Today we are excited to announce that we recently rolled out our new IDE and agents to all Electric Imp developer accounts. The next time you log into Electric Imp you will have access to agents, and, with that, your saved code in the new IDE.
If you missed our blog post last month, agents are like tiny pico servers that run in the Imp Cloud. Agents can used to store small amounts of data (that persist even if an imp is powered off) and to send and receive HTTP requests to easily connect your products to anything with Internet access. You may have even noticed that we sometimes refer to agents as your device’s “brain in the cloud.”
As part of the agents launch we have also released our new IDE. The latest IDE not only has a code window for agents but also provides significant enhancements to Electric Imp’s developer tool, such as shortcut keys based on the ACE Editor, log colors, easier device management, resizable code panes and more account settings for customization.
In the new IDE there is no link to the Blueprint, formerly called the Planner, because it is deprecated and should not be used for new projects. For most applications agents are already much more capable than the old system and we’re working on adding a few more features to agents to allow you to easily accomplish everything you did previously with the Blueprint. Existing developers will still be able to access the Blueprint by logging into blueprint.electricimp.com. You can learn more about converting your nodes to agents in our Dev Center.
To help you transition to agents and the new IDE, we have lots of resources available:
- Take a tour of the IDE – a short video to get you familiar with new features of the IDE.
- Electric Imp Documentation – Learn Electric Imp APIs:
- agent object – Communicate with the agent (from the device)
- device object – Communicates with the device (from the agent)
- http object – Handles and makes HTTP requests
- See agents in action with the examples in this video tutorial
- Get example code from the Electric Imp GitHub account – a repository of sample code to accomplish various tasks.
So far, we have already seen lots of creative examples of agents in use, such as tweeting the current temperature in their home, tracking the weather, and even dispensing candy from a webpage. We look forward to seeing even more innovative and clever ways you’re using agents!
Finally, a special thank you to all of our beta testers. Your feedback has been valuable to us and greatly appreciated.
Mayumi Matsuno
Director of Product