Things

If you are a hardware developer interesting in adding an API to your device. The steward supports two standard protocols which a device can choose to support and be "Thing System native."

• If a thing needs to report sensor readings, or an event happening, to the steward it can implement the Thing Sensor Reporting Protocol. This is a simple multicast UDP based protocol. The repository contains example code for Arduino and iOS to help developers add the Simple Thing Protocol to their things.

• If a thing is capable not just of reporting sensor readings, or events, but also of performing actions then it can implement the Simple Thing Protocol. This protocol is more complex that the reporting protocol, and is a websocket based protocol, but allows the steward to interact with the remote thing. Both to ask for sensor readings, instead of just passively waiting for them to be reported, but also to ask it to perform an action, e.g. turn a light on or off. These smart devices normally have a programmable environment. Examples of this sort of thing include smart phones, tablets, and the things that attach to them, such as Motrr's Galileo, Romotive's Romo, the Swivl, and so on.