Pachube is a web service available at http://www.pachube.com that enables you to connect, tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world.
The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual. Apart from enabling direct connections between any two environments, it can also be used to facilitate many-to-many connections: just like a physical “patch bay” (or telephone switchboard) Pachube enables any participating project to “plug-in” to any other participating project in real time so that, for example, buildings, interactive installations or blogs can “talk” and “respond” to each other.
Pachube is a little like YouTube, except that, rather than sharing videos, Pachube enables people to monitor and share real time environmental data from sensors that are connected to the internet. Pachube acts between environments, able both to capture input data (from remote sensors) and serve output data (to remote actuators). Connections can be made between any two environments, facilitating even spontaneous or previously unplanned connections. Apart from being used in physical environments, it also enables people to embed this data in web-pages, in effect to “blog” sensor data.
Pachube makes use of Extended Environments Markup Language (EEML) and an EEML Processing library is available to connect directly to Pachube without needing to know or understand EEML. A basic API makes it possible to both serve and request data in CSV and EEML format. In addition, for those operating behind a firewall, or with non-static URLs, or who wish to update less frequently than usual, the API enables manual update by an HTTP PUT request.
There is a tutorial available for beginner/intermediate Arduino and Processing users to connect Arduino to Pachube (both as an input and as an output).
Relevant URLs:
– http://www.pachube.com/ (the home of Pachube)
– http://www.ugotrade.com/2009/01/28/pachube-patching-the-planet-interview… (interview with Pachube’s founder)
– http://eeml.org/ (Extended Environments Markup Language)
– http://eeml.org/library/ (EEML library for Processing)
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