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We have worked hard to turn Blynk into one of the most advanced, user-friendly, and reliable commercial IoT platforms. And now you can try it out for yourself!
Here are some of the coolest things our platform has to offer:
- Blynk.App: a unique, no-code mobile app builder for IoT
- Blynk.360: a web console to manage devices, users and data
- Templates: new device creation process designed for scale
- Blynk.inject: a WI-FI manager built into the Blynk mobile app
- Blynk.Air: over-the-air firmware updates
- All kinds of Automations (think Eventor on steroids)
- Voice assistants and much much more
So what is the "new" Blynk?
Blynk has been powering IoT innovation since 2014. We decided to take our commercial offering to the new level and launched a completely new version of our platform in 2021. Among our biggest goals is to enable OEMs of all sizes to build and launch connected products that their end-users will actually love to use.
Blynk.360: Powerful Web application
We provided a clean and simple UI where you can effortlessly add and manage your devices, control access to your IoT service, and monitor your usage.
One of the most popular requests from our 500,000+ developer community was to add the web browser interface that will accompany Blynk's gorgeous mobile apps. The main challenge was to keep it very simple for anyone to use and powerful enough to support ultra-complex business use-cases. Our approach was based on the knowledge that the web dashboard is used differently from mobile apps and should serve a different set of use-cases.
Blynk.Inject: Device provisioning and profiling
WiFi connection wizard is now included in Blynk apps by default. There is no need to use separate web pages or 3rd party libraries to input WiFi credentials and connect cellular or wired devices.
In addition to device provisioning, we introduce device profiling. It allows you to add Metadata to the device after it was connected to WiFi. For example, users can pre-configure their device, or you can ask customers to input additional information about the device. You can configure which fields are added, which ones are required, and which ones should be included in device profiling on the mobile phone.
Here is an example of how it works:
Multi-tenancy
You can configure how users get access to the data by setting roles and configuring permissions.
In a world of millions of connected devices, it's crucial to control who has access to what. Especially when managing deployments at scale. Whether it's your household or an organization with a complex hierarchy and business relationships with partners, it should just work.
We designed a role-based access system with granular permissions almost for any available action. Now you can invite new users, define their roles, and manage their access to device data and controls.
Dark or Light theme
New Blynk has many fantastic UI improvements. The dark theme was one of the most requested features. We designed it, and now you can switch between dark and light theme modes in a blink of an eye.
Device Management
Device data now can be accessed with all of the major web browsers (except for IE, sorry MS :). Every device has a dashboard to visualize real-time and historical sensor data and controls. It works similar to current Blynk apps: drag-n-drop a widget, scale, set it up – enjoy!
Additionally, there is a Timeline where you can log essential events coming from your devices. You can set up what kind of event is that, who should be notified, and how.
Notifications got a significant improvement and became extremely scalable and flexible.
Every device now carries additional information we call Metadata. It's more or less static information about the device (location, serial number, etc.). You can define the structure of Metadata. Such structured data is compelling for aggregated data analysis.
Blynk Cloud
The new Blynk Cloud is a better, faster, more robust, and secure brain of the platform. Our fast and furious database allows for incredible performance and data analytics capabilities.
Device Templates
In order to support multiple device types that serve a certain function we have introduced Templates. Template is a digital model of the device which can be inherited by multiple devices with similar functionality. The power of templates is an instant update of device data model no matter the size of your devices fleet
Product template consists of 4 main components:
• Metadata - additional data about the device you can configure.
• Datastreams - an entity to define the data that flows in and out from device. Overall, it's very similar to Virtual Pins (which can be used too).
• Events - a list of important alerts and notifications
• Web Dashboard - A set of Widgets in the Web app
• Mobile Dashboard - A set of Widgets in the Mobile app
It may sound a bit complicated for personal use, but it helps a lot with structuring the device data for later use.
Over-the-air updates
Now you can update all of your devices over-the-air. Just schedule a shipping, add a binary file, sit back, relax and watch how devices are updated in real-time. Currently ESP8266, ESP32, ESP8266, MKR1000, MKR WiFi 1010, TI CC3220sf are supported. More devices are planned for later releases.
Automations
You can set up automations based on conditions like time or device status, e.g., time of day, sunset/rise, device state, manual trigger.
Examples:
Time of Day – set your kettle to start each mon-fri morning at 15:52 so you get the water boiled for your tea/coffee at 15:55 and start teatime at the time;
Sunset/rise – Windows blind rollers go shut at sunset and open at sunrise;
Device state – Once the room temperature exceeds 24-celsius degrees, a device with a temperature sensor sends the command to your smart plug to power on the air conditioner;
Scene (manual trigger) – the simplest one: you got back to your home and switch on the lights in any room you're going to from your garage with just a tap on your smartphone.
Enough reading, time to see the new platform in action! Start by creating a new account here if you don't have one yet.
