Basics of the IoT Project of the Internet of Things - Public Monitoring Project

+ Public monitoring - IoT Internet of Things Project

Founded in 2011, a Internet of Things (IoT Cloud) Project for collecting, processing, storing and displaying (on a map and in apps) sensor readings and webcams of its participants with public or private access on various platforms.

+ What are the use cases for the IoT Project

+ Monitoring climatic conditions in your apartment, country house, refrigeration unit, greenhouse, server room, as a module for a smart home with elevation notifications and feedback, as well as video surveillance of the surrounding area.

+ Monitoring of housing and communal services in apartments and houses: hot water and heating temperature, pressure, and resource consumption counters.

+ Monitoring of weather conditions and pollution in a certain area with the display on the map of current indicators, as well as overview pictures from weather webcams.

+ Monitoring network traffic (Rx/Tx) and climate control on data network nodes with a visual display of the current status on the map.

+ Monitoring power consumption at home and in the office in real time with the ability to graphically analyze the profile of power consumption over time and transfer commands to control.

+ Monitoring fitness trackers MiBand to analyze the number of steps, distance traveled, heart rate, battery level.

+ Monitoring arbitrary values with reference to the terrain, such as exchange rates in various branches of banks.

+ Acquaintance with current climatic conditions and overviews from webcams at the user's location, as well as in other cities and countries.

+ The ability to transfer sensor readings via various protocols: TCP, UDP, HTTP GET / POST, MQTT.

+ Ready for use monitoring devices from our partners to connect via WiFi, Ethernet, GSM, as well as DIY for self-assembly.

+ Providing access to Project data using our JSON REST API or frames for websites.

+ Ready for use apps from our partners for Android, iOS, MacOS, Win32/64 and other platforms.

+ Сompetitive advantages of the IoT Project

1. Huge accumulated experience in the development and support of the Internet of Things Project (IoT) since 2011, i.e. 11+ years.

2. A knowledge base has been collected on typical problems and methods for solving them when deploying an IoT Project with support for a large number of devices from different suppliers, both commercial and developed by project participants.

3. For the functioning of the Project, only freely distributed software is used, incl. and open source.

4. The Project is attended by specialists from various fields, both in the field of application development for various platforms, and electronic devices with a wide range of applications.

5. Open API for sending data to the project, with support for such popular protocols as HTTP, UDP, TCP/IP, MQTT, in addition, feedback is supported for controlling devices remotely.

6. Open REST API for working with external applications on various platforms or for other customer purposes (for example, data analysis).

7. Integration with popular cloud and map services (Google, Yandex) and external data sources (METAR, OWM).

8. Integration with smart home services (MajorDoMo, Home Assistant).

9. Low cost of services and high availability of the service is achieved through the economical use of server resources and optimization. To do this, we regularly analyze the load, search for vulnerabilities, counteract abuse, and optimize the server code.

10. The multilingual nature of the project allows you to make it more accessible and expand the geography of use.

11. Personal conditions for members and clients with a large number of devices and webcams.

12. Significant savings in time and money on deploying your own monitoring infrastructure consisting of payment for the services of IT specialists (including software developers and server administrators), as well as the cost of purchasing and maintaining servers and/or paying for hosting services.

+ Terms and definitions in the IoT Project

IoT - Internet of Things - the concept of a data transmission network between physical objects (things) equipped with built-in means and technologies for interacting with each other or with the external environment.

Sensor is a means of measuring certain parameters of environment: temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.

Monitoring Device is a device reader readings from one or more sensors and transmitting them to the server via the Internet.

Private - means that only the owner has access to the sensor (or webcam) data and only after authorization (enter login and password) in the Project, as well as those to whom the owner himself provided a special one-time access code.

Public - means that all users (including guests) of the Project have access to the sensor (or webcam) data, but only for reading, and the owner has full access.

+ The History of our IoT Project since 2011

The Project began in 2011 with a discussion of the topic Public temperature monitoring vs forecast in various cities. Do we need it? on Habr, as a result of which began to form a group of like-minded people among the developers of electronics and software for this Project.

With the increase in the number of partners-developers of electronic devices adapted to work in this project and wishes of users, the scope of the project has been significantly enhanced to collect and transfer a larger number of different sensors with a universal Protocol with extremely low requirements for the data channel, up to GSM/GPRS/3G/LTE, and developed an REST API for external applications.

+ Restrictions in using the Project

- Initially, you can register only 1 private device or webcam in the Project, i.e. a device without public street sensors that meet the requirements of p.2.3 of the Rules, which this restriction does not apply to, as well as to public webcams.

- The number of sensors per device is limited only by the maximum size of the data packet with sensor readings, which is currently 4 KB (512 bytes for UDP protocol and GSM networks).

- The minimum allowed interval for transmitting sensor readings is 5 minutes.

- The minimum allowed interval for updating images from webcams is 15 minutes, for partners - developers 10 minutes.

- The storage period of detailed sensor readings is 30 days, the hourly average is 1 year, and the daily average is forever.
If you need to store detailed readings for longer, you can configure them to be automatically uploaded to your Yandex.Disk or Google Drive.

- The history of sensor data without reference to the owner is not saved in the Project and their data is not displayed on the chart.

- The history of inactive sensor data for more than 6 months is automatically deleted from the Project.

- The storage period of camera images is 48 hours, the best picture of the day of the hour is 30 days, the best picture of the day is 1 year.
If you need to store detailed images for longer, you can configure them to be automatically uploaded to your FTP server, Google Drive or Yandex.Disk.

- The resolution of the images from the web cameras stored on our server is not more than 1920x1080p (i.e. if your web camera is better than HD, the image will be reduced), the size of the images more than 2 MB is not accepted by the server.

- In order to counteract DOS attacks, during intensive data transmission (for example, when transmitting readings less than 1 minute or http requests to the site and REST API), access to the project server from the IP source is blocked first for 5 minutes, and then for 1 hour. If the spurious traffic does not stop, the time limit can be extended as well as the range of IP addresses of the traffic source.

The above restrictions may be revised for project partners (developers of hardware and software for the project, our hosters, translators, testers, technical writers), as well as for donators and sponsors (who provided technical assistance to the Project).

+ We invite You to cooperate in the IoT

Due to the active growth of the client base and geographic coverage, the Project Administration invites for cooperation:

+ sponsors for the possibility of further growth of the Project;
+ application developers and widgets for various platforms;
+ electronics developers to expand the range of devices offered;
+ technical writers for preparing documentation and publishing articles on technical resources;
+ translators to localize the interface into other languages ​​and search for errors;
+ designers for the preparation of graphic materials;
+ SEO experts for search engine optimization;
+ nix administrators to optimize and protect Project servers.
* the list is not exhaustive, we will be happy to anyone who is ready to help the project to the best of their ability and abilities.

Time-tested partners interested in the project are invited to join the project’s Administration (owners). However, we warn in advance, this proposal is not for sprinters in the hunt for instant payback, but for marathon runners who do not have problems with the distribution of work and personal time.

+ Commercial cooperation with the Project

The Project has been providing commercial services for collecting, storing, displaying sensor readings from your Internet of Things devices. Other types of services are also available: for example, promotion of your products and access to API for developers of commercial applications.

How do you determine if you need commercial services ?
- You are planning to connect 2 or more private devices and / or webcams.
- You need several instruments with a short reading interval (interval less than 5 minutes).
- You need several webcams with a small refresh interval (less than 15 minutes).
- You plan to use the Project data for commercial purposes (websites with advertising and affiliate programs, paid apps).
- It is necessary to improve the functionality of the Project for your needs.

For a large number of devices/webcams (> 10 pcs), the discount is 5% or more.

Additional services:
- Finalization of the Project functionality for your terms of reference from 10K RUB.
- Full support of the integration process with your infrastructure from 10K RUB.

In order to become a commercial client, you need to send a request to technical support by selecting the "Commercial cooperation" category, indicating your full name (for an individual entrepreneur) or the name of the organization and TIN (for a legal entity). In the request, it is necessary to describe your technical needs and tasks in as much detail as possible to estimate the cost of services.

After agreeing on the cost of services and receiving payment to an account with Sber Bank, you will receive from the Project representative an electronic check of the state standard to your specified email address or messenger.

+ Answers to frequently asked questions

- By default, the information on the website is displayed only on the basis of information about the current parameters of the environment (temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, dust, radiation, etc.) transmitted from the devices of the project participants ( use of meteorological services data for transfer to the Project not allowed). The display of these external services is enabled in the View menu.

- The Project administration does not guarantee 100% accuracy of the meteorological data transmitted by the project participants, but reserves the right to respond to the complaints of the Project members to incorrect readings of public sensors.

- Our web project does not forecast weather conditions, but you can use our REST API for Applications to calculate your own forecast.

- Our Internet project is not engaged in the sale and maintenance of devices, but for informational purposes it offers Catalog of ready-made solutions from our partners and Readings transfer API for self-development, as well as sample solutions from project participants. Questions regarding the functioning of devices should be addressed to their manufacturers.

- The basic functionality of the website and access to the API for transferring and/or requesting data is free for private non-commercial use. In other cases, the terms of use of the project data are agreed with the Administration.

- To participate in the Project at all it is not necessary to purchase expensive weather stations. You can use your own designs or use ready-made solutions of Project partners, the cost of which is 10-100 times less than the equipment for the meteorological sites. It is also possible to transfer the readings of the outdoor meteorological sensors manually according to the data of your household meteorological equipment.

- You can locate the necessary sensors of the environment in any convenient place in the territory under your control, and not in strictly defined places such as urban weather stations. However, by bringing its sensor to public access, its owner undertakes to place it outdoors and take measures to reduce the influence of the environment (direct sunlight, precipitation, heating from the walls of the building) on reliability of sensors values.

- If the sensor readings have not been transmitted for more than six months, then it and its readings are deleted from the server automatically. If the sensor is inactive for more than an hour, it disappears from the map.

- For exchange of referrals you can place an http-link to your site (or your weather station or webcam) in the descriptions of your devices and webcams in the sections Sensors and Cameras that will be visible on the map, and also use the link to your sensor / camera on the map http://narodmon.com/ID (from the balloon) in your blog, forum and social networks. All new project participants who follow your referral link (from the Profile) will be considered invited by you and, if they help the project in one form or another, you will receive bonuses for them.

- To output readings to your website or to write to your database, use REST API Project using the API key obtained in the section Profile \ My Applications (after authorization). You will be available to readings of all public sensors, as well as all yours.

Additional information can be obtained in Telegram, VKontakte.

Project: greeting, history, rules, bonuses, cooperation.
API for: devices, applications, control.
How to add: а sensor, а camera, а track, to your website.
Catalog of: devices, applications, sensors, examples, diy.

Offers of cooperation and official inquiries send to @