Fast and Simple IoT Development with RAD Studio and RAD Server

I have received very positive feedback from the "Fast and Simple IoT Development with RAD Studio and RAD Server" presentation that I did this week for the CASE29 conference in Croatia. That was probably my third time to present on this conference, but not in person, but - thanks to contemporary technology - via Internet. My session competed with simultaneous session about Xamarin from Microsoft and Embarcadero clearly won here:-)

My "Fast and Simple IoT" session was recorded and the recording is available on YouTube.

The "Internet of Things" is a very hot topic in the IT industry today. It is still relatively new technology with no clear market leader and with different specifications evolving very quickly. RAD Studio and RAD Server give developer support at different levels of the IoT "technology stack" to build new and innovative solutions.

My presentation started from the overview of RAD Studio. The capability to build natively compiled apps from the same source code to all major mobile, desktop and server platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux. The compiler technology is just the starting point. With FireMonkey library we can also build visually stunning graphical user interfaces.

On top of this foundation RAD Studio comes with hundreds of reusable components and libraries including some specifically designed for IoT development. There are different devices and sensors out there. Some of them support REST connectivity, but the most important communication protocol is Bluetooth LE. RAD Studio comes with cross-platform support for BLE communication. There is "TBluetoothLE" component for generic communication, but also specialised components for communicating with specific kinds of BLE devices. "TBeacon" component is an example of such a specialised IoT device, but there are also tens of IoT components available via GetIt.

During the presentation I have demonstrated building apps that communicate with heart rate sensor that I strapped to my chest and to a USB-powered beacon plugged into a charger. That was fun.

Just being able to create an app that communicates with an IoT device is not enough if you want to build a complete IoT solution. This is where RAD Server comes to play. One of its built-in functionalities is support for so called "edge services". This is part of "ThingPoint" architecture.

I have explained and run the demo that ships with RAD Studio that shows complete IoT enterprise solution where data coming from sensors is collected through "ThingPoint" apps that act as an intermediary between an IoT device or sensor and the RAD Server that serves the role of one central place where all IoT data is stored.

Croatia is a beautiful country. Great place for SCUBA divers and a lot of talented developers. Until next year! 

You can watch the recording from "Fast and Simple Development with RAD Studio and RAD Server" session on YouTube.