NativeScript Particle plugin

Prerequisites

Hop on over to the Particle.io store and order any of their cool devices.

While developing this plugin and the demo app I used a Photon Kit and it was a joy to work with.

Thanks, Brandon Satrom for sending one over!

Installation

tns plugin add nativescript-particle

Demo app

If you want to just play with your Particle device without writing code yet, follow these steps to install the demo app I've created with NativeScript Core:

git clone https://github.com/EddyVerbruggen/nativescript-particle
cd nativescript-particle/src
npm i
npm run demo.ios # or demo.android

Tip: If you get tired entering your login credentials every time you log in, set the PARTICLE_USERNAME and PARTICLE_PASSWORD properties to reflect your own.

Want to see the demo in action? Check out this short video 📺.

API

All examples below assume you have these imports and instantiated the Particle class:

import { Particle, TNSParticleDevice } from "nativescript-particle";
const particle = new Particle();

`login`

Communication between your app and a device is HTTP (REST) based, so the first step is authenticating yourself with the Particle Cloud:

particle.login(
    {
      username: "my-particle-username@mydomain.com",
      password: "my-particle-password"
    })
    .then(() => console.log("Login successful"))
    .catch(error => console.log(`Login error: ${error}`));

`logout`

Once done interacting with your device(s) it's best to log out as this will do a little cleanup in the plugin and underlying SDK.

There's no reason not to because it couldn't be easier:

particle.logout();

`listDevices`

Make sure you've claimed a device in your Particle account, then do this to list them in your app:

particle.listDevices()
    .then((devices: Array<TNSParticleDevice>) => {
      if (devices.length === 0) {
        console.log("No devices have been claimed in this account.");
      } else {
        console.log("Devices fetched.. now do something neat with 'em.");
      }
    })
    .catch(error => console.log(`Error fetching devices: ${error}`));

The returned list of TNSParticleDevice objects has these properties and functions:

Property	Type	Description
id	`string`	The unique ID of this device.
name	`string`	The given name of this device.
status	`string`	The current status of the device, usually `normal`.
type	`TNSParticleDeviceType`	One of `Unknown`, `Core`, `Photon`, `P1`, `Electron`, `RaspberryPi`, `DigistumpOak`, `RedBearDuo`, `Bluz`.
functions	`Array<string>`	The list of functions currently available on the device. You can invoke these with `callFunction` (see below).
variables	`Array<TNSParticleDeviceVariable>`	The list of variables currently available on the device. You can get their values with `getVariable` (see below).

`<device>.callFunction`

You can invoke any of the functions you discovered on the device.

As an example let's assume you've flashed this code tutorial to your device, so there's a led function which takes 1 argument: the value must be either "on", or "off":

const myDevice: TNSParticleDevice = null; // you got this from 'listDevices'

myDevice.callFunction("led", "on")
    .then(result => console.log(`Result: ${result}`))
    .catch(error => console.log(`Error in callFunction: ${error}`));

What if you have a function which takes multiple arguments? Let's assume you're using the tinker app and want to set "D7" to "HIGH" via the "digitalWrite" function:

myDevice.callFunction("digitalWrite", "D7", "HIGH")
    .then(result => console.log(`Result: ${result}`))
    .catch(error => console.log(`Error in callFunction: ${error}`));

`<device>.getVariable`

Getting a variable is quite similar to callFunction.

Let's say you have a variable named "analogvalue", then this will give you the current state of that variable:

const myDevice: TNSParticleDevice = null; // you got this from 'listDevices'

myDevice.getVariable("analogvalue")
    .then(result => console.log(`Result: ${result}`))
    .catch(error => console.log(`Error in getVariable: ${error}`));

Thanks!

markoImake for adding a few very cool features.

Happy IoT'ing! 🕹🤖🚪🖲💡📸🎙⛈🚦🛎🔊

imakeLtd / nativescript-particle