Today we will have a look at the Arduino-like Jorjin Ameba board with built in support for WiFi and NFC. Taking the pricetag of 25$ into account makes this an easy choice for your IoT projects!

For this post I created a Jorjin Ameba library which can be imported directly into the Arduino IDE seamlessly, thus making the classic blink example a breeze.

We will walk through the following steps

• Specs of jorjin board and “special features”
• How to run the example
• Demo

The Jorjin board

The Jorjin Ameba WiFi board has built-in WiFi and  NFC thus making it very much prepared for IoT.

As can be seen from the above image, the Ameba board has an Arduino-like form factor with a similar pinout. For the simple LED blink example, we will be using a digital pin.

Getting the example up and running

To run the example we need to install the Ameba board libraries and the Ameba specific uNabto files. We also need a device name and key, both of which can be created at developer.nabto.com

Furthermore an LED (and appropriate resistor) is needed.

Step 1: Download General Ameba Libraries install

Follow the steps laid out here to install the general Ameba libraries into the Arduino IDE OR read it right here:

Open up the Arduino IDE. Click File -> Preferences and then copy this

https://github.com/Ameba8195/Arduino/raw/master/release/package_realtek.com_ameba_index.json

into the Additional Boards Manager URLs input field. Click OK

Now click Tools –> Board: -> Boards Manager

Here we search for Ameba and click Install

The Jorjin Ameba board Arduino libraries are now installed

Step 2: uNabto libraries install

There are two ways of getting the uNabto libraries.

Using git

git clone --recursive https://github.com/nabto/unabto-jorjin-sdk

then change directory to the unabto-jorjin-sdk folder and run

bash Make.sh

OR download the release zip file unabto-jorjin-sdk.zip

No matter which way, we can now add the library to the Arduino IDE via Sketch -> Include Library -> Add .ZIP Library... and then browse to and add the unabto-jorjin-sdk folder that was just downloaded.

Run the example

We can now open the LightSwitch.ino example by going to File -> Examples -> Nabto-Ameba -> LightSwitch

Here we need to enter the SSID and password of the wireless network we want to attach to. Furthermore we need to input the device name and key we created at developer.nabto.com

Finally we need to remember to wire the LED and resistor up like so (try switching pins around if it does not work at first)

When the example is compiled and uploaded to the device we simply need to press the reset button (see the above image). The board should now reset, connect to the specified wifi network and run uNabto.

We can now control the LED by going to devicename.demo.nab.to in the Nabto client of your choice. (devicename is the unique name created at portal.nabto.com). Simply use the guest account for this demo. We can now control the LED by moving the slider.

Demo

As always, the full code can be found at Github. If you feel like experimenting with the many uses of the Nabto framework, please visit our developer portal where you can manage up to 10 devices for free !