Technology is finding new dimensions every other day to help us improve considerably in all aspects of life. Imagine if we could do many of the works just by our presence which earlier needed manual effort, nevertheless if the technology is making our life better no one would be complaining. IoT Dashboards are one such innovative feature that would make the life of an individual much easier than before.

Building dashboards for controlling smart farms

Dashboards is a common feature for any complex web application; it basically gives the user a snapshot review and summary of all the application entities. Of late we at WeMakeIoT have been trying to develop a dashboard for our smart farm platform. Initially we thought of it just as a common dashboard that shows real time data coming from the sensors and also show the aggregated values of the data. IoT dashboards can be integrated to any domain be it Industrial IoT, Smart Homes etc., but we chose to begin with the smart farm platform as we already had expertise in the area.

The whole purpose of creating this platform is to help farmers increase their productivity through setting up an IoT based farm automation system through a shared wireless network in a very short span of time.  The platform helps to integrate range of sensors and actuators which are essential for setting up a smart farm. These IoT dashboards would give a live virtual picture of the farm environment and conditions.

Integrating IoT into making interactive dashboards was no mean task; we have to think on the lines of creating a SCADA like interface.  SCADA as you may know is an architecture that controls the system through highly networked data and would have a user interactive front end for managing and controlling the whole system. This meant that all the peripherals connected to the system could be controlled remotely from any location in the world.

Features of our interactive IoT dashboards

Each user would have an illustrated 3D visualized image in their home page showing the real time status of the farm.  The illustrated image would show the real time data under each sensors positioned in the farm. The actuators like solenoid valve, water pump etc. can be triggered with a switch on the illustrated image.  If we want to add more components or modules to the farm we can do the same from the toolbox by drag drop facility. Similarly we can control every aspect of the farm by the click of a button from the dashboard settings; the same can be done manually too.

Besides the interactive feature, there is also provision for purchasing the farm modules online. A full-fledged analytics area and weather predictions are also integrated into the dashboard. Users can also track their farms through a map through this dashboard.