (Ubuntu) - I tried creating an image with dd - but it fails to boot - nothing on HDMI monitor.

Having failed to boot it I can't check if you have the WiringPi stuff pre-installed... hopefully you have.

[thomas.s...@digitalairways.com]

Hi,
thanks for the feedback.

wiringpi is not installed yet but it will in the next release.

Have you tried to flash an other SD card ? We also had a problem with one of our SD card to boot on it.

[Dave C-J]

Hi,

yes I have tried a  8GB full size SD  card and also a Sandisk 8GB micro SD in an adapter - both of which boot other images OK

If I run

sudo dd if=TheThingBox.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M conv=notrunc

968+1 records in

968+1 records out

1015808000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 79.8616 s, 12.7 MB/s

I can then remount it and see two partitions as expected - but it refuses to boot - Am I expecting anything on the HDMI monitor ?

[Dave C-J]

Hi

Ok - it does / was booting... but you are forcing full HD 1920x1080 HDMI - and the monitor I was using couldn't handle it... 

On my home network none of my (non Apple) machine can just browse to  thethingbox:1880 

I had to do a network scan to find it.

Installing  avahi-utils  will make it much more findable as it would then resolve to thethingbox.local 

PS - we just released v 0.7.0 ;-)

[Dave C-J]

I think you can "fix" the HDMi - or at least make it more likely to work more often by setting

hdmi_safe=1

 in /boot/config.txt

PS - another good app to pre-install is raspi-config  that provides a simple menu for setting various basic things that people may want.

[thomas.s...@digitalairways.com]

Thanks for the fix and your involvement.

We will release soon a new version with this fix and other features (wiringPi, nodered with git ... ).

We have some change to do for raspi-config, for the expand system script.

Thomas Silberzahn,
http://thethingbox.io/

[NiS]

Hi,

Just to notice you that we released today an updated version of TheThingBox that contains the new Node-RED (and some other stuff).

We are working now on the next one!

Nicolas

http://TheThingBox.io

What's New:

* Added Wiring pi and two nodes on node-RED : rpi-gpio

* Added a node to send emails

* Node-RED 0.7.1 now installed using Git to facilitate updates

* Added a pi user, login : pi and password : raspberry It’s not a root account but you can use sudo commands.

* Installed some commands like gcc, make and sudo.

[Dave C-J]

Hi,

if you start Node-RED using nohup... you could redirect the output log to a web socket 

eg - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3499152/minimum-websocket-nodejs-tail-example

(note that they do point out some problems that ought to be fixed)

Of course you could do it within Node-RED - but it would be safer as a separate process in case Node-RED is the one one that hangs... at least then you could still see the concole voa the web.

[NiS]

There is a new version of theThingBox.

Nicolas 

theThingBox.io

What's New

========

• Some new nodes:

  • watch :
    • File change notification.
  • serial :
    • Node to use serial port.
  • feedparse :
    • Node to resolves relative URLs and properly handles XML namespaces.
  • arduino :
    • Allows arduino controls from node-red.
  • redis :
    • Redis client for node.js.
  • mongodb :
    • A node.js driver for mongodb.
  • json2xml :
    • This node allows to parse Json objects into XML.
  • Carriots :
    • Allows the user to have a mailbox in which he can store all types of data.
  • Emoncms :
    • Node which allows to store data and create easily dashboard.
  • Esendex :
    • Node which allows to send SMS.
  • Evrythng :
    • Allows the user to create properties for a Thng and give them a value. This properties can be seen thanks to graphs.
  • Exosite :
    • Allows the user to send and store data sent about a created device.
  • HiveMQ input and output :
    • Public MQTT server where it’s possible to subscribe or publish.
  • Owntracks :
    • Node which subscribe to your location topic on a HiveMQ server.
  • Thingspeak :
    • Allows the user to have 8 graphs. Data of graphs can be import/export in csv files.
  • Tinamous :
    • Allows the user to have 12 graph for each device. Each graph can be download in jpeg, png, pdf or svg format.
  • Ubidots :
    • Allows the user to have graphs. They can be export to csv format.
  • Xively :
    • Allows the user to create some graphs that display data with several display options.

• Added module wiring-pi :

Module wiring-pi, g++ and python has been installed.

• Console file :

A new button has been added on node-red. In the dropdown menu, you have the button called “console” which corresponds to the file console.txt.

This file is overwritten every time node-red is launched. It’s the node-red console when this one is launched. With that file, you can see if there was problems, for example : a node doesn’t work because it needs a module.

• Small change in the visual interface.

• Node-RED v0.7.2

• Node.js v0.10.28

 

[Mark Setrem]

I must admit I'm now confused!

The list of new nodes appears to be a mix of nodes from https://github.com/node-red/node-red-nodes and some new ones.

But there doesn't appear to be anyway of downloading just the additional nodes ( I checked your website and also looked at the pull requests on https://github.com/node-red/node-red-nodes )

So the only way of looking at the functionality of the additional nodes is to download the whole thingbox?

[Dave C-J]

Yes

it would be nice if they decide to contribute those extra nodes to the community, either via the node-red-nodes project or their own github project (or indeed any other provider). But for now it's their own extra sauce, which seems to be trying to connect to / integrate with as many IoT platforms as possible - not a bad aspiration to have. So yes right now you have to go get their image and try it.

[chris mobberley]

I have to agree, in the spirit of opensourcenesssss .. id love to see new nodes commited to the official repo so I can download them also on my Pi's

[Paul Reed]

Not only that, but by doing so, it also open the opportunity for others to enhance/further develop the nodes, as well as reassurance of the code integrity. 

If the nodes are not drawn into the main repo, we could well end up with situation where we have different versions (& authors) of nodes doing exactly the same thing, which would not really be helpful.

Paul

[Nicholas O'Leary]

We have no requirement for people to contribute nodes back to the node-red-nodes repository. In fact, once we have npm installable nodes, the idea of a single github repository for them all no longer works.

We've discussed before the need to make nodes discoverable when they don't exist in the central repo. We will have a searchable index of the nodes that authors can share their nodes on regardless of where they are hosted.

As for the extra nodes in the ThingBox, I hope they do find a way to share them back with the community so everyone benefits.

Nick

Not only that, but by doing so, it also open the opportunity for others to enhance/further develop the nodes, as well as reassurance of the code integrity. 

If the nodes are not drawn into the main repo, we could well end up with situation where we have different versions (& authors) of nodes doing exactly the same thing, which would not really be helpful.

Paul

--

[NiS]

Are we far from that?

> In fact, once we have npm installable nodes, the idea of a single github repository for them all no longer works.

We've discussed before the need to make nodes discoverable when they don't exist in the central repo. 

TheThingBox.io "new nodes" are not "really" new: their are simple copies of existing nodes. They help non technical people since they don't need to be edited but we don't think they are of any interrest for the main repository power users.

If you think there is an interrest, we can share (just say where).

Nicolas

Fundatrix.com

[theth...@gmail.com]

TheThingBox Project team is proud to unveil a new release that includes the new 0.8.1 Node-Red.

This release allows anyone interested in the Internet of Things to install and use the latest version of Node-RED on a Raspberry-Pi without technical knowledge.

Find it at http://TheThingbox.io

[sharath...@gmail.com]

On Monday, April 14, 2014 at 1:51:27 AM UTC+5:30, NiS wrote:

Hi,

I am sharath ,I am new to raspberrypi, but i have used thingbox image. Now i have problem that i am using raspberry pi with tft touch screen and if i burn this image i would lose the drivers of lcd touch screen and if  I  use the other image file , I would lose the thing box .so please provide me a step by step procedure how to install thing box in to my raspberry pi without the image file.I have got the touchscreen drivers with an rasbian os image file which has pre-installed touch screen drivers.so please help me in solving this problem . 

                         Thank u 

[Mark Setrem]

This is the NodeRed forum.

If you want to install NodeRed onto the Rasbian image you are using with your touch screen it is fully documented on the website.  http://nodered.org/docs/hardware/raspberrypi.html

If you really wish to use the thingbox image I would suggest you contact them via the support contact suggested on their website.