Merge pull request #35 from arduino/benjamindannegard/cloud-historical-data-tutorial

benjamindannegard/Added historical data tutorial

Author: karlsoderby

content/cloud/iot-cloud/tutorials/iot-cloud-historical-data/assets/cloud-historical-data-dashboard.png

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+---
+title: 'Historical Data on Arduino IoT Cloud'
+difficulty: easy
+description: 'Learn how to download historical data from the Arduino IoT Cloud'
+tags: [IoT Cloud, Historical Data]
+author: 'Benjamin Dannegård'
+software:
+  - iot-cloud
+---
+
+## Introduction 
+
+It is possible to download historical data from your [Arduino IoT Cloud]((https://create.arduino.cc/iot/)) Things and Variables. It is downloaded in `.csv` format, and can be used for data comparison.
+
+## Goals
+
+The goals of this tutorial are:
+
+- Learn about Arduino cloud historical data
+- Learn how to use this data
+
+## Hardware & Software Needed
+
+You do not need an active board to download the historical data, but for initial data collection, you will need a cloud compatible board.
+
+To see all compatible boards, check out the link below:
+
+- [Arduino IoT Cloud compatible boards](/cloud/iot-cloud/tutorials/iot-cloud-getting-started#compatible-hardware).
+
+### Different Historical Data
+
+If you are running a home automation to turn the lights on when it's dark, your system is working with (pretty much) real-time data. So 24 hours of sensor information is perfectly adequate. It's not like you'll be turning a lamp on or off based on yesterday's ambient light levels.
+
+A weather station might work a bit differently though. If you're measuring the temperature or rainfall or daylight hours, you may want to build a comparison to see how the weather is changing. In this case using 15 days of data would be more suitable, allowing you to monitor and record recent changes in your weather station's variables.
+
+Historical data for an IoT greenhouse, or maybe an aquarium or terrarium, would be much more important. Maybe it's even an industrial project that's monitoring equipment for predictive maintenance needs. In these cases, being able to look back at your variables over previous weeks and months could be essential.
+
+### Putting Historical Data to Use in Arduino Cloud
+
+Arduino Cloud is really clever when it comes to the data generated by sensors and used as variables. For example, you can specify how often new data is sent to your Arduino Cloud. Let's say you are monitoring Wi-Fi signal strength at the end of the garden, where a project (weather station for example) is installed. If this is a solar and/or battery powered device, power consumption becomes essential. By changing the data sampling interval from updating a variable on Arduino Cloud every second to updating once a minute, you can extend battery life by a huge amount. The device is only operating a fraction of the time it was before, and the information is just as useful.
+
+Combined with 15 days or three months of historical data, you can build a detailed picture of Wi-Fi performance that lets you keep everything running perfectly. Or, if you need to find out when and why your signal has been dropping, the story is right there in your Arduino Cloud dashboard historical data.
+
+## Instructions
+
+### Downloading Historical Data
+
+First, to download historical data navigate into one of your dashboards on the [Arduino IoT Cloud](https://create.arduino.cc/iot/dashboards).
+
+![Arduino cloud dashboard](assets/cloud-historical-data-dashboard.png)
+
+While in the dashboard press the "i" icon up in the right corner. When this icon is pressed a window will show up that allows you to download historical data. As shown in the image below.
+
+![Window with historical data inside dashboard](assets/cloud-historical-data.png)
+
+Clicking “Historical Data” that gives you a list of all variables in use. From here you can select all the ones you want to download by selecting the check boxes. If your dashboard is using multiple Things, you can swap between them from the dropdown at the top.
+
+![Selecting variables for historical data](assets/cloud-historical-data-selecting-variable.png)
+
+Simply choose the variables and Things you want to export and click the "Select Data Source" button. You’ll be taken to a new window where you confirm that you want to download the data. You will receive an email shortly after, providing you with a link to download your data as individual CSV files. 
+
+## Conclusion
+
+In this tutorial you learned what applications historical data could have. And how to extract historical data from your Arduino IoT Cloud dashboard.