What if you want to exclude the typical involvement of a laptop in the Arduino and make it more dynamic! In this tutorial, you will learn how to get started to Blynk with Arduino and it’s various features. So, let’s begin with the introduction.
Contents:
What is Blynk?
Blynk is a platform with iOS and Android apps to control Arduino, Raspberry Pi and the likes over the Internet. You can easily build graphic interfaces for all your projects by simply dragging and dropping widgets. After this, you need to set the pin connection along with the digital/analog interface. Later, you can also publish your application. However, it isn’t free and requires some amount of bucks.
How Blynk Works?
Blynk was designed for the Internet of Things. It can control hardware remotely, it can display sensor data, it can store data, vizualize it and do many other cool things. Basically it comprises of three major sections:
- Blynk App: You have to download the official application of blynk which is present in the Play Store and other equivalent platforms. This is where we will add the widgets and control our setup.
- Blynk Library: To avail various features of the blynk and get various Arduino codes, you need to download and install the Blynk library about which we will discuss later in the subsequent sections.
- Blynk Server: The best thing about Blynk is it uses this server based technology. The application will be connected with the Internet. Also, we need to connect the board through the internet from the various available options.
The following image will describe more about the specialties of Blynk.
Features of Blynk
- Similar API & UI for all supported hardware & devices
- Connection to the cloud using:
- WiFi
- Bluetooth and BLE
- Ethernet
- USB (Serial)
- GSM
- Set of easy-to-use Widgets
- Direct pin manipulation with no code writing
- Easy to integrate and add new functionality using virtual pins
- History data monitoring via SuperChart widget
- Device-to-Device communication using Bridge Widget
- Sending emails, tweets, push notifications, etc.
Using Blynk with the Arduino
Blynk is a versatile app and is not limited to any board. It can be used with various boards majorly including the Arduino, Teensy and the NodeMCU. When we use it with Arduino, we just need to select the board as available boards of Arduino. You also need to run the “Blynkrun()” code either from the library, or can write of your own. After this, for serial connection between the board and the Internet, you need to run the blynk.ser file present in the scripts section of the Blynk folder.
Downloads
As discussed above, the two main downloads include the Blynk library and the app. However, you also need to download the Arduino IDE as it’s equally important. Click here to download the library. Then install the library in the IDE and use the example of your choice. For android users, the link of the app is here. iOS users can also download the app from here. After successfully installing the app, you first need to make an account in the Blynk. I hope you are able to reach at this point.
Using the Blynk App
After choosing the board, there is an important thing in Blynk known as “authentication token”. This is the token which sets the communication between the app and the board. So you also have to type the token in the code as well. This is what it looks like!
This is how the basic setup is done in the Blynk. I hope you were able to do this. You can explore more about the app here. Hope you do that too. Happy Learning!
