New Feature Release: Message Counts API

Users expect those little red circles with how many unread messages they have. However, it can be surprisingly hard to do. So we’re making it super easy for you to implement them. We’re excited to announce the release of our new API – Message Counts ... more

How to Build a DIY Air Quality Monitoring System with Realtime Readings and Live Alerts

If 2018 had taught us anything, it’s no place on Earth is free of natural disaster. With the multiple California wildfires throughout the year, surrounding cities experienced heavy air pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that 4.6 million ... more

How to Build a Geographically-aware, Location-based Android Dating App

With over a third of people opting to create meaningful relationships online, it’s only fitting that instant gratification-driven dating apps like Tinder and Bumble have flourished. That got me thinking – how hard is it to build a geo-aware mobile dating ... more

Accept Serverless Payments with Stripe and PubNub Functions

This tutorial covers how to build an application that accepts serverless payments using Stripe and PubNub Functions. Whether you’re already using PubNub or not, this is an easy way to process payments without having to set up your own backend infrastructure. ... more

How to Use React Hooks with PubNub

React Hooks are finally here! In a nutshell, that means you don’t need to create a class just to access the React exclusive functions like component state. You can also now deconstruct very complex component hierarchies. For example, look at a Higher-Order ... more

How NativeScript is Used and Benefits the Enterprise

This is a guest post from Michael Kelley, Director of Communications at Fueled, an app development company in New York and London. Even with all the tools available for the development of Android and iOS apps, developers still need to know their way ... more

Socket Programming in Python: Client, Server, and Peer Examples

Sockets (aka socket programming) enable programs to send and receive data, bi-directionally , at any given moment. This tutorial walks through how you can send data from device-to-device , client-to-server , and vice versa using socket programming in ... more

How PubNub Can Turbocharge Your Machine Learning Algorithm

Let’s take a look at not just what machine learning is, but the various tradeoffs engineers must make in devising, developing, and improving effective and useful machine learning algorithms. We’ll also discuss how many of today’s challenges with machine ... more

Alternative to Building a Socket.IO Chat App

When you build a realtime application with Socket.IO, you need to spin up and scale your own Node.js server. In the lab, this isn’t hard, but at scale, maintaining and orchestrating this Node.js backend, and ensuring security and reliability, is an immense ... more

Alternative to Building a Socket.IO Chat App

In this tutorial, we’ll build a real-time, simple chat app without a backend server. ChatEngine and PubNub do not need a Node.js server, unlike Socket.IO chat apps. PubNub takes WebSockets to the next level, so old methods like request-response with ... more

Build Your Own Simple Slackbot with Serverless PubNub Functions

Everyone is using Slack. From sharing code to sending cat memes to your coworker at 2 am, Slack has become the go-to chat and collaboration platform for businesses. Unfortunately, messaging isn’t at the top of the productivity food chain. What’s really ... more

How to Implement Cryptographic Command Verification in Your IoT Smart Door Lock

This article was originally published on the Virgil Security blog. Virgil Security, Inc. enables developers to encrypt everything without having to become security experts. Around the globe, tens of thousands of new IoT devices will come online in the ... more

Here’s How to Build Your Own Smart Home in an Afternoon

As we approach 2019’s advent of new Internet of Things technologies, smart homes and home automation have become increasingly common rather than inaccessibly luxurious. Numerous IoT products have risen, like Google Clips Amazon Alexa and INSTEON, to ... more

How to Use the ChatEngine Muter Plugin to Silence or Block Other Users in Chat Apps

Whether you’re muting a user so you can focus on your work or blocking a cyberbully, giving your chat users the ability to mute and block other chat users is a core feature of any chat application. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to implement user ... more

How to Build a Vue Customer Service Chat App (ie. an Intercom.io Alternative)

Vue.js is an open source JavaScript framework with a massive developer following. Its architecture is considered cutting edge in the web development community because it composes user interfaces of reactive web components. Chat apps are being built more ... more

Implement Video Chat with Xirsys, WebRTC, and ChatEngine

In our previous tutorial, we showed you how to integrate WebRTC video calling into your chat app with ChatEngine. ChatEngine makes this easy, because there is an open source, community supported WebRTC plugin for integrating RTC in browser applications. ... more

Send Transactional Template Emails in Javascript with SendGrid & PubNub

SendGrid is a powerful service that developers can use to send customized transactional emails to users who interact with input fields on a website or mobile application. Transactional Email Templates allow businesses to design custom HTML and CSS styled ... more

Sending Android Mobile Push Notifications with FCM and PubNub

When building mobile applications, it is tough to think of a use case where you don’t need to notify users with realtime updates. For example, let’s consider the following scenario: You are developing a realtime sports application which feeds its users ... more

Integrating Video Calling in Chat with WebRTC and ChatEngine

What is WebRTC? WebRTC is a free and open source project that enables web browsers and mobile devices to provide simple realtime communication. This means that app features like peer-to-peer video conferencing can easily be integrated into a web page. ... more

Controlling Internet-connected Devices with Magic Leap Hand Gestures

Imagine a world where you walk into your home, look at a smart lightbulb in the room, make a gesture with your hands, and the light turns off or on. Or you swipe with a hand to change the channel on your TV. Or you even glance at a thermostat and speak ... more

Connected Car Development Basics with PubNub, Functions and the Smartcar API

Connected car is an emerging market for startups, from vehicle control (eg. remote start or opening doors) to vehicle diagnostics (mileage and maintenance) to vehicle tracking. As a whole, its market was valued at $52.62 billion in 2016 and is projected ... more

Your Guide To Messaging APIs for Enabling Web 3.0 Internet Communication

Given all the promise of the Internet, we initially experienced it only as an information dump with millions of websites containing billions of web pages hyperlinked to one another. With Web 2.0 we envisaging a semantic web powered by dynamic web applications ... more

How to Use Open Graph to Unfurl URLs into Rich Objects in Chat Apps

Chat apps have transcended simple 1:1 and group messaging, and chat developers are always looking for ways to take a conversation to the next level, making it more immersive and engaging. Interactive emojis, language translation, or even integrating ... more

Build a Text-to-Speech Chat App with Amazon Polly and ChatEngine

Accessibility for computer applications is quite often an overlooked consideration during development. A user interface that works for one person might be completely constrained for a disabled person. Hence, as designers and developers, the onus is on ... more

Build HIPAA Compliant End-to-End Encrypted Chat Apps Using PubNub and Virgil Security

As end-to-end encryption becomes the new normal in the world of chat, we want to showcase a PubNub-powered end-to-end encrypted chat that works across all client platforms and provides a way to protect the decryption key instead of relying on developers ... more

How to Setup Push Notifications in React Native (iOS & Android) with PubNub

This tutorial will walk you through how to install React Native, create a new project with native code, and set up remote push notifications for both iOS and Android. There are a few requirements before you can get started: iOS development requires building ... more

Windows Desktop Notifications with C#, WPF, MVVM, and PubNub

Desktop notifications have become a necessary feature in realtime, event-driven applications. Programs need to alert users of back-end signals, or messages from other users, as they happen. If you’re developing a Windows Desktop application using C# ... more

Build a Smart Chat App that Categorizes Topics with Amazon Comprehend and ChatEngine

What’s the difference between a chatroom and a forum? Both are used as a means of collaboration between people, however, chatrooms are realtime whereas forums are not. But what if you could take the best functions of each and blend them together? How ... more

A/B Testing Your Game with PubNub and Optimizely

A/B testing is an important tool for modern game designers and product managers. Conducting A/B tests provide a robust framework to facilitate experimentation with many aspects of the game in a controlled way and to confidently make decisions about positive ... more

Build a Multiplayer Browser-based VR Game with A-Frame, PubNub, and WebVR

Advancements in technology have made Virtual Reality (VR) more immersive and affordable than ever. This immersive environment can be similar to the real world or it can be fantastical, creating an experience that is not possible in ordinary reality. ... more