I would like to know from researchers who are working on IOT, Is it useful to use online data servers platforms like ThingSpeak or it is better to create my own platform?
In my opinion, I don't think it's necessary to reinvent the wheel. First use the available platform. Then you can go ahead and design yours if there are features you require that you noticed those platform don't offer.
Dear Madukwe,
Thank you for your response, it's a convincing answer.
I have found ThingSpeak a really easy way to get things going, since it has a simple API, with some storage and visualization options. You can probably go from nothing to graphs on a screen in half an hour.
However, the visualization options are limited, and by the time you get to the paid options on the platform you should also be considering other options. Amazon, Google and Microsoft all have products targeted at IoT now (AWS IoT, GCloud IoT core, Microsoft Azure IoT Suite), which allow for storage/databasee, processing of alerts, machine learning and data visualization. These can all be done relatively cheaply to start, and can scale to a large implementation later. It is more work to construct what you want, but you get a lot more flexibility.
According to its developers, "ThingSpeak is an open source Internet of Things (IoT) application and API to store and retrieve data from things using the HTTP protocol over the Internet or via a Local Area Network. ThingSpeak enables the creation of sensor logging applications, location tracking applications, and a social network of things with status updates".
ThingSpeak was originally launched by ioBridge in 2010 as a service in support of IoT applications.
ThingSpeak has integrated support from the numerical computing software MATLAB from MathWorks,allowing ThingSpeak users to analyze and visualize uploaded data using Matlab without requiring the purchase of a Matlab license from Mathworks.
ThingSpeak has a close relationship with Mathworks, Inc. In fact, all of the ThingSpeak documentation is incorporated into the Mathworks' Matlab documentation site and even enabling registered Mathworks user accounts as valid login credentials on the ThingSpeak website.The terms of service and privacy policy of ThingSpeak.com are between the agreeing user and Mathworks, Inc.
ThingSpeak has been the subject of articles in specialized "Maker" websites like Instructables ,codeproject,and Channel
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