It’s undeniable: 2014 was the year when the electronics industry decidedly and collectively moved forward to push the Internet of Things (IoT). In year 2015 IoT markets will continue to grow. I think we’re going to see some critical mass on corralling the IoT in 2015. IoT is a young market – no one seems to be clearly leading. Communications are the key here. Over the last 10 years the world has done a remarkably good job of connecting the global wireless world. The last decade has radically changed the way we live. The smartphone and its cousin, the tablet, was the final link to ubiquitous wireless coverage, globally. The fantasy of the IoT is quite grand: everything on the planet can be smart and communicate. The idea is both powerful and impractical.
IoT is entering peak of inflated expectations: The Internet of Things is at that stage when the efforts of various companies involved in it, along with research, are proving to have a lot of promise. At this stage, the Internet of Things should not have too many difficulties attracting developers and researchers into the fold. As we turn to 2015 and beyond, however, wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity. Tie the common threads of IoT and wearables together, and an unstoppable market movement emerges. There seems to be a lack of public appreciation of the extent to which the Internet of Things is going to fundamentally change how people interact with the world around them.
On the other hand, the Internet of Things is getting poised to enter the trough of disillusionment, which means that there is more room for failure now. There are issues of security, privacy, and sharing of information across vertical implementations that still need to be worked out. Until they are, the IoT will not be able to fulfill all its promises.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting inert devices to the internet. The ‘Internet of Things’ Will Be The World’s Most Massive Device Market And Save Companies Billions Of Dollars in few years. BI Intelligence expects that the IoT will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019. This includes hardware, software, installation costs, management services, and economic value added from realized IoT efficiencies. The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs: increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace. The enterprise sector will lead the IoT, accounting for 46% of device shipments this year, but that share will decline as the government and home sectors gain momentum. I expect that home, government, and enterprise sectors use the IoT differently.
The IoT is only enabled because of two things: the ability of networks to reach countless nodes, and the availability of cost-effective embedded processors to attach to a multitude of devices. The prices for components and devices continues to decline while the skyrocketing global demand for 24/7 Internet access grows exponentially. The Internet of Things growth will benefit mostly from the autonomous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity that will make up the bulk of the objects of the IoT. This is the main driver for double-digit growth across verticals in the electronics, and especially the semiconductor industry well into the next decade. The IoT will connect places, such as manufacturing platforms, energy grids, health-care facilities, transportation systems, retail outlets, sports and music venues, and countless other entities to the Internet.
Internet of Things can become Engineering for Everyone. The emergence of open-source development platforms, developed and maintained by dedicated volunteers, has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms. The availability of open-source software and, more recently, hardware targeting embedded applications means that access to high-quality engineering resources has never been greater. This has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms to turn their own abstract concepts into real products. With the potential to launch a successful commercial venture off the back of tinkering with some low-cost hardware in your spare time, it’s no wonder that open-source hardware is fuelling an entirely new movement. A new generation of manufacturer is embracing the open-source ethos and actually allowing customers to modify the product post-sale.
Exact size predictions for IoT market next few years vary greatly, but all of the firms making these predictions agree on one thing—it’s going to be very big.
In year 2014 very many chip vendors and sensor algorithm companies also jumped on the IoT bandwagon, in hopes of laying the groundwork for more useful and cost-effective IoT devices. Sensors, MCUs, and wireless connectivity are three obvious building blocks for IoT end-node devices. Wireless connectivity and software (algorithms) are the two most sought-after technologies. Brimming with excitement, and with Europe already ahead of the pack, a maturing semiconductor industry looks expectantly to the Internet of Things (IoT) for yet another facelift. The IC sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $57.7 billion in 2015.
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner as automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. By 2018, the market value of IoT subsystems in equipment and Internet-connected things is projected to reach $103.6 billion worldwide, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0 percent from $39.8 billion in 2013.
BI Intelligence expects that by 2019 IoT market will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined. A new report by Yole Developpement pegs the market size in the $70 billion range by 2018, with the next five years presenting a golden opportunity for device makers as the IoT enters the growth stage. Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%.
Number of connected devices is expected to to reach 36 billion units by 2020, cautions that “all of this new market opportunity is under threat.” Other estimate according to market research firm Radiant Insights of San Francisco is that the number of Internet connections will grow from 9 billion devices in 2014 to 100 billion by 2020 (twice as many as the estimate from Cisco Systems Inc). IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020. Currently fragmented market, the number of cellular M2M connections could rise from 478 million today to 639 million in 2020.
By 2024, the report predicts that overall market value for components will exceed of $400 billion, of which more than 10% will come from hardware alone. Revenue from hardware sales will be only $50 billion or 8% of the total revenue from IoT-specific efforts, as software makers and infrastructure companies will earn the lion’s share. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large.
The growth of the IoT will present some very interesting issues in a variety of areas. You will see some very fast activity because unless it gets resolved there will be no IoT as it is envisioned.
General consensus is that the interconnect protocol of the IoT will be IP (Internet Protocol). As it stands today, the deployment of the billions of IoT objects can’t happen, simply because there just aren’t enough IP addresses with IPv4. While there is still some discussion about how to connect the IoT, most are in agreement that the IoT protocol will be IPv6. The first step will be to convert all proprietary networks to an IP-base. Then, the implementation of IPv6 can begin. Because direct interoperability between IPv4 and iPv6 protocols is not possible, this will add some some complications to the development, resulting in a bit of obfuscation to the transition for IPv6.
Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in the Emerging Internet of Things? I don’t see that possible. IoT will be in serious protocol war in 2015. There is a wide selection of protocols, but no clear set of winners at the moment. The real IoT standardization is just starting – There are currently few standards (or regulations) for what is needed to run an IoT device. There is no single standard for connecting devices on the Internet of Thing, instead are a handful of competing standards run by different coalitions of companies: The Thread Group (Qualcomm, The Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Panasonic), The Industrial Internet Consortium (Intel, Cisco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft), Open Interconnect Consortium (Samsung, Intel, Dell), Physical Web (Google), AllSeen Alliance (Samsung, Intel, Dell) and huge number of smaller non-standardized protocols in use. Each of the standards vary how they do things.
Anyone who tries to build a physical layer and drive a software stack based on it all the way up to the application layer is a fool. But many companies try to do it this year. Today Zigbee is the most cost effective, but tomorrow WiFi will figure it out. On networking field in every few years there’s a new management protocol – what will happen in IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs.
Currently the IoT lacks a common set of standards and technologies that would allow for compatibility and ease-of-use. The IoT needs a set of open APIs and protocols that work with a variety of physical-layer networks. The IP and network layer should have nothing to do with the media. The fundamental issue here is that at the moment the Internet of Things will not have a standard set of open APIs for consumers. IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs. I suspect that at some point, after the first wave of the Internet of Things, open APIs and root access will become a selling point.
It is not just technical protocol details that are problem: One problem with IoT is that it is a vague definition. Do we simply mean ‘connected devices? Or something else? One of the main issues, which will only get worse as the IoT evolves, is how are we going to categorize all the different objects.
Early in 2015, the Industrial Internet Consortium plans to wrap up work on a broad reference architecture for the Internet of Things, ramp up three test beds, and start identifying gaps where new standards may be needed. The group, formed by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Intel, now has about 115 members and aims to make it easier to build commercial IoT systems. The IIC hopes to finish a first draft of its reference architecture by the end of January and have it ratified by March. It will define functional areas and the technologies and standards for them, from sensors to data analytics and business applications. The framework includes versions for vertical markets including aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, smart cities, and transportation. A breakout section on security also is in the works. Hopefully the reference architecture could be used to help people construct industrial IoT systems quickly and easily.
With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attention. Smart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Even though the technology has been on the evolutionary fast track, integration has been slow. For car manufacturers, it is a little tricky to accept driverless cars because it disrupts their fundamental business model: Private resources will evolve to shared resources, centrally controlled, since autonomous vehicles can be controlled remotely.
Over the next few years, we’ll see a torrent of new devices emerge that are connected to the Internet and each other through a wide range of different wireless networking protocols. As a result, there’s a race on, not just to get those devices connected, but also to provide the network infrastructure necessary to managing all of them at scale. WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks are nowadays widely used, nut new alternatives are coming to solve applications were those technologies are not most suitable. There are different plans for wide area wireless networks that use licensed or unlicensed wireless bandwidth to transmit small amounts of data from various connected device – this could create its own connection to them in a cost effective manner without relying on existing cellular or WiFi networks.
Recently we have developed a pressing need, or desire to put our refrigerators, and everything we have access to while mobile, on the net, morphing the brave new world of the Internet of Things, into the Internet of Everything (IoE). And that will make that last 100 meters—that final frontier of interconnect—a reality. Today, only about 10% of the last 100 meter devices that will make up the IoT are connected. As the IoT evolves, other small cells such as businesses, city centers, malls, theaters, stadiums, event centers, and the like, will connect much of what they have on premise (soda or popcorn machines, vending machines, restaurants, parking garages, ticket kiosks, seat assignments, and a very long list of others). And, there are a very large number of devices that are short-range in all of these various cells. What was once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters.
Plenty of people and companies in the technology world tend to come at the Internet of Things by dwelling on the “Internet.” But what if, instead, we started with the “Things?” Knowing intimately what “things” are supposed to do and how they think and behave will be the key to solving one of the IoT’s most pressing issues: application layers. Over the past 18 months, the industry has launched numerous consortia, from Qualcomm’s AllSeen and Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium to Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Thread. Every entity says it’s targeting the “interoperability” of things at home, but each is obviously concentrating primarily on its own interests, and making their “layer” specifications slightly different from those pursued by others.
It seems that no industry consortium is particularly interested in defining — in gory detail — the specific functions of, say, what a door lock is supposed to do. The library of commands for each function already exists, but someone, or some group, has to translate those already determined commands into an IP-friendly format. One of the standards organizations will take up the challenge in 2015. This will be the first step to “knock barriers down for IoT” in 2015.
Missing today in the IoT are reliability and robustness. Consumers expect their light switched and other gadgets to be infinitely reliable. In many today’s products we seem to be far from reliable and robust operation. Today’s routers can relay traffic between networks, but they have no idea how to translate what functions each device attached to them wants to do, and how to communicate that to other devices. The network needs to be able to discover who else is on the network. Devices connected to network need to be able to discover what resources are available and what new devices are being added. The network needs to be extensible.
Despite the oft-mocked naming scheme, the Internet of Things (IoT) has an incredibly practical goal: connecting classically “dumb” objects—toasters, doorknobs, light switches—to the Internet, thereby unlocking a world of potential. Imagine what it means to interact with your home the same way you would a website, accessing it without geographic restriction. But there is one missing piece of the smart home revolution: smart home operating system. So what will be the system that capitalizes on the smart home in the same way, the enabler of all the applications and actions we want our homes to run and do? There are no ready answers for that yet. And there might not be a singular, cohesive operating system for your home, that this stuff isn’t one-size-fits-all. It might be that the real potential for home automation lies not in local software running on a home device but in the cloud. I think that the cloud is going to be more important over time, but there will always be also need for some local functionality in case the connection to cloud is lost. Right now the Internet of Things is rather disjointed compared to Internet and computers.
When everything will be connected, how about security? In the path to IoT, the issue of data and device security looms large. Security for the ‘Internet of Things’ will be talked about very much in 2015 for a good reason. As Internet of Thigs becomes more and more used, it will be more hacked. Thus security of Internet of Things will be more and more talked about. Virtually anything connected to the Internet has the potential of being hacked, no matter how unlikely. Internet of Things devices often lack systematic protections against viruses or spam. Nowadays most security breaches are software-based, when an application can be compromised. Counter-measures for such attacks range from basic antivirus scanning software, to embedded hypervisors to hardware-bound secure applications tying their execution to uniquely identifiable hardware. There is emerging customer demand for silicon authentication. But the threats extend way beyond software and some hackers will put a lot of effort into compromising a system’s security at silicon-level. Individual devices can get hacked, but all systems should have some way of self-checking and redundancy. Those IoT systems can be very complex at device and system level. The problem with complexity is that you create more attack points and make it easier for hackers to find flaws.
Experts recommend far more layers of cyberprotection than manufacturers have thought necessary. Because many of the devices will often be practically inaccessible, the “patch and pray” strategy used for many desktop software packages is unlikely to be an effective strategy for many forms of IoT devices. Right now, there are hundreds of companies churning out “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices as fast as they can, without thinking too much on the security issues they can cause in the future. The imperative is clear: Do your homework on the specific security features of any IoT device you might consider bringing into the home. What steps are IoT companies taking to keep us safe from others online, and what constitutes a truly “safe” smart appliance?
What we’re opening up is a whole new subject not just of security but of safety. That safety depends on devices to be constantly connected to the Internet the same way they’re connected to the power grid. That’s a whole new area that deserves its own consideration. Keep in mind that IoT is one field where cyber security flaws can kill in the worst case. Connecting unrelated devices in the IoT means many more pieces now affect reliability and security. More devices are now considered critical, such as a connected baby monitor or a smart smoke detector, because wrong information can injure or kill people. The Internet of Things is coming no matter what happens. The people in charge of keeping the public safe and the industry healthy need to be ready.
The European Police Office (Europol) said governments are ill-equipped to counter the menace of “injury and possible deaths” spurred by hacking attacks on critical safety equipment. There are many potential dangers are in transportation: many new cars are Internet connected and potentially vulnerable, SCADA Systems in Railways Vulnerable to Attack and Airline bosses ignore cyber security concerns at their peril. With industrial control systems becoming network-connected, security risks rise and will need a long-term solution. In light of the trend toward the Industrial Internet of Things, development teams must start thinking hard about network security and planning for its long-term viability.
You have to accept the fact that at each point in the IoT there are vulnerabilities to malicious attacks and interception of vital information. Soon, almost every network will soon have some IoT-hacking in it. IDC predicts that in two years from 90 per cent of the global IT networks have met IoT data theft. In a report, cybersecurity firm Fortinet expects greater threats from “denial of service attacks on assembly line, factory, industrial control systems, and healthcare and building management…resulting in revenue losses and reputation damages for organizations globally.” This opens new doors of risks in the areas of corporate extortion, altering of corporate business operations, and the extension of cyberattacks to include physical threats of harm to civilians.
There are lessons to be learned to keep the cyber security in control in the IoT era. There will be lessons to be learned for all the parties of the IoT ecosystem. The companies that figure out how to make security available on multi-stakeholder platforms will be the most successful ones. Figuring out a secure platform is important, but having different levels of security is still important. Different uses have different bars. Security is a self-regulating system to some extent because it is supply and demand. That is the Holy Grail for technology right now, which is how to build systems with enough security—not 100% protection right now—from a unified platform point of view for multiple applications.
The data generated by the Internet of Things has the potential to reveal far more about users than any technology in history: These devices can make our lives much easier … The Internet of Things however, can also reveal intimate details about the doings and goings of their owners through the sensors they contain. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large. There is a lot of effort is going today at the government level. They’re not thinking about whether the Internet goes down. They’re worried about what happens if the Internet gets compromised.
When we have devices on the field, there is question how to analyze the data coming from them. This is easily a “big data” problem because of the huge amount of data that comes from very large number of sensors. Being able to monitor and use the data that comes from the Internet of Things is a huge potential challenge with different providers using different architectures and approaches, and different chip and equipment vendors teaming up in a range of different ways. Many large and smaller companies are active on the field: Intel, IBM, Lantronix+Google, Microchip+Amazon, Freescale+Oracle, Xively, Jasper, Keen.io, Eurotech, and many other.
The huge increase of data is coming. Radiant predicts that wireless sensor networks will be used to monitor and control very many domestic, urban, and industrial systems. This promises to produce an explosion of data, much of which will be discarded as users are overwhelmed by the volume. As a result, analysis of the data within the wireless sensor network will become necessary so that alerts and meaningful information are generated at the leaf nodes. This year has seen the software at the very highest point in the Internet of Things stack — analytics — becoming tightly coupled with the embedded devices at the edge of the network, leading to many different approaches and providers.
Integrating data from one IoT cloud to another will have it’s challenges. Automation services make big steps by cutting corners. Sites like IFTTT, Zapier, bip.io, CloudWork, and elastic.io allow users to connect applications with links that go beyond a simple synch. Check what is happening with integration and related services like IFTTT, ItDuzzit, Amazon Lambda. For example IFTTT is quietly becoming a smart home powerhouse.
Most important sources of information for this article:
With $16M In Funding, Helium Wants To Provide The Connective Tissue For The Internet Of Things
IFTTT, other automation services make big steps by cutting corners
Internet of Things: Engineering for Everyone
IoT in Protocol War, Says Startup – Zigbee fortunes dim in building control
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – Corralling the Internet of Things
What’s Holding Back The IoT – Device market opportunities will explode, but only after some fundamental changes
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – IoT, robots, 4K to dominate CES
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
Tech More: Mobile Internet of Things BI Intelligence Consumer Electronics – Most Massive Device Market
Wearables make hardware the new software
Zigbee Opens Umbrella 3.0 Spec
IoT Will Give ‘Embedded’ a Shot in the Arm - Connected cities to be largest IoT market
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Short-Range, Low-Power Sensors – once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters
The one problem the Internet of Things hasn’t solved
Plan Long Term for Industrial Internet Security
To Foil Cyberattacks, Connected Cars Need Overlapping Shields
IoT cybersecurity: is EDA ready to deliver?
More Things Are Critical Systems
Silicon, Security, and the Internet of Things
The missing piece of the smart home revolution
Hackers will soon be targeting your refrigerator
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
1,316 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Systems-design Design Center > How To Article
IoT engineering challenges drive new trade offs
http://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4440607/IoT-engineering-challenges-drive-new-trade-offs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20151022&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20151022&elq=93e3dda41c78415993a147ea0a325348&elqCampaignId=25360&elqaid=28837&elqat=1&elqTrackId=edb826e1508d4541986c8c720632e23f
Moving beyond the hype of the potential for the IoT, there are some real engineering challenges that must be overcome in order to satisfy the intoxicating market predictions of IoT uptake across industrial and commercial markets. ABI Research estimates that the volume of data captured by IoT-connected devices exceeded 200 exabytes in 2014, and its annual total is forecast to grow seven-fold by the decade’s end, surpassing 1,600 exabytes—or 1.6 zettabytes—in 2020. So, how do we successfully create the devices that will handle all of this data?
Besides the obvious challenges of keeping costs low for IoT devices, there area a number of design and verification challenges that are primarily driven by finding the balance between functionality and the limitations of the hardware and software.
In terms of functionality, one of the things that makes IoT SoC designs unique is their low power requirements, even as compared to mobile devices. And, their sleep-to-wake ratio is much higher. They still have similar frequency requirements, though, in order to ensure functionality. “As a result,” Yu says, designers need to focus on peak power and sleep leakage power optimization without sacrificing too much performance.”
Obviously, small, single purpose, low-power IoT devices cannot handle all of these power management, connectivity, and security requirements, so what is the way forward? Légaré suggests an overall IoT approach that incorporates edge nodes (hubs or gateways). He says in this type of deployment, designers must answer questions like: Where do you put the required computing resources in the system? How do you design the system so that it is future-proof? To be successful here, Légaré believes that embedded engineers need to work more closely with their colleagues further down the line, in IT. “This is not simple,” he says, “because both fields have their own set of technologies and vocabulary. However, for the IoT to be successful, embedded and IT engineers must come to understand each other.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Explore the dark side of the IoT
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4440663/Explore-the-dark-side-of-the-IoT?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20151022&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20151022&elq=93e3dda41c78415993a147ea0a325348&elqCampaignId=25360&elqaid=28837&elqat=1&elqTrackId=5ba583aecdb8470cbf091ff6020f4e2a
The reason for David’s anticipation and enthusiasm is that he’s going to be presenting a session at ESC Minneapolis on the use of higher-level programming paradigms as embodied by languages like Python and Javascript to create the “Things” in the Internet of Things (IoT).
One good thing did come out of these shenanigans, however — the title of David’s presentation: Welcome to the Dark Side of IoT: Developing Things with Python and Javascript.
David tells me that he’s not planning on using many slides in his presentation; instead, he will be coding “on the fly” to provide a fast-paced, hands-on display of the power of modern programming languages and tools with regard to prototyping, developing, and deploying embedded networked devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT-Designed, Locally Manufactured Cars Come to Market
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328084&
Instead of spending millions of dollars and several years designing a new vehicle, micromanufacturing can do it much faster and at a fraction of the cost.
Recently, I attended the first IoT Solutions World Congress in Barcelona. One of the most intriguing, and surprising, presentations was from Corey Clothier, product manager, advanced vehicle technologies at Local Motors.
Local Motors is on the way to disrupt the traditional car manufacturing process by global co-creation and local micro manufacturing. Instead of spending millions of dollars and several years designing a new vehicle, they can do it much faster and at a fraction of the cost.
One of the examples featured on his presentation was the “world’s first co-created military vehicle,”
IoT-Designed, Locally Manufactured Cars Come to Market
http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=3560&doc_id=278987&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Sense HAT Super Weather Dashboard
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/25/raspberry-pi-sense-hat-super-weather-dashboard/
[InitialState] posted a great multipart tutorial about building what he calls a “Hyper-local Weather Dashboard.” In plain language, he created a Raspberry Pi-based web page that fuses weather data from Wunderground along with locally sensed weather data.
Hyper-local Weather Dashboard: Wunderground + Pi Sense HAT
https://github.com/InitialState/wunderground-sensehat/wiki
This super-fun and easy project will leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and a Raspberry Pi to do just that.
We are going to build our very own hyper-local weather dashboard, capturing the weather inside and outside our house over time. The next time someone asks you “how about the weather lately?”, you will be able to whip out your phone and leave them breathless with your mad weather analysis skillz
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Fix the Internet of Broken Things
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328085&
As an industry, we need to start to address the security limitations inherent in the Internet of Things. A new hardware-led approach needs to be at the heart of the solution.
The Internet of Things is already permeating every part of our lives — from healthcare to aviation, automobiles to telecom. Unfortunately, its security is fundamentally broken.
In my previous two blogs, 4 Security Challenges That Threaten to Tear Apart the Internet of Things and A Matter of Life and Death: Why We Must Take IoT Flaws Seriously, I’ve shown how vulnerabilities found by security researchers could have catastrophic consequences for end users. This isn’t just about data breaches and reputational damage anymore — lives are quite literally on the line. The challenges are many: most vendors operate under the misapprehension that security-by-obscurity will do — and lobby for laws preventing the disclosure of vulnerabilities; a lack of security subject matter expertise creates major vulnerabilities; firmware can too easily be modified; and a lack of separation on the device opens up further avenues for attackers.
However, there is something we as an industry can do about it — if we take a new hardware-led approach. This is all about creating an open security framework built on interoperable standards; one which will enable a “root of trust” thanks to secure boot capabilities, and restrict lateral movement with hardware-based virtualization.
Open security
Microsoft Windows, Adobe Flash, and Oracle Java — what do these software products have in common? They’re all proprietary closed source. And they’re all among the most vulnerable and exploited on the planet. Many mainstream browsers don’t even run Java; Flash is such a security concern that modern browsers offer the option to activate plugins on a per-page basis, while system administrators will be well aware that Windows receives numerous security updates every single month —the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database reports 120 Windows 7 vulnerabilities in 2015 alone, as of October 2015. The problem is that the security-by-obscurity mantra that many firms and IoT makers hold so dear is simply not effective any more. Security researchers, and those with more malicious intent, can quite easily extract binary code from devices via JTAG, or find it online in the form of updates, and reverse engineer via one of the many tools readily available.
Tools like IDA and Binwalk, just to name a few, have reached amazing levels of intelligence and sophistication. Security by obscurity simply doesn’t exist anymore — if ever. Instead we need to look to open source and open security.
What’s more, thanks to the strength, dedication and sheer size of the open source community, security flaws are routinely fixed within hours of discovery. It’s not uncommon to have a rolling process producing and making available near-real-time updates — e.g. the Linux Debian security model. This is certainly not the case with proprietary code — Google just recently announced its commitment to monthly updates for Android.
How to Fix the Internet of Broken Things
http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=3809&doc_id=278996&%22target=%22new%22
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell Packs Analytics in IoT Gateway
90-person team does custom IoT engineering
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328107
At its annual Dell World conference, the PC giant took a bigger step into the Internet of Things. Dell announced a new IoT gateway with embedded analytics, initially for industrial automation and transit, and a new custom IoT engineering team.
“The explosion in devices is really just beginning,” CEO Michael Dell said during a keynote speech. “[Machine-to-machine] communications, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, drones, [and] enormous amounts of sensors are the next trillion dollar opportunity for growth in connectivity. The ability of business to compete will be its ability to process and analyze that application.”
The Dell Edge Gateway 500 series meant to aggregate IoT data is based on the Intel Atom processor E3800 family and runs at 1.3-1.75 GHz. It has expanded input and output interfaces, a wide range of operating temperatures, and access to data analytics capabilities along with a flexible choice of OSes.
“Organizations are struggling to make the best decisions regarding the data volume and complexity created by the vast numbers of sensors, embedded systems and connected devices now on the network,” Andy Rhodes, executive director of Dell Commercial IoT Solutions, said in a release. “As more of the data is processed in real time at the edge of the network, the gateway becomes the spam filter for IoT.”
But the head of Dell’s OEM solutions believes gateways “are just a gap.” The tier one companies that traditionally make gateways have different ideas on process control and don’t have the scale to provide support to the 20+ billion connected devices expected by 2020.
“The value to the customer is all the stuff that happens post-gateway. It’s in the analytics, it’s in the insights in the connections, in the back office trend analysis,” said Joyce Mullen, general manager of Dell’s OEM group.
“The instrumentation of new environments that have been previously out of reach is very new,” Mullen said, adding that data in existing M2M deployments is moving from analog to digital.
“The I/Os in legacy systems out there are really different,” she said. “If you go into a utility today and put your gateway in there, how you suck info out of the sensors requires very different protocols, input devices, and contacts into a device — there’s not a lot of standardization in the industry,” she added.
Dell aims to make connections less challenging by providing support and a 90-engineer customization team for new IoT players.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ISM Bands Limit Opportunity
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328095&
The rise of narrowband networks for the Internet of Things is poised for a fall, according to a senior software developer for cellular systems.
The Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) unlicensed spectrum bands are a great resource for an industry to get started and see some early success, but they are not a suitable space for building a global industry. Networks here lack the reliability, scalability and applicability needed to grow and sustain a global technology revolution.
ISM bands have long been used for machine-to-machine and now Internet of Things applications. It is a good place for developing ad-hoc wireless networks.
Vendors such as Texas Instruments have been producing M2M/IoT chipsets using proprietary protocols for many years. With the rise of IoT, there has been much more interest in the ISM bands. ZigBee, Bluetooth LE, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi all have M2M/IoT footprints. Low power, wide-area (LPWA) networks are the next emerging breed of IoT wireless technologies, and many of these are using ISM spectrum.
ISM provides free spectrum with a low barrier to entry, the ability to move from prototype to production very quickly and relatively low certification cost. This is exactly why LPWA pioneers (such as frontrunners Sigfox and LoRa) have chosen the ISM bands.
ISM bands are available worldwide, but regulations and frequency ranges vary. Unlicensed spectrum is still regulated. In fact, the openness and freedom of ISM comes with the price of strict restrictions on transmit power and duty cycle (time spent transmitting) in order to limit the interference between devices.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using ISM for WAN-type applications. For example, all transmitters are treated equally under the regulations. Thus the central node (base station, concentrator or gateway) has the same restrictions as the end-point device.
The restrictions directly affect functionality and potential use cases. In some regions, duty cycles can be less than 10%, impacting how much and how often data can be transmitted.
Sigfox’s technology is reportedly restricted to a maximum of 140 message of 12 bytes each per day — great for some simple metering applications, but a hard limit that will eliminate many other applications.
Applications connected to multiple devices will have to distribute the duty cycle across all those devices. In such situations control applications are not feasible, and you can forget about firmware or configuration updates.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco to acquire ParStream for IoT data-sifting
Borg borgs Borg-backed startup
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/27/cisco_to_acquire_parstream/
Cisco-backed database and analytics newcomer ParStream is being re-assimilated, with the Borg announcing it’s going to buy the “big data analytics” company (as it describes itself).
The Borg has signalled its interest in sifting Internet of Things data for quite some time, and since ParStream grew out of Cisco’s “Entrepreneurs in Residence” startup program, it will have already had a close eye on the Bologne-based outfit’s progress.
The Internet of Things problem is analogous to what Big Astronomy has to put up with: if you hook up dozens of telescopes on one hand, or a few billion chips on the other, you need to work out which data you’re going to keep, because you won’t be able to keep it all.
“Instead of sending this data to a centralised server, now a company can store the data at the edge of the network, closer to the turbines and sensors, and track results even across a highly distributed network,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Preparing for IoT? Ask some old questions and plenty of new ones
IoT ops will need a network command centre, new thinking and old-school paranoia
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/27/preparing_for_iot_ask_some_old_questions_and_plenty_of_new_ones/
When the boss comes and asks you if you’re ready to do something with the Internet of Things thing she or he read about in an airline magazine, prepare to give them a very, very long list of things you’ll need to do in order to get ready for the magical new world of measuring everything everywhere all the time.
Next, prepare to weave a dense web of suppliers to get anything done.
And then tell your boss it wont work the first time around anyway.
That was the basic message of a talk delivered yesterday by Gartner’s Chet Geschickter during the Australian incarnation of the firm’s 2015 Symposium.
Geschickter pointed out that the choices you’ll have to make are many and varied, starting with:
Should you build your own things?
Or buy things off the shelf?
Or rent things that thing service providers put in place?
Will your things need power? Or will piezo-electric things that generate their own power by tuning into ambient vibrations do the job?
Once you’ve though that through, consider:
How will your things connect to your business?
Are you ready to handle diverse network connections?
Are you ready to have lots of things connect?
What happens if the network goes down and things top talking?
Is that data really coming from the thing you think it’s coming from?
If a thing had been compromised, how would you know?
If you can answer all of those questions satisfactorily, more challenges lie ahead, namely.
What standards and ontologies will you use to describe thing-generated data?
How are you going to analyse all the data things make? On-premises or in the cloud? With Big Data tools or with other analytics tools?
Who can you buy this stuff from?
Does anyone who sells this stuff have a suite or will you need to integrate?
Will the vendors running into this space allow integration?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Listen to the Rain, Raspberry Pi Style
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/listen-to-the-rain-raspberry-pi-style/
So how do you detect rainfall? If you are [lowflyerUK], you use the microphone in your web camera and a Raspberry Pi.
The idea was to reduce irrigation usage based on rainfall, so an exact measurement isn’t necessary. The Python code that analyzes the audio input is calibrated with three configuration parameters and attempts to remove wind noise. Even so, it needs to be in a room that gets a lot of noise from rainfall and ambient noise can throw the reading off.
Microphonic rain gauge
http://www.instructables.com/id/Microphonic-rain-gauge/
The Raspberry Pi also controls my irrigation system, and I wanted to reduce the water consumption by stopping the irrigation when it has rained.
What you need:
Raspberry Pi – mine is a Pi 2 model B with Rasbian Jessie on a 16Gbyte microSD card.
Power Supply for the Raspberry Pi – mine can supply 2A, but I guess that anything over 1A would be OK.
Internet connection for the Raspberry Pi – either wired or Wi-Fi.
USB webcam, with microphone, that works on the Raspberry Pi – mine is an old Logitech QuickCam.
Python program that analyses the sound from the microphone.
Yes, there is no other hardware, just the microphone in the USB webcam.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Better, Smaller WiFi Throwies
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/better-smaller-wifi-throwies/
Because the world doesn’t have enough electronic junk floating around, [Victor] has improved the WiFi Throwie.
A decade ago, when strong, cheap magnets, bright LEDs, and small coin cell batteries were materials fresh to hacking, someone had a great idea: tape all these items up and throw them on bridges and overpasses. The LED throwie was born, and while we’re sure the biggest installation of LED throwies looked cool, it’s really just a small-scale environmental disaster.
Since then, the ESP8266 was created, and the world now has a tiny WiFi-enabled computer that’s the size of a postage stamp. Yes, WiFi throwies already exist, but coin cells don’t work with the ESP. This means the compact and tiny ESPs are laden down with heavy lithium cells.
Wifi throwie : improved version – faster, smaller, cheaper
http://iotests.blogspot.fr/2015/10/wifi-throwie-improved-version-faster.html
He could not make it work with button cell batteries (the ESP8266 draws too much current) so he ended using a 3.7 LIPO battery, which is quite bulky
What if you could use instead a cheap mini drone battery you can find for half a euro on eBay ?
Bingo !
Introducing the “wifi throwie 2.0″, using a micro 100 mah lipo battery recycled from a broken minidrone. According to espressif data (http://bbs.espressif.com/viewtopic.php?t=133), the ESP only burns 15 mah in “Modem sleep mode” – which can last 6 hours with a 100 mah battery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet-connected monitoring with Arduino & GPRS
https://hackaday.io/project/8150-internet-connected-monitoring-with-arduino-gprs
An Arduino-based device connected to the interwebs by GPRS to monitor and log events online using Carriots and Google Sheets
The hardware is almost entirely made of off-the-shelf components. Namely:
* An Arduino Duemilanova.
* A Sim900-based GRPS Arduino shield from Ebay.
* A USB charger (rated 1 A just in case).
* A more few bits and bobs to put everything together (a piece of perfboard, few wires and a plastic case from the junk)
To log the state of the pump online, I used a service called Carriots, that listens for POST data submissions and stores them in a database. Later I made Carriots forward the data to an online form that stores it in Google Sheets so I can post-process it to create graphs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home security
Home security project based on atmega and ardunio. MQTT gateway for data gathering.
https://hackaday.io/project/587-home-security
Home security project based on atmega and ardunio. MQTT gateway for data gathering.
This project should replace standard home security alarms, and in future gather statistics from various sensors.
It consists from one main alarm board with atmega 1284P that has inputs for sensors and outputs to relays. Main board also hosts wiz820io Ethernet for configuration and overview, RFM12B for radio remote nodes, communication module to wired nodes (RS485 protocol), UART for GSM modem, Battery backed up RTC, EEPROM for log, I2C expansion connector, and AC supply and battery monitoring.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hands-on review: Osram’s Lightify smart lighting
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/led-zone/4440658/Hands-on-review–Osram-s-Lightify-smart-lighting?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151026&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151026&elq=aca5bf9faf60411d8e652833a634a5fe&elqCampaignId=25403&elqaid=28891&elqat=1&elqTrackId=6cf45d17f2a14e2c9c62a4767c821a1f
Although smart lighting technologies are gaining some acceptance in commercial and industrial settings, they are having difficulty gaining substantial acceptance with the average homeowner due to their added cost, complexity, and the lack of interoperability between manufacturers. As we’ll see in this review, Osram’s LIGHTIFY family of smart lighting products makes an honest attempt at addressing these issues. Just how close Osram comes to hitting the mark is a matter of opinion, so I’ll do my best to document the impressions I collected from an extended “road test” of their products.
For the review, Osram was kind enough send me one of their starter kits which includes a smart A19 tunable white 60W replacement LED lamp and a Home Gateway module
They also sent me a LIGHTIFY-enabled LED flex strip to mess around
The gateway module is the core of the LIGHTIFY product ecosystem. It can control up to 50 devices using the standard ZigBee HA (Home Automation) protocol stack. Powered from a standard wall outlet, the compact module allows nearly any smartphone or other mobile device access to your LIGHTIFY devices via the local Wi-Fi network or a secure cloud server which Osram maintains to support remote access. Since it communicates using the ZigBee HA protocol, the gateway can also operate other smart lighting devices from other manufacturers that use the standard.
You can program and control your LIGHTIFY devices using a mobile device running Osram’s free LIGHTIFY app. Around the house, the app allows your mobile device to communicate with the gateway controller via Wi-Fi. When you’re off-premises, the app can access Osram’s secure cloud server, allowing you to control your lights from wherever you are.
Depending on which type of device you’re controlling, the app presents a screen for tuning the white output or selecting an RGBW setting from a palate of 16M colors
The application’s “scenes” screen allows you to select groups of lights and create a series of pre-programmed settings for them.
Once the gateway is set up, it’s time to associate whatever lighting devices you’ve got with it. It also took a little fiddling to locate and pair my smart bulb and LED strip controller with the controller. Both stumbling points are somewhat understandable, given the number of networks and security measures that must all be dealt with along the way. Nevertheless, Osram probably needs to either make the next spin of the app easier to use or provide better instructions for set-up if they have any hope of selling this to the average consumer.
After using LIGHTIFY in my house for the last couple of months I’ve come to appreciate a number of the features it offers. I really like the convenience of being able to control the lights from my phone. The color tuning feature is surprisingly nice for setting the mood in places like the living room
Because of these advantages, I will probably buy several more LIGHTIFY bulbs for my home – despite their $32 retail price. But to save money in places where I don’t need active color tuning, I will probably buy some less expensive ZigBee HA-compliant smart LED bulbs from a third-party vendor.
For all the advantages LIGHTIFY offers, there are also a few downsides you need to know about. For one thing, many of the lighting control app’s advanced features are not very intuitive to use.
Finally, there’s price. All of the LIGHTIFY smart lighting products appear to be priced 30-50% higher than their dumb counterparts. While not totally unreasonable, it made me think twice before going out and plunking down nearly $100 for three lightbulbs. This “smart tax” won’t scare off gadget freaks or early adopters but it could slow down acceptance by the many mainstream consumers who still haven’t fully come to grips with the idea of a $10 LED bulb.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open standards drive smart lighting and the Enterprise IoT
http://www.edn.com/design/led/4440361/Open-standards-drive-smart-lighting-and-the-Enterprise-IoT
ZigBee is the only open, global wireless standard to provide the foundation for the Internet of Things by enabling simple and smart objects to work together. It is an open standard that supports low data-rates, low-power consumption, security, and reliability. A critical difference between ZigBee and other technologies is the standardization of application-level functionality, among other key differences around power and bandwidth requirements. As a result, ZigBee enables embedded wireless communications for lighting and other building control devices. In addition, the standard is supported by The ZigBee Alliance
Cloud-based Smart Building system enables genius-level Smart Lighting
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4437830/Genius-level-smart-lighting-services-featured-in-cloud-based-energy-management-system-
For the serious building control freak, Daintree offers a BEMaaS Premium package which includes the following services:
• Monthly key energy and performance reports
• Monthly alert summary for fault detection
• Post-install support for re-configuration and adjustments
• Quarterly configuration review & optimization recommendations
• Quarterly end user training sessions and ongoing access to training materials
• Software technical support by email or phone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: China’s Internet of Things services revenues growing faster than any other major country
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/10/abi-china-iot.html
China’s Internet of Things (IoT) services revenues will grow more than five times in the next five years, exceeding US$41 billion by 2020. This is the fastest revenue growth rate of any country monitored in ABI Research’s new IoT Market Tracker.
The new tracking service provides IoT revenues across six services segments including connections, connection management, security, data analytics, platform and professional services. “Driving China’s IoT numbers is the smart meter segment,” says Dan Shey, VP and IoT Practice Director at ABI Research. “It leads all other segments in both connections and revenues. In fact, by 2020, smart meter connections will exceed the next highest market segment in total connections by nearly 10 to 1.”
Besides smart meters, other major segments driving the Chinese IoT market will be home security and automation, OEM telematics, video surveillance, home appliances, aftermarket telematics and home monitoring. Home monitoring is expected to become an important market in China as it attempts to care for its aging population, which will reach nearly 340 million people in 2020 for citizens age 55 and older.
“Interestingly, data analytics revenues will generate the most IoT revenues in China. This statistic is reflective of the sheer volume of smart meter connections,”
Shey explains, “Platform revenues are not as high due to, for example, a higher share of proprietary embedded telematics deployments, especially by domestic OEM brands. Professional services revenues are similarly not as high, not only due to fewer connections in the telematics segments, with a higher proportion of tethered solutions, but also because IT and consultancy services are not as mature a market segment as in some of the more developed world markets such as Japan, South Korea and the United States.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stacey Higginbotham / Fortune:
Intel acquires cognitive computing software startup Saffron
Intel buys Saffron AI because it can’t afford to miss the next big thing in tech again
http://fortune.com/2015/10/26/intel-buys-saffron/
The deal will pit Intel against IBM.
Intel is buying Saffron AI, a startup in Cary, North Carolina that makes a cognitive computing platform that is reminiscent of IBM’s Watson technology. The chip giant announced the deal Monday but did not disclose a price.
Saffron’s software takes in a variety of data on a topic provided by the client and then parses similarities and relationships to “learn” about that topic. Saffron has purportedly created software that mimics human reasoning and memory that it applies to problems for clients as well as its own natural language processing
Intel’s role in this digital overload is threefold. First it wants to put as many chips as it can into what are called the edge devices—the laptops, watches, gateways or any devices that we may interact with or that gathers information from the world and feeds it back to the network.
The second opportunity is where Intel feels at home, which is in making general purpose chips for the servers that process all of this information and generally power the data centers that comprise “the cloud.”
But the third opportunity is a mix of both of those things and is where the Saffron acquisition enters the picture. As the computer industry demands more from processors, it’s trying to turn what were general-purpose chips into something that’s designed to do a very specific job.
At a certain level, an industry demands dedication, and that is happening in computing when it comes to artificial intelligence. That’s one reason Intel is spending $16.7 billion to buy Altera.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Official, Customized Raspberry Pi Versions Coming Soon
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/10/27/1211234/official-customized-raspberry-pi-versions-coming-soon
The immensely popular Raspberry Pi will soon be offered in customized versions, through an exclusive arrangement between Raspberry Pi Trading and Element14. According to the companies’ announcement, Element14 will provide design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create ‘bespoke designs’ based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform.
A handful of unsanctioned Raspberry Pi knock-offs have already appeared over the past couple of years, including various Orange Pi and Banana Pi flavors, which certainly didn’t involve any ‘bespeaking.’
Official, customized Raspberry Pi versions coming soon
http://linuxgizmos.com/official-customized-raspberry-pi-versions-coming-soon/
Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd., the commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Element14 have signed a global exclusive agreement whereby Element14 will provide “design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create bespoke designs based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform,” the companies jointly announced in London today.
Use of the term, “bespoke” makes it clear that the customized Raspberry Pi SBC development projects will entail substantial up-front commitments to both NRE (non-recurring engineering) payments and volume orders. In particular, “As these will be bespoke designs it is envisaged that order quantities will start in the region of between 3,000 and 5,000 depending upon the nature of the customization,” adds the announcement.
With the exponential growth in popularity of the Raspberry Pi SBC among educators, hackers, makers, and professional developers alike, it was only a matter of time until the SBC to morph into a de facto standard architecture for use as the embedded platform within a wide range of smart devices. A similar phenomenon occurred in the mid-80s when the IBM PC architecture was began to be incorporated into SBCs like the Ampro Little Board/PC and standardized architectures like PC/104.
Applications for new, customized versions of the Raspberry Pi are expected to include Internet of Things (IoT) devices, energy management, industrial, and end-consumer devices
The tweaked Pi’s are expected to include revised board layouts, additional or alternative functions, interfaces, connectors, and memory configurations, and more. Last year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation created its own customized version of the Raspberry Pi SBC in the form of the $30 computer-on-module called the Raspberry Pi Compute Module
Raspberry Pi Customization Service
http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-76955
Welcome to element14’s exclusive Raspberry Pi customization area
Gain unique access to design and manufacturing services, specially tailored to those wishing to create custom versions of ANY Raspberry Pi board for mass production purposes.
We will support you every step of the way during the design process – from concept right through to the manufacture of the final boards; enabling the Raspberry Pi to be optimized to suit your specific applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Animated Jack-o’-Lantern Really Connects
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/27/animated-jack-o-lantern-really-connects/
Days past people used to just carve a scary face in a pumpkin, drop in a candle and call it a day, but for our kind of crowd that’s not going to cut it. [Alexis] stuffed this Jack o Lantern with a lot of brain power and even connected it up to the internet for community control.
The hack-o-lantern project
http://digitaljunky.io/the-hack-o-lantern-project/
The idea is to make a jack-o-lantern controlled via twitter. Commands sent to a specific twitter account allow to change the color
of the light inside the pumpkin or perform a pre-defined animation such as opening the pumpkin or playing a spooky sound effect.
A range sensor allows to trigger an action sequence if someone gets close to the jack-o-lantern. Finally a sound sensor can be used
to modulate the light according the the surrounding sound level.
Components list
1x Spark core (or newer version : Particle photon)
1x 16 LEDs NeoPixel ring
1x 2500mAh lipo battery
1x lipo usb charger/booster or similar
1x HS-311 servo motor
1x HC-SR04 ultrasonic range sensor
1x audio sensor breakout
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny Radio Tracks Your Balloons
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/28/tiny-radio-tracks-your-balloons/
The name of the game in rocketry or ballooning is weight. The amount of mass that can be removed from one of these high-altitude devices directly impacts how high and how far it can go. Even NASA, which estimates about $10,000 per pound for low-earth orbit, has huge incentives to make lightweight components. And, while the Santa Barbara Hackerspace won’t be getting quite that much altitude, their APRS-enabled balloon/rocket tracker certainly helps cut down on weight.
Tracksoar is a 2″ x .75″ x .5″ board which weighs in at 45 grams with a pair of AA batteries and boasts an ATmega 328P microcontroller with plenty of processing power for its array of on-board sensors. Not to mention everything else you would need like digital I/O, a GPS module, and, of course, the APRS radio which allows it to send data over amateur radio frequencies.
As far as we can see, this is one of the smallest APRS modules we’ve ever seen
http://tracksoar.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Live Wire – ESP8266+Envi
Add remote monitoring and cloud data storage to a Current Cost Envi Energy Monitor.
https://hackaday.io/project/8232-live-wire-esp8266envi
Hotrod a Current Cost Envi with an ESP8266 and post energy usage and climate details to cloud services like thingspeak and firebase, process and serve data locally, and create custom notifications.
Since the Envi outputs serial ASCII data in XML format, it is easy to add an ESP8266 to its output port. It should also be possible to use a HopeRF transceiver module directly with an ESP8266 to emulate Current Cost transmitters and receivers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
IBM to buy Weather Co’s digital and data assets but deal doesn’t include traditional TV channel business
IBM to Buy Weather Co.’s Digital, Data Assets
Deal doesn’t include the traditional TV channel business
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/ibm-to-buy-weather-co-s-digital-data-assets-1446039939-lMyQjAxMTI1NDIyODYyNjgwWj
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the deal could be valued at more than $2 billion, citing a person familiar with the matter.
IBM is particularly interested in Weather Co.’s forecasting group, WSI, which houses the technology and weather data that the Weather Co. collects, manipulates and licenses to companies ranging from airlines to utility companies to insurance providers.
Weather Co. and IBM already have an alliance, struck earlier this year. The idea was to combine Weather Co.’s weather data and forecast information with IBM’s cloud computing skills and analytics know-how, so the two could come up with new ways to package and sell weather data and business solutions to different industries. IBM’s artificial intelligence service, Watson, is central to that arrangement.
IBM believes that it can enhance the Weather Channel’s forecasts to build new products. Retailers, for example, could better manage their supply chain by knowing when sales might slump because of snowstorms. Another example the companies have touted is the ability to sell insurance providers a way to alert policyholders via their smartphone that there was a hailstorm coming and notify them to move cars to a safer location. That type of service could help save insurers millions of dollars in claims.
Over the past year, IBM has worked hard to secure new data sources for its software, forging new relationships with Twitter Inc., Apple Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic Inc., and the Weather Channel’s WSI division, which generates more than 10 billion weather forecasts a day.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Applications for the Bitcoin Blockchain
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/27/applications-for-the-bitcoin-blockchain/
Blockcast is an open source effort for simply storing data on the Bitcoin blockchain. In storing data on the blockchain, the data are embedded on up to 16 Bitcoin transactions. It doesn’t allow for storing large amounts of data. The total compressed size of a document is no larger than 1277 bytes
By any measure Blockcast is useful in a way similar to Twitter; just something that allows anyone to broadcast information to anyone else. Unlike Twitter, it’s doing so in a cryptographically signed, verifiable format that can never be deleted.
blockai/blockcast forked from williamcotton/blockcast
https://github.com/blockai/blockcast
A multi-transaction protocol for storing data in the Bitcoin blockchain.
https://www.blockai.com
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Things (IoT) Costs, Connectivity, Resources and Software
Gartner Group estimates that the IoT will consist of nearly 26 billion devices by 2020 and these devices need to have connectivity and corresponding degrees of security to enable us to have a secure world.
Internet of Things developers require solutions to address connectivity and security while taking cost sensitivity into account.
Embedded systems are becoming interconnected and accessible via the internet. Gartner Group estimates there will be nearly 26 billion devices that make up the Internet of Things by 2020. This results in a massive variety of connected devices with varying security, reliability, and authentication requirements. Cost sensitivity also figures into the equation. This mix of requirements and costs require IoT developers to identify sensor, processor, and software solutions that address the requirements and hit required price points.
Source: https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/multimedia/embedded-iot-cost-connectivity-resources-software?clp=1&contactid=1&PC=L&c=2015_10_28_esd_aw_iot_future_1of1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home security
Home security project based on atmega and ardunio. MQTT gateway for data gathering.
https://hackaday.io/project/587-home-security
This project should replace standard home security alarms, and in future gather statistics from various sensors.
It consists from one main alarm board with atmega 1284P that has inputs for sensors and outputs to relays. Main board also hosts wiz820io Ethernet for configuration and overview, RFM12B for radio remote nodes, communication module to wired nodes (RS485 protocol), UART for GSM modem, Battery backed up RTC, EEPROM for log, I2C expansion connector, and AC supply and battery monitoring.
Live Wire – ESP8266+Envi
Add remote monitoring and cloud data storage to a Current Cost Envi Energy Monitor.
https://hackaday.io/project/8232-live-wire-esp8266envi
Hotrod a Current Cost Envi with an ESP8266 and post energy usage and climate details to cloud services like thingspeak and firebase, process and serve data locally, and create custom notifications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google wants to monitor your mental health. You should welcome it into your mind
The use of technology to track and treat mental illness is deeply worrying but sadly necessary
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11961415/Google-wants-to-monitor-your-mental-health.-You-should-welcome-it-into-your-mind.html
Next week, Dr Tom Insel leaves his post as head of the US National Institute of Mental Health, a job that made him America’s top mental health doctor. Dr Insel is a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist and a leading authority on both the medicine and public policies needed to deal with problems of the mind. He’s 64 but he’s not retiring. He’s going to work for Google.
More precisely, he’s going to work for Google Life Sciences, one of the more exotic provinces of the online empire. He’s going to investigate how technology can help diagnose and treat mental health conditions. Google doesn’t just want to read your mind, it wants to fix it too.
It’s not alone. Apple, IBM and Intel are among technology companies exploring the same field.
Wearable technology has been a hot topic in medical innovation for several years now. A growing number of people choose to track their own physical condition using FitBits, Jawbones and other activity trackers, tiny wearable devices that monitor your movements, pulse rate, sleep patterns and more. Once the preserve of obsessive fitness fanatics, “self-monitoring” has the scope to transform healthcare. The ever-increasing number of people with chronic conditions can track and electronically report their symptoms, reducing the number of routine (and expensive) consultations they need with medical staff and ensuring a quicker response to changes that do require direct professional attention.
Self-monitoring will also surely play a bigger role in preventive public health.
Dr Insel is part of a school of thought that suggests this technology is even better suited to mental health. The symptoms of depression, for instance, are inconstant, ebbing and rising without obvious pattern. A short consultation with a doctor once every few weeks is thus a poor means of diagnosis. But wearable technology allows continuous monitoring. A small portable device might monitor your tone of voice, speech patterns and physical movements, picking up the early signs of trouble. A device such as a mobile telephone.
Yes, we now live in a world where your phone might observe you to help assess your mental health. If you don’t find that prospect disturbing, you’re either fantastically trusting of companies and governments or you haven’t thought about it enough.
But that feeling of unease should not determine our response to technology in mental health
Because, simply, existing healthcare systems are failing and will continue to fail on mental health.
We pour ever more billions into dealing with the worst problems of physical health, and with considerable success.
Even as the NHS budget grows, NHS trusts’ spending on mental health is falling.
Technology will never be a panacea for mental illnesses, or our social failure to face up to them. But anything that makes them cheaper and easier and more mundane to deal with should be encouraged.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Helium has a go at Internet of Things thing – using ultra-low power tech
Platform includes homegrown sensors and 802.15.4
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/02/helium_internet_of_things_platform/
As the internet of things (IoT) gets closer to commercial reality, the solutions flooding into the market are increasingly targeted at a real world use case. Some of these are extremely specific – smart meters and smart streetlights are commonplace now, but startup Helium Systems says its initial focus is on smart refrigeration.
Helium does not mean the over-quoted “smart refrigerator”, which automatically replaces the milk, but a far more significant application aimed at the lucrative industrial side of the IoT – at the food, drink and healthcare sectors, specifically. More broadly, though, this application will be a proof of concept for its ambition to create a full IoT software platform with underlying wireless network.
That is a very common ambition these days, and one pursued by far larger players, and industry consortia, than Helium, but the firm does have a heavy hitting president, Rob Chandhok, who previously headed up Qualcomm’s IoT and open source software initiatives.
His deep industry connections will be needed to add win credibility for the Helium platform, which will use the firm’s own take on the 802.15.4 protocol (also the basis of ZigBee, Thread and 6LoWPAN). This will connect huge numbers of Helium’s simple own design sensors to analytics in the cloud.
Founded in 2013 and with $16m in venture capital funding under its belt, the company is now poised for commercial launch. The politics of its platform may well focus on the 802.15.4 implementation, but Chandhok insists the real crown jewel is the sensors, which can be deployed within minutes yet have fairly sophisticated capabilities.
The sensor nodes sit on a star network, communicating through an access point which acts as a bridge and does not contain a processor. They support multiple sensing inputs – one sensor can measure both temperature and door open/closed for a refrigeration unit, for instance – plus security, connectivity, and a dose of localized processing power (they are powered by a Freescale processor running on an ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller core, not a low end 16-bit chip).
Most importantly, they can be reprogrammed and updated over the air, which allows users to change criteria such as frequency of transmissions; to alter what is being measured (humidity rather than temperature, perhaps; or upgrade security, without replacing the devices. Sensor owners can reprogram them though an interface which accesses the Helium code.
The 802.15.4 twist
Helium took the decision to develop its own MAC layer and software stack on top of the 802.15.4 PHY (chips from Atmel), rather than go with ZigBee or another standard stack. It has added its own sauce to enable various differentiators such as dynamic switching between 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz bands, and hardware-based security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lifting platforms for all countries, unite – Bronton cranes network
In many countries in Tampere Bronto Skylift is able to follow koneitansa better over the network. It has signed an agreement with Sonera M2M technology-based cooperation.
Lifting platforms supplied different parts of Bronto Skylift’s world are connected through the company’s back-end system of Sonera’s M2M service. About 500 cranes are equipped with Sonera SIM cards.
“Now we are able to better manage and control the various parts of the world of our products in real time remotely. The solution allows the customer gets more data on the use of the lift and therefore is able to lift more effectively. Connecting to help detect and rectify the fault situations quickly, ”
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/kaikkien-maiden-nostolavat-liittykaa-yhteen-bronton-nosturit-verkkoon-6062357
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT could lead the fight against poor air quality in London
Sensors in pushchairs could help the public avoid dangerous pollution
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2432670/iot-could-lead-the-fight-against-poor-air-quality-in-london
POOR AIR QUALITY is a problem that’s easily ignored. After all, the oxygen we breathe every day is invisible, so it can be difficult not to take for granted, let alone deem it a subject for concern.
The reality is that the quality of the air, especially for those of us living in cities, is worrying. Poor air affects the lungs and the heart, and is a health threat that lurks in many places.
The UK High Court ruled earlier this year that the government must take action to cut pollution after being in breach of EU limits for pollutants for several years.
There are two main air-borne toxins in London’s air that are considered particularly dangerous to health: nitrogen dioxide, which is estimated to cause 23,000 deaths a year, and particulate matter, which comprises particles so small that they are taken deep into the lungs.
One organisation that has been championing this, and looking into a new way in which the Internet of Things (IoT) could be used to improve air quality, is sustainable development group Forum for the Future (FftF).
FftF has been experimenting with the idea that IoT sensors, connectivity and data can be used to change citizens’ perception of the risks of rapidly declining air quality and help them alter their behaviour to create change.
“All too often, the [IoT] journey stops at just providing data from the latest smart device, resulting in data spectatorship at best and apathy at worst,” said Hugh Knowles, head of innovation at FftF.
“Human interaction must be put at the heart of the IoT experience to avoid it becoming a technology without a user and to encourage meaningful action.
“We also need to analyse and focus on where this kind of technology has the most potential to create positive change. If we don’t do this, the IoT is in danger of becoming a frivolous plaything, providing a more tailored and automated existence for only the wealthy.”
Knowles believes that we need a far greater focus on applying IoT technology where it can change how needs are met rather than just making current approaches ‘smart’, hence the organisation’s increased focus on the IoT enabling better air quality in cities.
The BuggyAir project is FftF’s first venture that has received investment.
The built-in GPS records the precise location of each data point, and an accelerometer combines with the GPS to determine when a pushchair is being walked around or is in a bus or a car.
A dynamic air quality map is then created by automatically uploading the anonymised air quality data from the device to a platform and combining it with data from other pushchair sensors across the city.
However, BuggyAir has many advantages over urban air quality measurements such as GIS because it is liberated by the mobility of the IoT. Recordings from GIS are taken by static sensors, often set high above pedestrian level, and the general picture of average ambient pollution shows as an interpolation between these points.
“Air quality is just one specific issue and the government is doing bugger all,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables in the workplace? Not yet: IoT is just too complex
The Internet of Things could revolutionise business, but not until a common standard is set
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2420475/wearables-in-the-workplace-not-yet-iot-is-just-too-complex
OH, ‘THE INTERNET OF THINGS’. You’re probably fed up with hearing about it. And that’s quite possibly because the term is thrown around now more than ever by the likes of, well, everyone and anyone regardless of whether they understand what it is or not.
The phrase is muttered from the mouths of industry experts and technology company execs at every turn, described as an easy way to bundle a multitude of developments currently taking place in the technology industry – especially wearables – under a throw-away buzzword. But one thing hasn’t changed: the Internet of Things, or IoT, is still pretty vague in terms of what it means, constitutes and can do.
These days, people use the phrase to describe anything that is connected to the internet, and almost every technology company, from startups to the big players (think ARM, Cisco, Intel), has made it a substantial focus and part of their business strategy.
As a result, no-one really knows what the IoT is anymore, because it is just everything in a technological sense. The all-encompassing trend that is the IoT might not even be called the IoT for long; it might just be ‘tech’ if they don’t stop bundling everything under that heading, just as e-business has morphed into business.
Nevertheless, the Internet of Things definitely isn’t something we can hide from.
Interestingly, one thing Juniper did make clear is that this growth won’t just be on the consumer side but in business sectors such as retail, agriculture, smart buildings and smart grids.
Wearables in the workplace
With the explosion of the IoT and connected devices in the consumer landscape, it has been said that it’s only a matter of time before wearables become commonplace in helping us do our jobs in the office in the same way that laptops, tablets and smartphones do now.
And if this rings true, it could signal a long-term and fundamental place for the IoT in many different industries and in many different forms.
Research company Tractica has said that wearables will start popping up in enterprise and industrial settings in a big way. The firm believes that wearables, much like smartphones, will ultimately become a standard integration in the office of the future as the technology improves, the market explodes and organisations realise their potential.
“Employers should not just be focusing on the device, but how the device can and will be used in business,” said Alfresco CTO John Newton.
“We should be looking at the infrastructure that serves, stores, manages and delivers content to these devices, as they will be the gateway to information on other devices and the point of initiation of thousands of new business processes by employees and customers alike.”
Advantages
However, the application of IoT devices in the workplace still seems a little too aesthetic as opposed to practical
There are many benefits beyond just wearables connected to the internet, especially from the data that these devices collect, according to research at Goldsmiths, University of London.
The Human Cloud at Work study by the university’s Institute of Management Studies found that wearable technologies can boost employee productivity by 8.5 percent and job satisfaction by 3.5 percent, and that each employee will create upwards of 30GB of data a week from an average of three wearable devices. This device-generated raw data can be stored and analysed by employers to understand how human behaviour and environmental properties affect productivity, performance, well-being and job satisfaction.
Another benefit of IoT in the workplace is in human authentication, for example playing a role in accessing computers, and opening office doors and safes for increased levels of security.
“Wearables can provide a robust alternative to using passwords and Pins and can play a role in most areas of the office where authentication of a service is necessary,” said Kevin Curran, senior member at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Health is also a way in which the IoT could add value to business through corporate wellness programmes, which could be a strong driver for the application of connected devices in the workplace.
The catch
Juniper’s report warned that, despite the UK government recently urging retailers to embrace the IoT in a bid to improve productivity, automate supply chains and boost delivery times and stock efficiencies, companies must have the right systems in place to embrace the IoT and the data it produces. And at the moment, they don’t.
The IoT’s growth is being held back by the risk of conflicting standards. Intercompatibility is a big problem in IoT application at the moment, as there are conflicting standards from many different groups all doing the same thing. However, it’s not to say that no-one is trying.
These efforts to address the current IoT hurdles are paying off and paving the way for growth, but we are still a long way away from anything concrete. The IoT industry is still very much in the experimental phase and looking at what it could mean for businesses as well as employees.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT could lead the fight against poor air quality in London
Sensors in pushchairs could help the public avoid dangerous pollution
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2432670/iot-could-lead-the-fight-against-poor-air-quality-in-london
POOR AIR QUALITY is a problem that’s easily ignored. After all, the oxygen we breathe every day is invisible, so it can be difficult not to take for granted, let alone deem it a subject for concern.
One organisation that has been championing this, and looking into a new way in which the Internet of Things (IoT) could be used to improve air quality, is sustainable development group Internet of Things Academy (IOTA).
IOTA has been experimenting with the idea that IoT sensors, connectivity and data can be used to change citizens’ perception of the risks of rapidly declining air quality and help them alter their behaviour to create change.
But IOTA is concerned that people need to be put at the centre of the conversation about the IoT rather than how it can enable connected smart devices and wearables for perhaps more superficial reasons, such as leisure and entertainment.
“All too often, the [IoT] journey stops at just providing data from the latest smart device, resulting in data spectatorship at best and apathy at worst,” said Hugh Knowles, Director at IOTA.
“Human interaction must be put at the heart of the IoT experience to avoid it becoming a technology without a user and to encourage meaningful action.
“We have begun to imagine how the IoT could solve a range of global challenges, such as air quality, and even ecosystem restoration and poverty,” added Knowles.
The aim is to “provide a lens to view the opportunities, rather than prescribe definitive answers”.
One promising concept that the group has tested is to apply air quality-measuring IoT devices to children’s buggies in major cities across the UK.
AirBuggy enables just about anyone to take an interest in air quality, but IOTA has to ensure that the technology is working before it can roll out commercially.
“No-one is going to want to carry around air quality monitors until the technology has shrunk substantially,” said Knowles. “Currently, you can buy cheap sensors, but the data they give you is academically and medically nonsensical so it’s worthless to normal people. They are also expensive, costing from £20,000 to £100,000, and static.
“So we are building mid-range sensors that are small enough to be deployed but accurate enough to be deployable, costing around £100 to £3,000, and that you can put on buses and bikes and create a fleet that adds to other data sets.”
This would enable individuals to carry an air quality device on their way to work and change their route to reduce exposure.
“Air quality is just one specific issue and the government is doing bugger all,” Knowles concluded. “It’s our intention to get them to do more, and use the IoT to prototype how it can be used for behavioural change and lobbying for change.”
Wearables in the workplace? Not yet: IoT is just too complex
The Internet of Things could revolutionise business, but not until a common standard is set
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2420475/wearables-in-the-workplace-not-yet-iot-is-just-too-complex
Tomi Engdahl says:
Modules offer alternatives to Linux for adding WiFi to products
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4440682/Modules-offer-alternatives-to-Linux-for-adding-WiFi-to-products?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151104&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151104&elq=cc1db4b4ed964c46b68f9e2534106891&elqCampaignId=25561&elqaid=29084&elqat=1&elqTrackId=86ed50d2966b4103923634cb241219d7
“Use the right tool for the job.” It’s a saying you usually hear in the hardware store, but it is also a very fitting rule of thumb for design engineers who are adding wireless capabilities to a product for their companies’ IoT/M2M initiatives. In the past, adding Wi-Fi connectivity meant going with a full Linux implementation to obtain driver support, product’s application simplicity did not require such an operating system. Thankfully, alternatives to Linux-based Wi-Fi are now available for such IoT projects.
The market for “smart” products is growing rapidly, and companies that make consumer and industrial products are racing to deliver new functionality enabled by wireless connectivity. As a result, design engineers in a wide range of industries are being tasked with adding wireless functionality to previously non-networked products. Due to the inherent complexities of managing Wi-Fi communication, however, the traditional way to design-in Wi-Fi connectivity involved the use of embedded Linux.
While Linux will always have its place for larger-scale wireless design projects and higher-tech products, the reality is that Linux is too powerful and complex a solution for the more modest requirements of many IoT/M2M designs. In such designs, using Linux is like grabbing a chain saw when you need a scalpel.
Not only is Linux overkill for most IoT/M2M projects today, it is also a waste of resources for embedded designers looking for simple connectivity. Using Linux for simple embedded applications can lead to unnecessary costs in terms of software complexity, power consumption, PCB layout, and hardware components. Linux provides very powerful features, but choosing it solely because Wi-Fi is a requirement for your IoT product introduces many unrelated complexities.
In the past, the Linux chain saw was used because it was the only tool available. Today, though, adding embedded wireless connectivity simply does not require such extreme measures. For precision and simplicity rather than brute force and complexity, the right tool for most IoT jobs may very well be an embedded Wi-Fi module rather than a complex Linux capable system.
The latest Wi-Fi modules, such as the new TiWi-C-W Wi-Fi module from LSR, house the network stack, the Wi-Fi driver and other tools related to establishing and managing a wireless connection. These pre-certified modules simplify integration by providing Wi-Fi connectivity in a single package, with intuitive software that is directly compatible with existing host MCU interfaces.
The trade-off is in network performance. Linux-based Wi-Fi implementations (running on full-featured ~800MHz core processors) typically provide higher throughput than fully embedded module applications (running on sub-100MHz cores). Even with the lower cost cores, though, the throughput of an embedded wireless module is typically more than enough to meet the performance requirements of IoT solutions.
This module approach is an enormous time and labor saver for all IoT/wirelessly-enabled design projects, especially for projects involving traditional, non-networked products that are being re-tooled as “smart” products with wireless capabilities. These re-tooled products likely already have an MCU, and the engineering team’s path of least resistance is to keep the existing MCU and create a layer of Wi-Fi connectivity
Cloud readiness is a valuable attribute because the cloud is actually a design engineer’s best friend. The cloud allows the designer to shift work to the cloud and minimize what resides on the product itself. Utilizing the cloud also provides long-term benefits for more easily and cost-effectively supporting and enhancing systems throughout their lifecycle. That also means less work for designers, and it means a simpler, more elegant product re-design.
The problem is that few design engineers have extensive experience with cloud architecture. It is a completely separate discipline that is an extension of the data center and IT infrastructure field. But embedded Wi-Fi modules like TiWi-C-W help design engineers sidestep that cloud hurdle, in the same way as they do the challenges presented by Linux.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel will be serious about the Internet of Things
Many analysts have suspected Intel’s ability to develop effective devices’ Internet of things, but by now the processor giant has shown everyone else to be serious. The company introduced three new Quark processors and two different operating systems on IoT applications.
Intel’s processors are published by Quark SE system chip and D1000 and D2000 “microcontrollers”.
Quark SE can operate as sensor hub and available in summer 2016.
D1000 is already in production, D2000 will be available by the end of the year.
IoT circuits need to be supported by the operating system and Intel’s Wind River Unit yesterday saw the launch of no less than two new operating system: Rocket Real time operation system (RTOS) for 32-bit microcontrollers and Pulsar Wind River Linux version that also supports 64-bit processors.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3557:intel-tulee-tosissaan-esineiden-internetiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Robot Light Switch
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/06/the-robot-light-switch/
Automating your home is an awesome endeavor — but playing with mains AC can be risky business if you don’t know what you’re doing. So why not play it safe and make use of your light switch?
Admittedly, it wasn’t because [Tyler Bletsch] didn’t want to mess around with AC directly, but rather out of necessity.
AC power control without touching AC power
http://discspace.org/easy-servo-control-of-wall-switch-gives-ac-automation/
In this article I’ll show a simple 3D design for a servo mount to control a light switch for about $3, plus some electronics to drive it with a neat little interface. This article explains how I used it to regulate my air conditioner, but the basic bracket allows control of any U.S. standard wall switch.
First, I designed a simple bracket in SketchUp to be 3D printed. It uses the normal lightswitch faceplate screws to hold a cheap 9g servo next to the switch to flip it on command.
The screws go into slots, which allow you to fine-tune the location of the servo. The horn on the servo is the straight kind (===O===), which will be perfectly vertical when not flipping the switch. This means you can still totally use the switch normally without interference. The servo can turn -90 or +90 degrees to hit the switch on command.
To run it, I got an Arduino Nano, a small OLED display, and some tactile buttons to form a user interface.
I also got an early version to work with an ESP8266 programmed with Arduino
This means that you could slap this servo bracket on to any light switch to get web-enabled control almost immediately. The downsides include web security and the need for both 3.3V and 5V supply
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless Water Level Sensor from PVC Pipe
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/13/wireless-water-level-sensor-from-pvc-pipe/
The physical assembly is pretty simple. The whole structure is made from 1/2″ PVC pipe and fittings and is broken into four nearly identical sensor modules. The sensors have an electrode on either side.
A piece of CAT 5 cable connects the electrodes to the electronics inside of the waterproof controller box. The electronics are simple. It’s just a simple piece of perfboard with an XBee and a few transistors. The XBee can detect the water level by testing for a closed circuit between the two electrodes of any sensor module. The water acts as a sort of switch that closes the circuit. When the water gets too low, the circuit opens and [Bob] knows that the water level has lowered. The XBee is connected to a directional 2.4GHz antenna to ensure the signal reaches the laptop several acres away.
DIY Water Level Sensor Part 2
http://www.makingstuff.info/projects/9/WaterSensor_Part2.aspx
In part 1, I built the water sensor out of pvc plumbing parts found at the hardware store. In part 2, I show how to build and hook up the electronics so that the water level can be sent wireless to my computer.
It works by detecting when the water closes a circuit between the 2 screws which are hooked to the DIO pins on the transmitting Xbee. It will detect Full, 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 and empty. The results are sent using an API packet to the receiving Xbee. The Xbees used must be series 2 because series 1 will not work in API mode. This method is preferred because the Xbee can go into sleep mode, wake up and read the pins, transmit the data and go back into sleep mode without the use of a micro-controller or serial connection.
The receiving Xbee is hooked up to a Xbee Explorer with USB to a dedicated computer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HIKU
The shopping button
http://hiku.us/
hiku lives in your kitchen, scans barcodes and recognizes your voice – creating a shared shopping list on your phone so you always know what you need.
Use the hiku shopping list app at the store – any store – and your list is always with you.
Or connect hiku to online stores to make online shopping a breeze.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sweden’s Anoto Buys Digital Pen Maker Livescribe For $15M
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/06/swedens-anoto-buys-digital-pen-maker-livescribe-for-15m/
The writing is on the wall for more consolidation in the world of startups… both literally and figuratively. Today Anoto, a digital writing company based out of Sweden, announced that it would acquire longtime partner Livescribe, another a smart pen maker, for $15 million in a deal that is expected to close this month.
This is a bargain of sorts, but a poor return for investors: Oakland-based Livescribe, founded in 2007, had raised at least $68 million from backers like Qualcomm, Crosslink Capital and Scale Venture Partners.
Livescribe was one of the early leaders in smart pen technology — and by default one of the early movers in the whole area of Internet of Things and turning “dumb” objects into connected pieces of hardware.
But it also faced some significant stumbling blocks.
Livescribe is selling its business operations, technology, and intellectual property. “The Livescribe brand and existing infrastructure will be retained”
The Swedish company has in the past worked to provide digital solutions for any kind of writing, from notes through to interactive displays and large walls. Livescribe is more about developing handheld styluses for smaller surfaces.
That narrowed focus may have been a boost for developing quality, but it perhaps was also one of its problems as a company, considering the large amount competition in this space, from other startups like Paper to large tech companies like Apple designing its own “native” digital ‘pencil’.
Completely familiar. Entirely revolutionary.
Introducing Apple Pencil for iPad Pro.
http://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Latest, Best WiFi Module Has Been Announced
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/06/the-latest-best-wifi-module-has-been-announced/
A little more than a year ago, a new product was released onto the vast, vast marketplace of cheap electronics. It was the ESP8266, and this tiny and cheap WiFi module has since taken over the space of hobbyist electronics and become the de facto standard for connecting tiny microcontrollers to the Internet.
Now there’s an upgrade on the horizon. [John Lee], the public face of Espressif, the makers of the ESP8266, has announced the next product they’re working on. It’s called the ESP32, and if the specs given are correct, it looks to be the next great thing for the Internet of Things.
The ESP32 will now contain two Tensilica processors running at 160MHz, compared to the ‘8266’s one processor running at 80 MHz. The amount of RAM has been increased to 400 kB, Bluetooth LE has been added, WiFi is faster, and there are even more peripherals tucked away in this tiny piece of silicon.
documentation in English.
Right now, Espressif is beta testing the ESP32
https://twitter.com/EspressifSystem/status/662205725125414912
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adafruit CC3000 WiFi and Xively
Connect sensors to Xively with Arduino & the CC3000 WiFi chip!
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-cc3000-wifi-and-xively
The CC3000 WiFi chip from Texas Instrument is a quite versatile chip that can be used to connect your projects to the web. However, connecting your Arduino project to a web server can be tricky: you need to know how to install & configure a web server, and know a bit about HTML & PHP. Luckily, there are other solutions to make things easier.
In this guide, we are going to see how to connect a temperature & humidity sensor to an online platform for connected objects, Xively. The sensor will be connected to an Arduino Uno board, which will also communicate with the Adafruit CC3000 breakout board for the WiFi connectivity. But instead of communicating with a local server, the CC3000 chip will communicate directly with the Xively server and send the data over there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Air Quality Surveillance for Whole Cities
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/07/air-quality-surveillance-for-whole-cities/
Air quality is becoming a major issue these days, and not just for cities like Beijing and Los Angeles. It’s important for health, our environment, and our economy no matter where we live. To that end, [Radu] has been working on air quality monitors that will be widely deployed in order to give a high-resolution air quality picture, and he’s starting in his home city of Timisoara, Romania.
[Radu] built a similar device to measure background radiation (a 2014 Hackaday Prize Semifinalist), and another to measure air quality in several ways (a 2015 Hackaday Prize Finalist and a Best Product Finalist; winners will be announced next weekend). He is using the platforms as models for his new meter. The device will use a VOC air sensor and an optical dust sensor in a mobile unit connected to a car to gather data, and from that a heat map of air quality will be generated. There are also sensors for temperature, pressure, humidity, and background radiation. The backbone of the project is a smart phone which will upload the data to a server.
City Air Quality
https://hackaday.io/project/8334-city-air-quality
Developing a mobile solution using the uRADMonitor infrastructure, to track and assert the air quality in a city.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maker Shed Internet of Things (IoT)
http://www.makershed.com/collections/internet-of-things-iot
What is the Internet of Things? Very simply it’s the concept of connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet. This includes everything from your coffee maker, washing machine, home thermostat, to your cell phone and almost anything else you can think of. We’ve got kits and boards to help you with your IoT projects!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Weather Word Clock Warns You Of Impending Winter
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/08/weather-word-clock-warns-you-of-impending-winter/
Word clocks are pretty popular “artsy” ways of telling time, but [doktorinjh] wanted to try something a little different. So instead of showing the time — it shows the weather.
He’s using an Arduino Yun to access the Weather Underground API for data and then sends the data out to a grid of 100 individually addressable RGB LEDs — NeoPixels to be precise. The LEDs are overlayed with a laser cut acrylic sheet with various words and weather icons to allow for a pretty specific depiction of current (or future) weather conditions.
Weather Icon Display
https://hackaday.io/project/8323-weather-icon-display
The weather forecast is updated from the internet and displayed using icons and text on an acrylic plate. Uses an Arduino Yun and 100 LEDs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded systems face design, power, security challenges
http://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4440758/Embedded-systems-face-design–power–and-security-challenges-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151109&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151109&elq=8f262274cea14fcb905f80c54dd0c35b&elqCampaignId=25616&elqaid=29155&elqat=1&elqTrackId=47132a81d02343df8a88b87547789381
As the market for embedded systems grows dramatically, all eyes are turning to embedded systems designers who are tasked with combining microprocessors, connectivity, and operating systems that span a wide range of applications from the tiniest IoT device to those embedded in large networking systems.
According to IDC, the market for intelligent systems will grow from 1.4 billion units this year to more than 2.2 billion in 2019. While marketers and financiers may be salivating over the prospects for revenue, what does this really mean for the embedded system designer? From my armchair view, I could easily guess that these challenges likely center on the perennial challenges that electrical engineering designs face: size, cost, power, and time to market
The biggest design concerns Shore sees are “getting to grips with multicore platforms, implementing secure systems in IoT, resilient and reliable programming, and energy efficient development.” To be sure, these are topics that are regularly addressed in embedded trade journals and conferences. Considering the entire development cycle, Prestridge points to shortened time to market versus increased design functionality as a critical challenge. This is a common pain point in a market that is getting “hot” with many new players entering the space.
One of the classic trade-offs is between power and performance. How is this being addressed in embedded design? Shore offers some tips:
• carefully architect software to take advantage of the facilities provided by the hardware
• ensure that you understand exactly what the hardware is doing at all times
• have a deep knowledge of power saving facilities provided by your platform
• design your software (from algorithms down to machine code) carefully and conscientiously
• design interrupt handlers carefully
Security
You cannot seem to have a conversation about the IoT these days without discussing security or the latest automobile hack. Shore notes that the challenges of security in the IoT need to be met not only in hardware and architecture, but also in software design. As time goes on, “security is only going to become more important for us,” adds Shore.
Prestridge notes that (despite the noteworthy hacks lately) the automotive industry has been working on security for years, as has the medical and aerospace industry. It is only relatively recently that security has become a concern for commercial and durable goods. Prestridge outlines the challenge: “Functional safety-certified tools aren’t enough; code analysis tools (both static and runtime) can help ferret out potential security issues by spotting things like the classic buffer overrun exploit before the design gets in the field. By using code analysis tools, developers can prevent these problems before they ever get checked into a build. And by selecting a pre-certified tool that has already been quality-tested by an independent third-party organization specialized on safety requirements, entire companies can save valuable time and money.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mini Bluetooth Smart module advances IoT designs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440755/Mini-Bluetooth-Smart-module-advances-IoT-designs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151109&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151109&elq=23b604787da7418d8e013e2ff7acd9f8&elqCampaignId=25620&elqaid=29159&elqat=1&elqTrackId=4db10a9d97464d15bc005824bc01e8fb
Fujitsu’s MBH7BLZ07 Bluetooth Smart module is approximately 50% smaller than its predecessor, the MBH7BLZ02, yet packs a Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 SoC, which is built around an ARM 32-bit Cortex M0 CPU with 256 kbytes of flash memory and 16 kbytes of RAM. With its miniature 11.5×7.9×1.7-mm size and low power consumption, the device enables the design of smaller and lighter battery-powered wireless devices that are capable of operating longer.
The MBH7BLZ07 contains Fujitsu’s unique data-communication profile, which provides more than 60 commands and allows data transmission via a UART.
Outfitted with an embedded pattern antenna, the FCC-approved MBH7BLZ07 can be used in any number of Internet-enabled devices for healthcare, fitness, and consumer entertainment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Flexes Handset, IoT Cores
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328212&
SAN JOSE, Calif. – ARM rolled out new cores for smartphones and the Internet of Things at its annual conference here. The Cortex A-35 brings 64-bit capabilities to entry-level handsets while the ARMv8 Cortex-M architecture enables hardware-based security on the smallest 32-bit microcontrollers with minimal impact, even on real-time operations.
The A-35 is a new low-end 64-bit core, targeting an entry-level smartphone segment ARM expects to grow 8% a year to reach one billion devices by 2020. ARM believes the power efficiency of the core also will attract use in a wide range of embedded systems including set-top boxes for online video.
Several companies have licensed ARM’s A-35 core. The company expects system level products using such chips will debut by the end of 2016.
Separately, ARM announced a new architecture for 32-bit microcontrollers, bringing hardware-based security to even the lowest end parts with minimal impact on real-time operations. The ARMv8-M
TrustZone for ARMv8-M includes new instructions and a revised memory and exception processing techniques that handle in hardware functions currently run in software on higher end Cortex-A cores. The 32-bit version does not require a hypervisor. Instead, the approach enables mechanisms to securely handle switching between secure and unsecure processes.
The approach lets chips run secured and unsecured code in parallel and support secure stack pointers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Nets Advance at Ingenu, LoRa
Ingenu reveals U.S. plans, Tata picks LoRa in India
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328226&
The race to deploy low power wide area (LPWA) networks for the Internet of Things heats up this week as two contenders announced their next steps.
Ingenu announced its 2.4 GHz Machine Network will be deployed 30 U.S. cities by the end of 2016, covering an area of nearly 100,000 square miles. The competing LoRa Alliance said it will update its network at a meeting of its members this week, days after it announced a deal that will see the technology deployed in India.
The two are among a handful of LPWA networks gearing up for IoT. They all aim to fill a gap in unlicensed bands that cellular providers aim to plug in licensed bands with emerging cellular standards expected to be finished in the next year.
Under new chief executive John Horn, Ingenu changed its name earlier this year from On Ramp Networks and shifted its strategy from building private networks to creating public IoT nets. The company currently manages 38 private networks around the world using its proprietary Random Phase Multiple Access (RPMA) technology based on its own ASICs and developed by founders including former Qualcomm engineers.
Ultimately, Ingenu aims to deploy about 600 towers to cover 70% of the U.S., something Horn claims would require 11,000 towers for LoRa and 43,000 for rival Sigfox. Ingenu created an online tool so potential customers can track when specific U.S. locations will be served.
The company closed a $25 million funding round earlier this year and is now raising an unspecified amount from unnamed investors to complete the public U.S. network. Horn said Ingenu’s equipment costs are relatively low at $30,000 per tower.
Ingenu aims to keep its specifications private and shift to making most of its revenues from licensing and services. Today most of its revenues come from hardware sales, but the company is negotiating with several companies who will make its hardware in the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scaling Down Semi Process Nodes for IoT Apps
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328209&
In recent months, some major semiconductor companies and IC foundries have announced that they have scaled down transistor sizes in ICs to as little as 14 nanometers, setting the stage for the next step in reducing size and cost of Internet of Things system-on-chip designs.
Not so fast, said Tom Starnes, semiconductor industry analyst at Objective Analysis. He points out that most of these announcements have more to do with standard microprocessor architectures and are unrelated to the requirements of Internet of Things (IoT} devices.
“These are mainly digital systems and while scaling to such geometries there is not easy, it is child’s play next to what is necessary in microcontroller-based IoT devices,” he said.
MCU-based SoCs are a mix of not only digital components but also large amounts of analog functionality, wireless RF circuitry, flash and static RAM — none of which scale as easily or predictably as digital transistors.
“We will eventually have a viable market for MCU-based SoCs for the IoT which will be able to make use of process node scaling to 14nm to 20nm or smaller, but not right now,” Starnes said.
“Wireless connectivity, an integrated MPU, low power operation, low-leakage SRAM, and nonvolatile memory (NVM) IP make the process technology choice critical,” Kumar added. “These IoT SoCs do not chase Moore’s law in the same manner that predominantly digital SoCs do.”
Silicon Labs is now manufacturing its 32-bit ARM-based wireless SoCs in 90nm, and Kumar said the company does not see any urgency in pushing its process nodes any further in the near term.
“Complex, energy-efficient RF design for wireless connectivity, as well as analog functions used for sensing or connecting to a low-voltage current sensor, are as critical as the IoT SoC’s digital performance,” said Kumar. “These SoCs are not going into desktop PCs, mobile PCs, tablets or even handsets where power consumption is less critical compared to an IoT end node.
“IoT SoCs are used in wireless applications that often run on coin cell batteries with a five to 10 year lifetime,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mentor’s CEO on Merger Mania
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=187&doc_id=1328228&
The current pace of consolidation can’t continue, says Mentor Graphics’ CEO Wally Rhines.
The current spate of mergers and acquisitions in the semiconductor industry cannot continue for long, according Walden Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics speaking at a user group meeting in Bangalore, India.
“While the number of transactions is not really out of line when you compare it to the previous years, what really is out of line is transactional value,” Rhines said. “If that [transactional value] is repeated in the second half of 2015, then we would be seeing an unprecedented phenomenon in semiconductor history.”
According to a CapIQ/Mentor Graphics analysis, the value of the 19 transactions in the first half of 2015 stood at $83 billion compared with $23 billion in 2014 for 32 transactions and $12 billion in 2013 for 16 transactions.
According to Rhines, M&A-involved companies’ revenue and R&D are significantly affected after a merger. Once the M&A is complete, many joint entities tend to reduce R&D expenditure, which can have an impact on future revenues.
“If you reduce the R&D investment you will eventually reduce the revenue as per data we have collected over the years,” Rhines noted.
Layoffs are another fallout of an M&A blitzkrieg. Avago has already announced downsizing in Broadcom. But the good news is that engineers don’t stay unemployed for long, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Rhines noted. Either they move to start-ups, which are more nimble and agile in terms of innovation, or they move to competitors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Printed Electronics Make a Mark
Novel products emerge at annual event
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328206&
It’s time for engineers to get printed electronics out of the lab and dream up new products using their capabilities, according to an expert following the field. A handful of companies including Qualcomm are starting to do just that said Raghu Das, chief executive of IDTechEx who will host an annual event on the topic here this month.
Printed electronics “has been a long time coming, it’s long been embryonic…but now companies realize they have to make new products not replace existing ones,” said Das. “There’s an element of creative product design needed to make it take off, the capability is there…but there’s a lack of clarity on what products people will want,” he added.
At this year’s event, Qualcomm will show a printed electronics label that will gather data from a golf club to deliver feedback on a player’s game to his smartphone. Thin-film battery maker Blue Spark Technologies will show a child’s bandage that can deliver temperature information to a parent’s handset, and another company will show a vest that uses printed electronics to send information about a baby’s respiration and sleep.
“There will be a stream of products like this,” said Das who oversees a team 20 of tech analysts.
The U.S. is to some extent playing catch up. “The European Union alone has spent about 200 million euros in printed electronics technology in addition to funding from national programs,” Das said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner: 20 billion things on the Internet by 2020
Sorry, Cisco: America doesn’t have enough legal weed for us to find 50 billion devices
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/11/gartner_20_billion_things_on_the_internet_by_2020/
Gartner’s predicting a four-fold increase in the number of Internet of Things devices in the world by 2020, from today’s 4.9 billion to nearly 21 billion.
If Gartner’s mushroom-and-crystal-ball session got the numbers right, the industry’s going to have to get to work reclassifying a whole lot of stuff as some-kind-of-thing, or resign itself to abandoning the common “50 billion things” hyperbole.
The prognosticator’s magic pencil has ruled a line under IoT device growth with the prediction that it will hit 20 billion by 2020. Cisco and Ericsson, on the other hand, worship at the Church of 50-billion-things.
The greatest numbers of connected things, Gartner says, will be connected by consumers, who will connect more than ten billion new devices between now and 2020.
By that time, the pundit predicts, the consumer spend will be worth US$1.5 billion annually.
Businesses in the same period will add around 5.4 billion devices, but at a much greater unit value, so the enterprise market will be worth $1.477 billion by 2020.
All those things will need support, naturally, so Gartner reckons by 2020, the sector’s services spending will be in the vicinity of $235 million.