To read and write to a ThingSpeak channel, your application sends requests to the ThingSpeak server by issuing HTTP requests, publishing MQTT messages, or using MATLAB® functions. Each ThingSpeak channel can have up to eight fields of 255 characters of data, in either numeric or alphanumeric format. A channel also has location information and a status update field. Each channel data entry is stored with a date and timestamp. You can retrieve stored data by time or by entry ID.

Use the ThingSpeak API to process numeric data, which includes timescaling, averaging, median, summing, and rounding. You can create and update a ThingSpeak channel by posting a feed with your API key and data using HTTP POST. The channel feeds support JSON, XML, and CSV formats for integration into applications. For more information on license and channel limitations, see License Options.