Think & Create

Deploy App Engine for Arduino’s data logging.

Arduino is very easy to use for data logging. Instead of using external memory or computer, this Arduino board uses Google’s App Engine as its storage. So the data can be shared to the whole world instantly and uninterruptedly.

There are some services such as nimbits and Pachube. Both of them are easy to use. But there is a way to setup your own server.

Google App Engine (GAE) provides users a space to deploy their own programs. Now they support Python, Java and Go. The programs are used to handle the request from the clients, and generate proper response. So it is suitable for us to generate a site that handles the data from the Arduino, then save it into database for further use.

The GAE can be accessed by an http request. The IP address is fixed. But the application on the cloud can be distinguished by “Host” entry. The data can be sent by GET method through the path of the request. This can be tested on computer with telnet.

The deployment of GAE application is fairly simple. The step by step tutorial is available on http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/. The source file contains a quick test application for GAE.

Here is a simple example of using Arduino with ENC28J60 Ethernet shield to log the value of potentiometer to cloud every 10 seconds.

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