Konekt: Helping developers build smart devices quickly using APIs

While building Postman, it’s been amazing working with developers who are building great products and services. Last week, I had a chat with Reuben Balik, full stack engineer at Konekt over email, about their product, their tech stack and how he has been using Postman.

Abhinav: Can you tell me about Konekt and the product?

Reuben: We’re a Chicago startup focused on cellular connectivity. We offer a developer toolkit that makes it easy and affordable for anyone to build internet connected, or “smart,” devices that work (literally) everywhere.
In the past, data plans and development timeframes for IoT-focused projects have been unrealistic for anyone without access to enterprise-esque resources, and we wanted to change that. We’ve spent a lot of time building an API that can drastically reduce upfront development time, quickly integrate with other applications and allow people to easily pass data through our cloud service router.
On top of cellular connection, web portal management, API and cloud storage access, we’re really excited about the newest addition to our toolkit, a hardware offering called the Konekt Dash, which really ties everything together.

Abhinav: What does your tech stack look like?

Reuben: We have an angular frontend that is completely modular and independent from our backend. Everything is handled through our API. We did this so that people can manage their accounts with their own scripts or even partner with us and create their own separate data portal that hooks up to our system.

We have two different backends. The first is our API and it is written in PHP using the Slim framework with Phinx for database migration. This hooks up to our carrier backend which is written in Python and handles communications with carriers to takes care of SMS or activations.

As I mentioned, our entire portal is based on our API. Even all of the purchasing stuff is just a series of API calls. We even have a “batch” API call where you feed it a list of other API calls to execute.

We then connect with carrier networks, shipping services, and all other third-parties necessary to make our APIs work for our users.

Abhinav: How do you guys use Postman at Konekt?

Reuben: I’ve used Postman since I started working at Konekt and it has made API development so much easier. We wanted to add HTTP Basic Auth support and Postman has an easy form for generating those headers. We wanted to add JSON input support so I just switch Postman into raw mode, flip the content type to JSON and I get a nice JSON syntax checker. I can see every piece of data going back and forth right there so debugging is done in minutes.

Are you working on something awesome that you would like to share with us? We want to feature products, startups and companies who work with APIs in building the future. Let us know on Twitter (@getpostman) or email me at [email protected].