stayCozy

An on-demand SMS service that provides the current weather at your location or a city of your choice along with a recommendation on what you can choose to wear to be cozy.

Tools and Technologies used:

• Spring Boot
• Java
• Twilio
• ngrok
• REST API
• Webhook

How it works (Flow):

1. This service has a webhook handler (managed using Spring Boot) to which Twilio sends a HTTP POST request when a user sends a message to the phone number associated with this project.

2. This service then uses the Spring Framework to read the RESTful API provided by MetaWeather to retrieve the weather forecast at the location specified by the message.

3. It generates a clothing recomendation using a guide from Washinton Post.

4. The service then uses Twillio to send this recomendation via SMS back to the user.

See the App in action!

Youtube:

Click the Thumbnail to watch the demo!

Pictures:

Commands "how" and "mine" in action:	Example of getting a recomendation for any city:

Usage instructions (once the program is running):

Command [SMS these]	what does it do?
how	Provides a brief description on how to use the service
mine	Provides the weather forecast and clothing recomendation for your current location
name of city [Example: "San Jose"]	Provides the weather forecast and clothing recomendation for the given city

How to get it running:

For phone numbers that I haven't verified with Twilio to be mine, I need a paid subscription to send and recieve messages... if you have some time to burn, this is how you can get it running yourself for free!

[Note: I develop using Linux, using I suggest you to try it out with linux too... some of the accompanied windows instructions may not work]

1. Follow this short tutorial from Twilio till you get your number set up.

2. Create an API key for Twilio:

   • Go to the console page
   • Click on the Accounts drop down near the top-right corner
   • Click API keys
   • Once you complete the 2FA, click on Create API Key
   • before you close the current window, check step 3.

3. Store your API key and Twilio phone number as environmental variables by creating, saving, and then running this script:

   • FOR Linux AND MacOS

       export TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID="CHANGE THIS TO YOUR ACCOUNT SID" 
       export TWILIO_API_KEY="CHANGE THIS TO YOUR API KEY"
       export TWILIO_API_SECRET="CHANGE THIS TO YOUR API SECRET"
       export TWILIO_PHONE_NO="CHANGE THIS TO YOUR TWILIO PHONE NUMBER"

   • For Windows, open cmd or powershell as Admin and run

       setx TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID "CHANGE THIS TO YOUR ACCOUNT SID" /M
       setx TWILIO_API_KEY "CHANGE THIS TO YOUR API KEY" /M
       setx TWILIO_API_SECRET "CHANGE THIS TO YOUR API SECRET" /M
       setx TWILIO_PHONE_NO "CHANGE THIS TO YOUR TWILIO PHONE NUMBER" /M
   

4. Temporary port forwarding using ngork to allow the locally hosted program to listen for webhooks

   • Create an ngrok account and download it using the correct link through this website.
   • Go to the folder where you downloaded ngork and unzip it:
     • using windows explorer on windows
     • or the command tar -xf ngrok-stable-linux-amd64.tgz on Linux and MacOS
   • Run the command provided in "part 2" of the linked website that is unique to you.
   • Run the command: ./nrogk http 8080
   • Copy one of the Forwarding links provided on the terminal.
   • Go to Twilio Console > Develop > Phone Numbers > Manage > Active Numbers > click on the number > Change the "A message comes in" link at the Messaging section at the bottom of the page to the link you copied above.

5. Finally.... Running the program

   • Navigate to the inner folder named "stayCozy" that contains the scripts mvnw and mvnw.cmd
     • run ./mvnw spring-boot:run to start the program on linux or mac
       • If you don't have it installed already, install maven using sudo apt get mvn
     • For windows, you have to make sure that the PATH variables for the Java SDK is properly set up, after that, you should be able to run mvnw.cmd and get the program started. [not sure about this as it didn't make sense to test the program for a windows environment when it would never run there.]
   • Use commands from the Commands table to start using the program!

Resources

These are a selection of resources that I found particularly useful while building this project, and you might too if you are building something with the technologies used here.

• Sending an SMS with Twilio
• Recieving and replying to a message with Twilio on Java
• Read data from a RESTful API with Spring Boot
• What are RESTful APIs anyway?
• Webhooks and when they are used instead of APIs
• Ngork
  • Streamlined Temporary Port Forwarding