[HH] open.sen.se, Exosite - services for publishing data from your Internet connected devices

[Tom Metro]

I'm not sure what to make of this. I read the adafruit blog posting and
looked over the site, but there still isn't much practical info. I can
only infer from the vague description and the pictures on the site that
it'll be a service where you can have your Internet-connected devices
send their data, then you can login to the site and see pretty graphs of
the data, or perhaps set rules to fire off Tweets or whatnot.

http://open.sen.se/
  We rather believe in an Internet of Everything where Humans, Nature,
  Machines, Objects, Environments, Information, Physical and Virtual
  spaces all mix up, talk, intertwine, interact, enrich and empower each
  other in all sorts of ways. This is what we are building and we think
  that we are not alone.

  This is why we have created Open.Sen.se an open platform for all those
  who want to imagine, prototype and test new Devices, Installations,
  Scenarios, Applications for this globally interconnected and immersive
  world. Designers, developers, tinkerers, students, hobbyists, R&D
  departments, artists, self quantifiers, dataviz maniacs, whatever your
  skills are, we tried to make Open.Sen.se easy to use and yet powerful
  for you. Needless to say Open.Sen.se is free.

Like all trendy new sites, it is in a closed beta. You have to apply for
access.


It sounds a lot like a services I saw mentioned in a Circuit Cellar
article, "Internet-Enabled Home Control" by John Breitenbach.
http://circuitcellar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/CC072012_Breitenbach_ExositeReprintedwPermission_forweb.pdf

It talks about http://exosite.com/, which "publishes a set of simple
APIs using standard web protocols that enable smart devices to push data
to their servers in the cloud in real time. Once the data is in the
cloud, events, alerts, and scripts can be created to do different things
with the data - in my case, to send me an e-mail and SMS text alert if
there is anything wrong with my water heater."

The service is aimed at industrial users, but it is free for open source
developers.

While there are risks in making your device dependent on 3rd party
infrastructure, and there are security risks in any sort of Internet
connection, by having the device push data, it's a bit better than
opening up firewall holes for inbound connections.

The big win here for a developer of an embedded device is that you now
don't need to put a web server on your device, take up spaces with
images, and do web and UI design. Instead you just need to concern
yourself with pushing out raw data, and you can deal with the
presentation on the 3rd party site. (See the article for a specific
illustration of this benefit.)

 -Tom