One of the latest trends that has excited many technology enthusiasts in the last few years is Internet of Things (IoT), which has the potential to transform how technology is consumed by enterprises and end users in the coming years. Windows 10 IoT Core already supports popular boards like Raspberry Pi2, MinnowBoard Max and DragonBoard, and because Node.js continues to see a lot of excitement in the IoT and the maker community, we have been actively updating the Node.js support for Windows 10 IoT Core for new scenarios since it was released last year.
Yesterday, Node.js support for Windows 10 IoT Core reached a new major milestone. The Chakra team submitted a Pull Request(PR) to mainline Node.js using the recently open sourcedChakraCore JavaScript engine. Once accepted, this PR will allow us to move at the speed of Node.js while accomplishing two goals. First, growing organically based on community feedback and, second, bringing innovation faster to the developers on Windows 10 IoT Core. As per our roadmap, detailed in this blog, the Chakra team will continue to work closely with the community and the Node.js Foundation to improve module compatibility and evaluate Node.js performance.
The September update for Node.js support for Windows 10 IoT Core made it easier to get started and improved compatibility of some key IoT specific npm modules. This project continues to make progress by keeping it current with Node.js and incorporating community feedback. Today, we are releasing the version 1.5 update to Node.js Tools for Windows IoT. The following are some of the highlights of this new release.
Console Apps
The console application model constitutes a majority of Node.js development on Windows 10 IoT today. This is a familiar Node.js experience wherein developers are used to working with their favorite editor and a command prompt across platforms. Windows 10 IoT Core supported this app model from the beginning, allowing the use of Node.js with Chakra and using PowerShell, SSH, or SMB file transfer to manually deploy their scripts on the device. This experience will continue to work in the 1.5 update using Node.js with ChakraCore. ChakraCore will be developed in the open, will see faster updates, and will work across different Windows OS starting from Windows 7 and higher. Node.js with ChakraCore is aligned with Node.js master and currently supports Node.js v6.0.0. Developers can get started and try it out even with the standalone installer for Node.js with ChakraCore. You can use some of the console app samples like MemoryStatus and Using Cylon, which are available at our site.
Universal Windows Platform (UWP) Apps
Node.js developers for Windows 10 IoT Core also enjoy the benefits of Universal Windows Platform (UWP) model using Node.js. This app model is central to the Windows 10 ecosystem and allows developers to target the entire family of Windows 10 devices. UWP apps built using Node.js are powered by the inbox Chakra JavaScript engine, and the Node.js Tools for Windows IoT v1.5 will install all the relevant tools and binaries needed to create a UWP app in Node.js. This option allows familiar Visual Studio experience. The latest release includes better debugging support, more templates to help developers get started easily, and Node.js support for the latest stable release. It requires Visual Studio 2015 Update 1. The following are some key improvements for this scenario:
Support for Node.js Tools for VS 1.1
The latest NTVS release brings more reliable debugging and IntelliSense, support for npm v3, code snippets, and general stability and performance improvements.
Support for Node v5.4.1
We always want to be on the cutting edge of node.js and the latest build of Node.js Tools for Windows IoT supports the latest stable version v5.4.1
Built-in Template for Johnny-Five
Johnny-Five, a popular JavaScript Robotics and IoT programming framework, is well supported with Windows 10 IoT Core; with this release, we are making it even easier to get started with it by including a built-in UWP template for Johnny-Five.
New project dialog inside Visual Studio 2015 showing Johnny-Five UWP template
Candy Robot
Our goal is to continue improving and also provide great Node.js support in Windows 10 IoT Core. As a part of the ChakraCore launch, we recorded a demo that showcases Node.js with the ChakraCore console app running on Raspberry Pi2 with Windows 10 IoT Core. We call it the “Candy Robot.” The demo shown here uses 100+ dependent npm modules including cylon, serialport, firmata, and express (there is also a version which uses Johnny-Five instead of cylon at our repo), just to illustrate the breadth of module support that is already available.
The Candy Robot has a light sensor on it. When it moves, the robot uploads the light intensity data at a given point to a server. The server has an interface to view the average brightness data and exploration time. It further shows an early preview of the Time-Travel debugging feature, which we are working on and will be sharing more about as it evolves.
If you want to play with it yourself and hook it up with some more interesting sensors and functionality, here is the detailed step-by-step instruction for the demo.
How to Get Started?
Want to build something interesting? To get started using Node.js Tools for Windows IoT, here are the instructions to create a UWP app and Node.js with ChakraCore console app. The Docs and Samples page has some samples with detailed instructions and code to play with.
It’s a lot of fun working on this project, and we truly value your support and feedback so far, so please keep them coming on our issues page. You can also reach us on Twitter at @ChakraCore or visit ChakraCore’s GitHub repo and leave us a note by opening an issue.
Can’t wait to see what you build!
Written by Arunesh Chandra, a senior program manager on Chakra