ThinxNet Powers IoT Platform Using PubNub

ThinxNet is an Internet of Things platform that connects devices and ensures data transmission, security, and analytics for IoT applications. An online platform for connecting a wide variety of devices, ThinxNet offers a number of IoT services including industry-grade hardware, IoT device management, real-time data streaming, and full security.

Powering the IoT Platform

ThinxNet is crafting the future of mobility in new, exciting ways.

A key component of any IoT application is the ability to monitor a network of devices in real time. This could be sensor readings, device health, or device status. In ThinxNet’s case, they needed a way to stream real-time updates to users on an in-app channel with relevant information (ie. the state of a vehicle - whether it’s driving or parked). ThinxNet also needed a unified gateway for push notifications to APNs and GCM for reliable push notifications across platforms. ThinxNet uses PubNub Data Streams and Mobile Push Gateway to deliver this functionality. The implementation of these features has created a more reliable and efficient real-time infrastructure for the IoT platform.

We avoid polling of information from our back end, which results in better user experience and lower data volumes. Without PubNub, we wouldn’t be able to do in-app real-time communication without polling, Christoph Geiser, Director Software Development at ThinxNet.

Powered by ThinxNet, TankTaler provide various information about the car's health condition and fuel level.

Make vs. Buy

Early in the development stage, ThinxNet had to decide whether they would go with a data stream network or build a real-time infrastructure in-house. Rather than worrying about developing and maintaining a custom real-time backend infrastructure, the development team chose PubNub.

It was a classic make-or-buy decision. We ended up using PubNub, after having looked at others, because it solved our problems with less effort than doing it ourselves.

Reliable and Scalable

Overall, PubNub has increased the reliability and scalability of the ThinxNet platform. As the platform continues to grow, and more concurrent devices are connected, ThinxNet doesn’t need to devote valuable resources to maintaining their real-time infrastructure.

PubNub has made our lives easier by creating a unified endpoint for push notifications, a centralized certificate management for GCM/APNs, all with an easy-to-use in-app communication channel.