Friday, May 5, 2017

new QtSensor IoT plugins!

I've said it before and I will say it again... one thing I am tired of hearing about, is that people think Qt is only for UI applications.
WRONG!
Qt is great for IoT as well! even without a UI. (IoT is today's buzzword for 'embedded', which really isn't embedded, just small) and you cannot have IoT without sensors!

I just submitted a MR to QtSensors to add support for the SenseHAT sensor board for raspberry pi:

https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/193456
For raspberry pi, you will need RTIMULib installed on your rpi (and dev package to compile QtSensors). It's in the default repo, so you don't actually need to compile RTIMULib yourself.

Even though this is submitted for dev branch and should be available in Qt Sensors 5.10, this will compile and work for the Qt 5.3 that comes with the raspbian distribution.

As well, if my spare time allows, I will also get my Matrix Creator QtSensor plugin into shape to submit as well.

I also have planned getting the TI SensorTag code I wrote shoved into a QtSensor plugin. What's special about the SensorTag is that it has (buzzword alert) wireless sensors! This is a bit more tricky as it will use and be dependent on Qt's QLowEnergyService but will work nonetheless. This plugin doesn't run on the device, but requires a host machine which has bluetooth.