In a Blynk of a Pi
Use your Android device to build graphical interfaces for interacting with Raspberry Pi.
Blynk for Raspberry Pi
Lead Image © Dietmar Hoepfl, 123RF.com
Using an Android device or an iPad to control and interact with a Raspberry Pi sounds like a great idea, until you realize that turning it into reality is no trivial matter. One way to do this is to build a web app that runs on the Raspberry Pi and acts as an intermediary between the mobile device and the machine's hardware (e.g., GPIO pins). Although frameworks like Bottle for Python simplify the process of building web apps, they do require a working knowledge of Python. Besides being fluent in Python, you also need to spend time writing the actual app as well as testing and debugging it.
In short, if your Python skills are not (yet) up to scratch or you are not keen on spending hours writing and debugging code, building web apps from the ground up might not sound all that appealing. Meet Blynk [1], an easy-to-use platform that lets you whip up simple mobile interfaces for interacting with Raspberry Pi – no coding required.
How Blynk Works
Blynk consists of three components: the app, the server, and the library. The library runs on the Raspberry Pi (or on any supported board) and does all the behind-the-scene jobs of interfacing with the hardware. The app is the core component of the Blynk platform, and it provides an environment for building visual interfaces for controlling Raspberry Pi. The app offers a collection of widgets, such as button, sliders, LEDs, value displays, and the like. To create a graphical interface using the app, you simply add the desired widgets to a project and configure their settings.
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