TINK - sketching product experiences of connected objects

80 - TINK
4.6 TINK technology
Web Technology
TINK is developed as a web application.
The software will run inside a web-browser
providing several advantages:
• It will be cross-platform,
• It won’t require any installation
• A Tink project will be accessible from
multiple locations
• The software will be easier to maintain
as software updates don’t require to
be installed by the user but can be
directly deployed.
TINK is structured maintaining a separation
between front-end and back-end as shown
in Figure 37.
The different part of the platform are
connected to a server, that will route all the
messages exchanged between the entities
and provide access to the database.
In order to provide real time, two way
communication between connected
objects, TINK web-app and devices Tink
make use of Web sockets.
In order to clarify how the different
components communicate to each other an
example is proposed:
Let’s consider the system made of a coffee
machine that publishes a twit every time a
coffee is made.
The connected object informs the server via
web-socket; if the user is connected to the
platform, the server will notify him/her of
the happening of the event: via web-socket
the message will be sent to the browser;
The server will also perform a http request
to the twitter server using its public API,
in order to publish the twit.
Separating front end and back-end
is crucial in the development of this
kind of application as it will improve
maintainability and performance. Moreover
it will be possible for third parties to make
use of public API to access the platform.
Via the API it will be possible to access
the data, log custom events. It will be
possible for developers to create new
interfaces to interact with TINK via custom
made interfaces.
Arduino YUN
The hardware platform that was decided
to use as core electronics for connected
objects is the Arduino YUN, a new Arduino
that combines a small Linux computer
with a small Atmel 32u4Chip. The Linux
computer gives to the Arduino the extra
power of connecting to the internet via
wired and wireless connection.
The Bridge Library for Arduino enables the
Linux side of the Arduino to communicate
to the Atmel side.
The Arduino YUN is programmed with
standard Arduino code and supports
natively 90% of the libraries and shield