Apps Bring Mobile Computing to NI LabVIEW

By Anthony J. Lockwood

National Instruments (NI; Austin, TX) recently announced a set of NI LabVIEW software-  and NI hardware-compatible Apple iOS and Android apps intended to help engineers integrate the latest mobile technology into their applications. NI says that its Data Dashboard for LabVIEW, Data Dashboard Mobile for LabVIEW,  and NI cDAQ-9191 Data Display apps combine the portability, ease of use, faster start-up time, and longer battery longevity of iPhone, iPad, and Android mobile devices with NI LabVIEW system design software. With this integration, the company adds, engineers can access measurement data from data acquisition and embedded monitoring systems more productively.

Data Dashboard for LabVIEW.

“Smartphones and tablets are game-changers for the test and measurement industry,” said Ray Almgren, NI vice president of product marketing core platforms, in a press release. “These new apps combine the portability of mobile devices with the power of LabVIEW, helping engineers increase their productivity and meet the latest application challenges.”

Data Dashboard Mobile for LabVIEW.

Data Dashboard for LabVIEW and Data Dashboard Mobile for LabVIEW are said to allow users to remotely view PC or embedded measurements from LabVIEW on mobile devices. With the Data Dashboard apps, users can create dashboards to display the values of network-published shared variables and deployed LabVIEW Web services. Users can also visualize distributed measurements from LabVIEW programmable devices, and users can connect to networked-published shared variables or Web service data without Web or app programming.

The NI cDAQ-9191 Data Display app connects wireless NI CompactDAQ hardware directly to iOS and Android devices using new technology featured on NI Labs. Users can configure, visualize, and save measurements without a PC or tethered display. Additionally, users can program custom apps that connect to wireless NI CompactDAQ devices with the cDAQ-9191 Web API (applications programming interface). Features include the ability to discover devices on a local subnet automatically; the ability to configure the number of samples, sampling rate, and channels to acquire; and pinch the graph to zoom in on a signal.

NI cDAQ-9191 Data Display.

Data Dashboard is available for the Apple iPad, Apple iPod touch, and the Apple iPhone (Data Dashboard Mobile for LabVIEW) in the Apple Store. It’s also available for Android tablets and phones from Google Play and the Amazon Appstore for Android. NI cDAQ-9191 Data Display App is available for both the iPhone and iPad from the Apple Store and the Android from Google Play. All versions are free of charge.

In related news, NI also released several apps for learning basic LabVIEW concepts, displaying data acquisition device pinouts, learning common electric circuits, and managing support requests. For more information on these apps or to download NI’s new mobile engineering applications, visit the National Instruments’ Mobile Technology for Measurement and Control microsite.

  Read the white paper “Smartphones and Tablets for Measurement and Control.”

Read the white paper “Getting Started with the Data Dashboard for LabVIEW.”

Learn more about NI cDAQ-9191 Data Display.

Click here for more on NI CompactDAQ.

See why DE‘s editors selected NI’s new mobile apps for LabVIEW as their Pick of the Week.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.