Control Arduino via Twitter sans computer

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Software Interfacing
#1

Hi,

I've been looking form information on this but have not been successful. There are a ton of examples about tweeting FROM an Arduino, but not very many aboutdealing with the inverse, i.e. controlling the an arduino via Twitter.

The project I've been working on is a riff on another persons project which used a linux based router to check a twitter account, parse the results, and output a serial string to the Arduino. I'm having a hell of a time dealing with the router solution (linux is not my forte). I'd like to ideally handle all of this from a wifi enabled Arduino (BlackWidow maybe?).

The plan is for the Arduino to look at 3 different twitter account feeds (xml) and check each one for a match to a list of words in the program. For instance, the program would have a list of twelve words ("one", "two", "three",...,"eleven", "twelve"), and if one of these words show up in the feed, then do this thing that is supposed to happen when that words is seen.

I think the easiest way to handle this would be to have a script of some sort running on a webserver which checks the twitter feeds, parses out the words, and creates an output that is easy for the Arduino to make sense of, rather than having the Arduino itself parse the feeds. I would PREFER to have the Arduino itself doing the work, but I'm not entirely sure how easy it would be to parse that much info in an Arduino sketch.

What I'm really looking for is an example of someone doing something like this and the sketch they used. I'm fairly new to Arduino and I've never dealt with any ethernet/wifi stuff. I have a sketch written already which parses a serial feed that was supposed to come from the linux router, and I think it could be adapted without much effort. Can anyone point me in a good direction?

-Ryan

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I have seen a couple of examples where people will handle the twitter checking/parsing on a computer attached to the arduino, but that is not an option for this project. I need to keep cost down and I need to fit it in a tight space, without wires running in/out.

#2

The arduino with an ethernet shield can act as web browser type client and down load material from a web server. Generally web servers don't go out on the net on their own to gather data. If you search the forum for "twitter" you will find a lot of previous post concerning twitter. Accessing your twitter account may be an issue. Might be better to set the arduino up as a web server and access it directly for control setups, skipping the twitter thing entirely.

#3

Well... arduino is a MICROcontroller... I don't think it has enough power or memory to handle a twitter feed in a reliable way.

But, please, if I'm wrong I want to know! ;D

#4

Hi guys, thanks for the input. When I say web server, I mean a real server out on the web, not hosted on the arduino. And I feel (unfortunately) that TheGiops is correct about the lack of power in the arduino to parse all that data. What I was thinking was to put a php script on my web server which would check the twitter feeds and return a short string (in my case something like "1>a2>b3>c") which my arduino could easily make sense of (move motor 1 to position A, 2 to B, and 3 to C). That way all of the twitter stuff and parsing happens outside of the arduino, but doesn't require a computer be connected to it. Just point the client to the php script out there on the web.

I think other people are doing similar things, but I haven't found an example sketch to look at. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction :)

#5

Just point the client to the php script out there on the web

Why not just point the client to an arduino web server that can supply data or control things?

#6

Zoomkat, I'd like to be able to use SMS if necessary, which can be done if using twitter as middleman. :)

#7