SmartQ Notification with Azure IOT Hub and Virtual Shields

Waiting hours in queue for your turn to be attended is a waste of time.  SmarQ allows you to take a queue number with a press of button. You can go away for a while to do other business in the middle of the waiting. SmarQ will update you the current queue status and notify you when it is almost your turn to be served.

Current implementation allows a queue attendant to speaks to the Virtual Shields for Arduino app in order to manage the queue number.  A notification will be sent to the customers whenever the queue number changes.  Hence the customers can estimate how soon they will be served.

This project currently consists of the following 3 parts:

• Smart Queue Universal Windows app
• Virtual Shields for Arduino app
• ProcessDeviceToCloudMessage and ProcessD2CInteractiveMessages apps

The project includes the use of Azure IoT Hub, Queue and Azure Storage and Notification Hub.

SmartQueueUniversalWindows app

This app notifies a customer the current queue number being served so that the customer can manage the time needed to be presented at the customer counter.

Please follow this link Get started with Notification Hubs for Windows Store Apps to build this app. I have added some codes at the code section below or get from GitHub.  I use the Visual Studio Community 2015.

Important steps:

• Register your app for the Windows Store
• Configure your notification hub
• Connect your app to the notification hub

Virtual Shields for Arduino App

Queue attendant uses this app to manage the queue.  A attendant will speak to the app to get the next queue number to be served.  This app can be installed from Windows Store.

ProcessDeviceToCloudMessages and ProcessD2CInteractiveMessages Apps

Both of the above are console apps.  Follow the instructions in this tutorial (How to process IoT Hub device-to-cloud messages) to build these apps.

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