“Don’t be put off by words such as ‘programming’: it’s no harder than building a Lego set”
In previous columns I’ve written about Node-RED (although I often forget the silly capitals). Recently a reader reminded me that I’ve never actually mentioned what it is, what it does and how to use it. Oops – that was very remiss, let’s fix that now.
The best description that I can come up with is that it offers nonscary programming that you can use for interfacing IoT devices, sensors, APIs, databases and the like. It’s like intelligent, programmable glue. But don’t let words such as “programming” and “programmable” put you off, because in this instance it’s no harder than building a Lego set.
Node-RED is open source, but it originally came from IBM, and it’s written in Node.js. It’s a block-based visual editor that runs entirely in a web browser.
First off, let’s sign up for a free cloud-based service to see exactly what it looks like, have a quick play, and then try installing Node-RED on a Raspberry Pi. For the cloud stuff, IBM used to offer a free Node-RED hosting service, but that vanished a while ago (you’ll still see lots of web resources that refer to it). Oracle also has some free resources, but you still need a credit card to sign up, and if you aren’t careful you might run up some charges. So instead I’m going to recommend FRED from Sense Technic. Head over to fred.sensetecnic.com and sign up for a new account.
You’ll need to click a link in a
