OS – Exploration Space

Visual Studio: The one IDE to rule them all

July 22, 2017July 22, 2017 apead

This week there was some great news about .NET MF and the return of the Netduino!(http://blog.wildernesslabs.co/netduino-is-back/)

I was inspired enough to dust off one of my older projects which included .NET MF and the Xamarin Monkey Robotics project. I then decided to consolidate and rearrange it with some of the newer stuff I’m playing with in the “Iot” space. It’s also an example of how Visual Studio can handle projects of all types, held together and fully “debuggable” within one solution. This seems like a good time to do this especially with the recent talks at the Xamarin User Groups in Cape Town (http://explorationspace.co.za/2017/07/20/cross-platform-iot-at-ctxug/) and Johannesburg (http://explorationspace.co.za/2017/07/12/cross-platform-iot-at-gxugsa/) on the topic.

Visual Studio Controller of Things Solution

I do still have to port all this to Visual Studio 15.3 preview 3 so I can have Xamarin Iot working in the solution as well.

Still a lot of on the list to do today, so I’ll end off here.

Happy Iot’ing!

Cross Platform Iot at CTXUG

July 20, 2017July 20, 2017 apead

Last night was the Cross Platform Iot Session at CTXUG in Cape Town. The turnout was absolutely amazing! Thank you to all for coming it was a really fun evening!

Roger Weiss from Aliens kicked off with an overview of Windows 10 Iot Core and a few demos. These demos featured some awesome use of Microsoft Cognitive services and also some nifty voice controlled home automation.

It was then my turn. Unfortunately Chris van Wyk couldn’t make it this evening. 🙁

The session featured

Visual Micro for Visual Studio

Visual Studio Code with Arduino Extension which is now Open Source.

Xamarin Forms and Xamarin.Android with Android Things 0.41 Preview

The new Xamarin Iot preview for Linux based devices

Azure Iot Hubs

Devices wise

Raspberry Pi 3

Intel Edison

Raspberry Pi Zero W

Latte Panda and Arduino Leonardo

MXChip Azure Kit

The awesome new MXCHIP Azure Iot kit (Arduino)

The presentation can be found here: https://github.com/apead/XUGSA/tree/master/19072017

Android Things Weather Station Sample with Azure Iot Hubs: https://github.com/apead/Xamarin-AndroidThings-Contrib

Cross Platform Generic Xamarin Forms sample that ran on Phone, Android Things and Windows 10 Iot (I didn’t demo this, but it works too): https://github.com/apead/XUGSABuildAutomation

Xamarin Android Things Nuget: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xamarin.Android.Things/0.4.0-devpreview

Xamarin Android Things Contrib Drivers: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xamarin.AndroidThings.Contrib.RainbowHat/0.40.0-beta

Getting Started with Xamarin Iot: http://explorationspace.co.za/2017/06/21/xamarin-iot-comes-to-visual-studio-2017-on-windows/

MXChip Azure Kit: https://microsoft.github.io/azure-iot-developer-kit/

Android Things Starter Kit with Rainbow Hat: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/rainbow-hat-for-android-things

Interesting VR Stuff happening in Aliens office

Cross Platform Iot at GXUGSA

July 12, 2017July 12, 2017 apead

Last night was the Cross Iot Session at GXUGSA in Johannesburg. It’s always fun presenting all the Iot toys, but also what can actually be done with Xamarin and the rest of the Microsoft tooling.

It’s also not always clear that you can basically do anything you want with Xamarin, so always nice and exciting to showcase it outside the usual phone type scenarios.

The session featured

Visual Micro for Visual Studio

Visual Studio Code with Arduino Extension which is now Open Source.

Xamarin Forms and Xamarin.Android with Android Things 0.4 Preview

The new Xamarin Iot preview for Linux based devices

Windows 10 Iot Core

Azure Iot Hubs

Devices wise

Raspberry Pi 2 + 3

Intel Edison

Raspberry Pi Zero W

Latte Panda and Arduino Leonardo

MXChip Azure Kit

The presentation can be found here: https://github.com/apead/XUGSA/tree/master/11072017

Android Things Weather Station Sample with Azure Iot Hubs: https://github.com/apead/Xamarin-AndroidThings-Contrib

Cross Platform Generic Xamarin Forms sample that ran on Phone, Android Things and Windows 10 Iot: https://github.com/apead/XUGSABuildAutomation

Xamarin Android Things Nuget: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xamarin.Android.Things/0.4.0-devpreview

Xamarin Android Things Contrib Drivers: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Xamarin.AndroidThings.Contrib.RainbowHat/0.40.0-beta

Getting Started with Xamarin Iot: http://explorationspace.co.za/2017/06/21/xamarin-iot-comes-to-visual-studio-2017-on-windows/

MXChip Azure Kit: https://microsoft.github.io/azure-iot-developer-kit/

Android Things Starter Kit with Rainbow Hat: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/rainbow-hat-for-android-things

Windows 10 IOT Remote Display Experience

April 3, 2016April 3, 2016 apead

With Microsoft Build 2016 complete, there are so many things to be looking at and trying out. One of the more useful features for me right now is the new remoting functionality in Windows 10 IoT Insider Preview 10.0.14295. I have this running on a Raspberry Pi 3 and I am busy with some work using an array of sensor telemetry. Being able to see what is happening remotely make life far easier when building Universal Apps.

To configure this is very simple. There is a new menu option added to the administration console called “Remote”. This is accessible via the URL: http://[ipaddress of pi]:8080. If you haven’t changed the password the login should be: “Administrator” and “p@ssw0rd”

Enable the Windows IoT Remote Server by ticking the box presented.

To access the Raspberry Pi remotely you need a client. This is available in the Windows Store either by following the provided link, or just by searching for “Windows IoT” in the store. https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh5mnxz

This will run on any Windows 10 device. Just something to note: on a Windows 10 Mobile device (Lumia 950 XL in my case) you may have to set the device color scheme to light for the application text to be legible. I’m sure this will be corrected in later builds.

Fill in the IP address of the Raspberry PI in the “Enter an IP address” text box and click / tap “Connect”. You should now be seeing what the Raspberry Pi is displaying.

WP_20160403_16_42_25_Pro_LI — Remoting to a Windows 10 PC / Tablet

WIN_20160403_17_10_17_Pro — Remoting to a Lumia 950 XL

Build 2015: Windows 10 IoT Preview on a Raspberry Pi 2

April 30, 2015April 30, 2015 apead

Day 1 of Build 2015 has been great! The IoT inclusions especially have been very exciting for me.

We now have Windows 10 IoT core released and running on:

Raspberry Pi 2
MinnowBoard Max
Galileo

Also very interesting and exciting news is, we have Arduino support from Microsoft.

Windows Remote Arduino
Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino

Let’s start by installing Windows 10 IoT Core Preview on a Raspberry PI 2. I know many of you that bought a PI just to do this, I know I did. 🙂

Start by downloading the “Windows_IoT_Core_RPI2_BUILD” from “https://connect.microsoft.com/windowsembeddedIoT/Downloads“. I had to accept some EULAs and click around before anything appeared to be selected for download. It could have also been a timing problem as I was a bit eager to download and perhaps it was not available that soon.

The requirement for the installation is a Windows 10 Build 10069 or higher PC to copy the Windows 10 IoT installation onto an SD card . I downloaded the new Windows 10 Build 10074 ISO that was released today from “http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso-update-1504“.

Install Windows 10. I ignored the recommendations and installed on a Virtual Machine (on VMWare) and not a physical PC. VMWare passes through the SD card without problems to Windows 10.

Once everything is installed, copy the “Flash.ffu” file from the downloaded “Windows_IoT_Core_RPI2_BUILD” zip file to a folder on the Windows 10 PC.

From an Administrator Command line run the following command:

diskpart
list disk
exit

Note the number of the disk associated with the SDCard.

Run the dism command replacing the N in “\PhysicalDriveN” to the number noted above.

dism.exe /Apply-Image /ImageFile:flash.ffu /ApplyDrive:\\.\PhysicalDriveN /SkipPlatformCheck

After a short wait, you should see: “Operation completed successfully”. Eject the SD card.

Insert the SD card into the SD card slot in the Raspberry PI 2. Plug the HDMI cable into the PI and of course the monitor. Plug the power cable into the Raspberry PI. After a few worrying minutes Windows 10 IoT should be all booted up. It will reboot once during the initial setup process and the interesting blocks displayed in-between the Windows Logo appearing and final boot-up seems normal.

Next step is to make it do something useful! 🙂

For full detail instructions you can follow this link: http://ms-iot.github.io/content/win10/SetupRPI.htm