We’re pleased to announce that agents, along with our shiny new IDE, are now in open beta. This is a big step forward for Electric Imp, and we’re excited to see what you can do with the functionality, and to have you assist us with testing along the way.
Agents are bits of server side Squirrel that run in the Imp Cloud, and can easily communicate with your device. Agents can be used to offload heavy processing (to save batteries), store small amounts of data (that persist even if an imp is powered off), and can send and receive HTTP requests, acting as a gatekeeper between your imp and the Internet. People have used agents to tweet the current temperature in their home, dispense candy from a webpage, track the current weather, and much, much more!
In order to build agents for your imp you will need access to the IDE. The newly updated IDE represents a significant enhancement to Electric Imp’s developer tools. The old code editor was designed to accomplish a couple of tasks – write code, and send it to your imp. It was the first pass at a fairly complex tool. The new IDE, now in open beta, brings the power and functionality of the ACE Editor, combined with a great interface and colorful logs! We love developing in the new IDE, and we hope it will make as a big a difference in your productivity and development process as it has in ours.
For more information about the new IDE and agents, you can refer to the following resources:
- Forums: Agents Category – a great place to search for examples, and ask for help.
- Electric Imp IDE Guide – a quick video to get to familiar with new features of the IDE.
- Electric Imp Documentation – information about working with Electric Imp and our APIs.
- agent object – communicate with the agent (from the device)
- device object – communicate with the device (from the agent)
- http object – handle incoming HTTP requests and make outgoing ones.
- Electric Imp GitHub account – a repository of sample code to accomplish various tasks.
If you would like join the beta, browse to your account settings page and check ‘Beta IDE,’ then enter your password and click ‘Update.’
Once you have saved your new settings, you should be able to access the new editor by clicking on the IDE link in the top nav bar (you may need to refresh your browser or re-sign in).
To submit feedback, please email beta@electricimp.com.
Happy coding!
Matt Haines
Developer Relations Evangelist