Analysis and Visualization in ThingSpeak | IoT from Data to Action, Part 3

ThingSpeak and MATLAB let you analyze live IoT data on the cloud. You can identify patterns, make predictions, and visualize your data.

Earlier videos in this series guided you through setting up your ThingSpeak account and collecting data from environmental sensors into a channel. Now we can gain insights by analyzing and visualizing that data.

The environmental monitor we set up may have missing data points due to connectivity issues. You can use preprocessing techniques like interpolation to fill this missing data. After preprocessing, you can aggregate the data, perform statistical analysis, and identify trends.

In addition to analysis, 2D and 3D visualizations of your live data stream help you quickly understand your data and glean deeper insights.

Let’s analyze the environmental monitor data using the MATLAB interface built into ThingSpeak. The MATLAB Analysis App helps you explore the data stored in ThingSpeak™ channels. You can develop code from scratch or start from a template.

This plot indicates missing temperature values in the environmental channel. The MATLAB Analysis app makes it easy to fill these missing values. You can create your own custom MATLAB analysis app in ThingSpeak and reuse this code. This code reads the temperature data from a channel and uses linear interpolation of the neighboring points to fill in the missing values. Since you cannot write duplicate timestamps to the same channel, make sure to write the processed data into a new channel. You can view the final temperature data in the new channel with the missing values filled in.

Use the MATLAB Visualizations App to easily create meaningful visuals. This next example will superimpose the moving average of the temperature data collected by the environmental monitor.

This code reads the temperature data, calculates the moving average over 30 points, and displays the resulting plot. You can save this visualization and also create a public URL that can be shared with anyone.

Use App Designer in MATLAB to create a custom interactive experience for analysis and visualization. The MATLAB IoT Data explorer, which is available for download in FEX or on Github, allows you to compare live data to historical data, and apply basic filters to your data. You can modify or extend this app to develop insights for your IoT data and application.

For more complex analyses and visualizations like AI modeling, curve or surface fitting, and image processing, you can bring your data into desktop MATLAB or MATLAB Online and take advantage of all the specialized toolboxes.

In summary, MATLAB and ThingSpeak help you quickly understand your live IoT data by making it easy to preprocess, analyze, and visualize your data in meaningful ways.

Watch the next video to learn how to transform your IoT data and results into actions. You’ll also learn how to automate repetitive tasks and integrate with other services like Google or IFTTT to enhance your IoT applications.

ThingSpeak and MATLAB let you analyze live IoT data on the cloud. You can identify patterns, make predictions, and visualize your data.

Earlier videos in this series guided you through setting up your ThingSpeak account and collecting data from environmental sensors into a channel. The next step is to gaining insights by analyzing and visualizing our that data.

This environmental monitor may have some downtime due to connectivity issues, . resulting in missing data points. You can use preprocessing techniques like interpolation to fill the missing data. After preprocessing, you can aggregate the data, perform statistical analysis, and identify trends.

2D and 3D visualizations of your live data stream help you quickly understand your data and glean deeper insights.

Let’s analyze the environmental monitor data using the MATLAB interface built into ThingSpeak. The MATLAB Analysis App helps you explore the data stored in ThingSpeak™ channels. You can develop code from scratch or start from a template.

This plot indicates missing temperature values in the environmental channel. The MATLAB Analysis app makes it easy to resolve this using interpolation.

Feel free to leverage this code in your custom MATLAB analysis app. It reads the temperature data from a ThingSpeak channel and uses linear interpolation of the neighboring points to fill in the missing values.

Since you cannot write duplicate timestamps to the same channel, make sure to write the processed data into a new channel. You can view the final temperature data in the new channel with the missing values filled in.

Use the MATLAB Visualizations App [show where it is in the menu] to easily create meaningful visuals in an interactive manner. S with the MATLAB Analysis app, you can start from scratch or use one of the many available templates. This next example will superimpose the moving average of the temperature data collected by the environmental monitor.

This code reads the temperature data, calculates the moving average over 30 points, and displays the resulting plot. You can save this visualization and also create a public URL that  can be shared with anyone.

You can use MATLAB App Designer to create a custom interactive experience for analysis and visualization. The MATLAB IOT Data explorer, available in FEX, where allows you to compare live data to historical data, and apply basic filters to your data. You can modify or extend this app to bring insights to the problems you are solving.

For more complex analyses and visualizations like AI modeling, curve or surface fitting, and image processing, bring your data into desktop MATLAB or MATLAB Online and take advantage of all the toolboxes.

MATLAB and ThingSpeak help you quickly understand your live IoT data by making it easy to preprocess, analyze, and visualize your data in meaningful ways.

Watch the next video to learn how to transform your IoT data and results into actions.  

You’ll also learn how to automate repetitive tasks and integrate with other applications like Google or IFTTT to enhance your IoT application.