Enhancements to the Data Dashboard for LabVIEW app on the iPad

Released in the Fall of 2011, Data Dashboard for LabVIEW allows you to use iOS and Android mobile devices to view measurement data from NI LabVIEW programs on desktop or embedded systems. The latest update to the app for iPad, released in November 2012, has great new features described in detail below.

1. Customize Your Layout
2. New Controls and Indicators
3. Share Your Dashboards
4. Work on Multiple Dashboards
5. Define the Look and Feel of Dashboard Elements
6. Access the NI Technical Data Cloud
7. Connect to Data Seamlessly and Securely
8. Choose Your Background
9. Access Capabilities on Additional Platforms
10. Explore and Download NI Mobile Apps

Customize Your Layout

After adding controls, indicators, shapes, and photos; you will be able to drag them freely and define a unique layout representing your system. You will also have the option to edit your layouts any time and define different arrangements for each page in a multipage dashboard. The older version of the app had a defined grid where you could place objects. Now you, as the developer, are free to create the layout most appropriate for your application.

New Controls and Indicators

In addition to reading data from network-published shared variables or web services, you will have the ability to add dashboard controls to write data or commands over the network. New controls and indicators give you more flexibility to create the dashboard needed for your application. Once added to the dashboard, controls and indicators can be connected to data for monitoring and control.

Share Your Dashboards

With the enhanced Data Dashboard for LabVIEW app, you will be able to send your favorite dashboards to colleagues via email or the NI cloud. You will also have the option to lock your dashboards for read-only access once distributed. If your colleague receives a dashboard from you through email and has the same Data Dashboard for LabVIEW app installed, then it will automatically open the app when opened from email.

Work on Multiple Dashboards

The improved app will enable creating, editing, and saving multiple dashboards on a single device. In addition, you will have the ability to add multiple pages to each dashboard you create. The dashboards are displayed on a "carousel" that you can swipe through and choose the one you would like to work on. Once opened, you can customize and change the dashboard or run it.

Define the Look and Feel of Dashboard Elements

You will have access to control and indicator properties that you can use to customize the appearance of your dashboards. By using built-in color theme options, you can quickly customize your dashboard layout in a professional and creative way thereby enhancing the user experience.

Access the NI Technical Data Cloud

If you have a subscription to the NI Technical Data Cloud, you will be able to access data directly from the cloud via your iPad. This eliminates the need to access many distributed systems from your dashboards, or aggregate data using a separate LabVIEW application or modifying existing applications. Simply use the same LabVIEW application that you are currently using to write your data into the NI Technical Data Cloud, and connect your dashboard object to whichever channel or variable you wish. This way, you are able to quickly and easily visualize your data remotely.

Connect to Data Seamlessly and Securely

The new Data Dashboard for LabVIEW app will enable linking controls and indicators to secure LabVIEW web services. By using secure LabVIEW web services, dashboard users will have to login using IDs and passwords setup by the developer and have the digital API key to access the application. By configuring secure web services, developers can have groups of user IDs have access to only monitor data while other groups have the ability to control and montior the application. Properly configuring an API security key for a web service during the configuration process allows only requests coming with that particular key access to any data.

Choose Your Background

With the new app, you will be able to change the color of your background or use a photo of your choice. Developers even have the option to use onboard cameras to take a picture and then use that for the background. This is useful if the device is deployed and you can take an image of the actual setup. This might help users of the dashboard more intuitively know what certain controls and indicators do.

Access Capabilities on Additional Platforms

While the above features will only be available only on iPad devices, you can also access a subset of Data Dashboard for LabVIEW functionality on the iPhone (called Data Dashboard Mobile for LabVIEW) as well as selected Android phones and tablets. Some features currently available on these platforms include the following:

• Fixed-layout dashboards
• Data access via network-published shared variables or web services
• Indicators including graphs, strings, and numeric readouts
• Access to built-in device sensors (for example, accelerometers)

Explore and Download NI Mobile Apps

You can find direct download links for these apps, learn about other mobile offerings from NI, and get involved with the mobile community at ni.com/mobile.

6 Ratings | 4.83 out of 5

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Q4 2012 shipments | Android (phones) 152.1 million units | iOS (phones) 47.8 million units | iOS (iPads) 22.9 million | Windows RT (tablets) 1 million | ...hope that helps with project decisions ;-)
- Jan 29, 2013

Android please
Yes, iOS tablets are more numerous but please see real data for phones: http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/02/idc- android-market-share-reached-75- worldwide-in-q3-2012/ Android is at 75% world wide market share. So let me make the case for getting a new Android client: Not a single engineer in my group has an iOS device. We all have one (or more) Android devices, a side effect of Bring- your-own-device policy that a lot of companies are embracing. I would argue that the Phone is the ideal platform to quickly check on data, you carry it with you everywhere. With 720p or 1080p displays on most new (android) phones you can pack a lot of useful data on screen at once for a quick review. In our experience if we need large screen real-estate and an interactive control we will use the desktop next to the test bed or on our desks. Re: Android "fragmentation issue" Tired of hearing this non-issue. It is nothing new any other platform. For example this new data (v2) dashboard for iOS only supports iOS 5.0 or later so no support for iPhone 1 or Iphone 3G (opps!) In addition they had to code for 2 different resolutoions of iPads and 3 different resolutions of iPhone (oh the tragedy!) Labview has to support Linux, OSX, Widnows XP, Vista, 7, 8 as well as 32bit, 64bit versions and *billions* of hardware permutations. Am I really to accept that writing for android is a greater challenge? A well written android app can cope with both phone and tablet UIs (DPI API’s) and different resolutions (Screen APIs, Fragment APIs) so no need to write twice. The android market is full of tier 1 software that works across a very diverse range of phones, tablets, screen resolutions and OS versions. The existing Labview Data Dashboard for android (v1) copes fine with tablets and phones of all resolutions in my experience - we are just waiting for the v2 update. The only update I see from the latest newsletter is Windows RT support is planned, yet the Windows RT market is so small no annalist can even get a handle on the world wide % (probably <1%). So when is an update planned for the most popular platform (android)?
- Jan 02, 2013

Odd...
"I find it strange that the revised platform is being release for the least numerous device first (iPad)." What an odd comment. All the data points to the opposite being more likely- the iPad 3 & iPad 2 being the best selling tablet devices currently. Best selling OS isn't the primary deciding factor in device support because data dashboard is most effectively utilised on a tablet size device not a phone... Add to this the problem of fragmentation of Android, i.e. the app may work on some Android devices but fail on others, or have varying degrees of runtime performance.
- Oct 11, 2012

iOS still outsells Android
Actually, iOS outsells Android and Apple owns 70% of the tablet market (while having your data on your phone is nice, it's not really usable until you have it on a tablet). When they release the iPad mini next month, they'll probably take over 80% of the tablet market within months). My wish is to have controls, not just indicators on my iPad for remote control and data viewing.
- Aug 21, 2012


I find it strange that the revised platform is being release for the least numerous device first (iPad). By the numbers android outsells iphone+ipad combined (look at market share and sales volume data) this is also reflected in the device ownership at my place of work. Do you have an ETA for an updated android client?
- Aug 07, 2012