The Internet of Things revolution started in 2015 and will continue to be strong in 2016. 2015 was the year everyone talked about the Internet of Things. (So was 2014. And 2013.) But unlike before, it was the year everyone started making plans, laying groundwork, and building the infrastructure. Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. The premise of IoT is that a connected world will offer gains through efficiency.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has been called the next Industrial Revolution — it will change the way all businesses, governments, and consumers interact with the physical world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer the data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)
and the Internet. IoT is also called the Internet of Everything. A critical component for the IoT system to be a success will be secure bi-directional communication, mobility and localization services.
In the future, everything will be connected. It won’t just be our phones that access the Internet; it will be our light bulbs, our front doors, our microwaves, our comforters, our blenders. You can call it the Internet of Things, The Internet of Everything, Universal Object Interaction, or your pick of buzzwords that begin with Smart. They all hold as inevitable that everything, everything will be connected, to each other and to the Internet. And this is promised to change the world. Remember that the objects themselves do not benefit us, but what services and functions they make it possible to obtain. We will enjoy the outcome, hopefully even better quality products, informative and reliable services, and even new applications.
There will be lots of money spend on IoT in 2016, the exact sum is hard to define, but it is estimated that nearly $6 trillion will be spent on IoT solutions over the next five years. IoT is now a very large global business dominated by giants (IBM, Intel, Cisco, Gemalto, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Bosch, GE, AT&T, T-Mobile, Telefonica and many others). I see that because it is still a young and quickly developing market, there will be lots of potential in it for startups in 2016.
There will be a very large number of new IoT devices connected to Internet in the end of 2016. According to Business Insider The Internet of Things Report there was 10 billion devices connected to the internet in 2015 and there will be will be 34 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devicesw ill comprise 10 billion (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.). Juniper research predicted that by 2020, there will be 38.5 billion connected devices. IDC says it’ll be 20.9 billion. Gartner’s guess? Twenty-five billion. The numbers don’t matter, except that they’re huge. They all agree that most of those gadgets will be industrial Internet of Things. The market for connecting the devices you use all day, every day, is about to be huge.
Businesses will be the top adopter of IoT solutions because they see ways the IoT can improve their bottom line: lowering operating costs, increasing productivity, expand to new markets and develop new product offerings. Sensors, data analytics, automation and wireless communication technologies allow the study of the “self-conscious” machines, which are able to observe their environment and communicate with each other. From predictive maintenance that reduces equipment downtime to workers using mobile devices on the factory floor, manufacturing is undergoing dramatic change. The Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling increased automation on the factory floor and throughout the supply chain, 3D printing is changing how we think about making components, and the cloud and big data are enabling new applications that provide an end-to-end view from the factory floor to the retail store.
Governments are focused on increasing productivity, decreasing costs, and improving their citizens’ quality of life. The IoT devices market will connect to climate agreements as in many applicatons IoT can be seen as one tool to help to solve those problems. A deal to attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C was agreed at the climate change summit in Paris in December 2015. Sitra fresh market analysis indicates that there is up to an amount of EUR 6 000 billion market potential for smart green solutions by 2050. Smart waste and water systems, materials and packaging, as well as production systems together to form an annual of over EUR 670 billion market. Smart in those contests typically involves use of IoT technologies.
Consumers will lag behind businesses and governments in IoT adoption – still they will purchase a massive number of devices. There will be potential for marketing IoT devices for consumers: Nine out of ten consumers never heard the words IoT or Internet of Things, October 2015! It seems that the newest IoT technology extends homes in 2016 – to those homes where owner has heard of those things. Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous in homes in so many parts of the world that you can now really start tapping into that by having additional devices. The smart phones and the Internet connection can make home appliances, locks and sensors make homes and leisure homes in more practical, safer and more economical. Home adjusts itself for optimal energy consumption and heating, while saving money. During the next few years prices will fall to fit for large sets of users. In some cases only suitable for software is needed, as the necessary sensors and data connections can be found in mobile phones. Our homes are going to get smarter, but it’s going to happen slowly. Right now people mostly buy single products for a single purpose. Our smart homes and connected worlds are going to happen one device, one bulb at a time. The LED industry’s products will become more efficient, reliable, and, one can hope, interoperable in the near future. Companies know they have to get you into their platform with that first device, or risk losing you forever to someone else’s closed ecosystem.
The definitions what would be considered IoT device and what is a traditional computing devices is not entirely clear, and I fear that we will not get a clear definition for that in 2016 that all could agree. It’s important to remember that the IoT is not a monolithic industry, but rather a loosely defined technology architecture that transcends vertical markets to make up an “Internet of everything.”
Too many people – industry leaders, media, analysts, and end users – have confused the concept of
“smart” with “connected”. Most devices – labeled “IoT” or “smart” – are simply connected devices. Just connecting a device to the internet so that it can be monitored and controlled by someone over the web using a smart phone is not smart. Yes, it may be convenient and time saving, but it is not “smart”. Smart means intelligence.
IoT New or Not? YES and NO. There are many cases where whole IoT thing is hyped way out of proportion. For the most part, it’s just the integration of existing technologies. Marketing has driven an amount of mania around IoT, on the positive side getting it on the desks of decision makers, and on the negative generating ever-loftier predictions. Are IoT and M2M same or different? Yes and no depending on case. For sure for very many years to come IoT and M2M will coexist.
Nearly a dozen contenders are trying to fill a need for long distance networks that cut the cost and power consumption of today’s cellular machine-to-machine networks. Whose technology protocols should these manufacturers incorporate into their gear? Should they adopt ZigBee, Apple’s HomeKit, Allseen Alliance/AllJoyn, or Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium? Other 802.15.4 technologies? There are too many competing choices.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, two pioneers of the Internet of Things are expanding their platforms and partnerships. Crowdfunding sites and hardware accelerators are kicking out startups at a regular clip, typically companies building IoT devices that ride Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Bluetooth Special Interest group is expected to release in2016 support for mesh networks and higher data rates.
Although ZWave and Zigbee helped pioneer the smart home and building space more than a decade ago, but efforts based on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 6LoWPAN are poised to surpass them. Those pioneering systems are actively used and developed. Zigbee Alliance starts certification for its unified version 3.0 specification in few months (includes profiles for home and building automation, LED lighting, healthcare, retail and smart energy). EnOcean Alliance will bring its library of about 200 application profiles for 900 MHz energy harvesting devices to Zigbee networks. Zigbee will roll out a new spec for smart cities. The Z-Wave Security 2 framework will start a beta test in February and Z-Wave aims to strike a collaboration withleading IoT application framework platforms. Zigbee alredy has support Thread.
The race to define, design and deploy new low power wide area networks for the Internet of Things won’t cross a finish line in 2016. But by the end of the year it should start to be clear which LPWA nets are likely to have long legs and the opportunities for brand new entrants will dim significantly. So at the moment it is hard to make design choices. To protect against future technology changes, maybe the device makers should design in wireless connectivity chips and software that will work with a variety of protocols? That’s complicated and expensive. But if I pick only one technology I can easily pick up wrong horse, and it is also an expensive choice.
Within those who want to protect against future technology changes, there could be market for FPGAs in IoT devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) is broken and needs ARM-based field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology to fix it, an expert told engineers at UBM’s Designers of Things conference in San Jose. You end up with a piece of hardware that can be fundamentally changed in the field.
There seems to be huge set of potential radio techniques also for Internet of Things even for long distance and low power consumpion. Zigbee will roll out a new spec for smart cities in February based on the 802.15.4g standard for metro networks. It will compete with an already crowded field of 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz networks from Sigfox, the LoRa Alliance, Ingenu and others. Weightless-P is an open standard announced by Weightless SIG, which operates at frequencies below one gigahertz. Weightless-P nodes and development cards will be expected to be in the market already during the first quarter of 2016, at the moment Weightless IoT Hardware Virtually Unavailable.
I expect LoRa Technology is expected to be hot in 2016. The LoRaWAN standard enables low-data-rate Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) wireless communication with a range of up to 10 miles, a battery life of 10 years, and the ability to connect millions of wireless sensor nodes to LoRaWAN gateways. LoRa® technology works using a digital spread spectrum modulation and proprietary protocol in the Sub-GHz RF band (433/868/915 MHz). I see LoRa technology interesting because lots of activity around in Finland in several companies (especially Espotel) and I have seen a convincing hands-in demo of the LoRa system in use.
It seems that 3GPP Lost its Way in IoT and there is fragmentation ahead in cellular standards. In theory 3GPP should be the default provider of IoT connectivity, but it seems that it has now failed in providing one universal technology. At the moment, there are three major paths being supported by 3GPP for IoT: the machine-type version of LTE (known as LTE-M) and two technologies coming from the Cellular-IoT initiative — NB-IoT and EC-GSM. So here we are with three full standardization efforts in 3GPP for IoT connectivity. It is too much. There will like be a base standard in 2016 for LTE-M.
The promise of billions of connected devices leads everyone to assume that there will be plenty of room for multiple technologies, but this betrays the premise of IoT, that a connected world will offer gains through efficiency. Too many standard will cause challenges for everybody. Customers will not embrace IoT if they have to choose between LTE-M and Sigfox-enabled products that may or may not work in all cases. OEM manufacturers will again bear the cost, managing devices at a regional or possibly national level. Again, we lose efficiency and scale. The cost of wireless connectivity will remain a barrier to entry to IoT.
Today’s Internet of Things product or service ultimately consists of multiple parts, quite propably supplied by different companies. An Internet of Things product or service ultimately consists of multiple parts. One is the end device that gathers data and/or executes control functions on the basis of its communications over the Internet. Another is the gateway or network interface device. Once on the Internet, the IoT system needs a cloud service to interact with. Then, there is the human-machine interface (HMI) that allows users to interact with the system. So far, most of the vendors selling into the IoT development network are offering only one or two of these parts directly. Alternatives to this disjointed design are arising, however. Recently many companies are getting into the end-to-end IoT design support business, although to different degrees.
Voice is becoming more often used the user interface of choice for IoT solutions. Smartphones let you control a lot using only your voice as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung have their solutions for this. For example Amazon, SoundHound and Nuance have created systems that allow to add language commands to own hardware or apps. Voice-activated interface becomes pervasive and persistent for IoT solutions in 2016. Right now, most smart home devices are controlled through smartphones, and it seems like that’s unlikely to change. The newest wearable technology, smart watches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce – it learns from its users, and generate as responses in real time appropriate, “micro-moments” tied to experience.
Monitoring your health is no longer only a small group oriented digital consumer area. Consumers will soon take advantage of the health technology extensively to measure well-being. Intel Funds Doctor in Your Pocket and Samsung’s new processor is meant for building much better fitness trackers. Also, insurance companies have realized the benefits of health technologies and develop new kinds of insurance services based on data from IoT devices.
Samsung’s betting big on the internet of things and wants the TV to sit at the heart of this strategy. Samsung believes that people will want to activate their lights, heating and garage doors all from the comfort of their couch. If smart TVs get a reputation for being easy to hack, then Samsung’s models are hardly likely to be big sellers. After a year in which the weakness of smart TVs were exploited, Samsung goes on the offensive in 2016. Samsung’s new Tizen-based TVs will have GAIA security with pin lock for credit card and other personal info, data encryption, built-in anti-malware system, more.
This year’s CES will focus on how connectivity is proliferating everything from cars to homes, realigning diverse markets – processors and networking continue to enhance drones, wearables and more. Auto makers will demonstrate various connected cars. There will be probably more health-related wearables at CES 2016, most of which will be woven into clothing, mainly focused on fitness. Whether or not the 2016 International CES holds any big surprises remains to be seen. The technology is there. Connected light bulbs, connected tea kettles, connected fridges and fans and coffeemakers and cars—it’s all possible. It’s not perfect, but the parts are only going to continue to get better, smaller, and cheaper.
Connectivity of IoT devices will still have challeges in 2016. While IoT standards organizations like the Open Interconnect Consortium and the AllSeen Alliance are expected to demonstrate their capabilities at CES, the industry is still a ways away from making connectivity simple. In 2016 it will still pretty darn tedious to get all these things connected, and there’s all these standards battles coming on. So there will be many standards in use at the same time. The next unsolved challenge: How the hell are all these things going to work together? Supporting open APIs that connect with various services is good.
Like UPnP and DLNA, AllJoyn could become the best-kept secret in the connected home in 2016 — everyone has it, no one knows about it. AllJoyn is an open-source initiative to connect devices in the Internet of Things. Microsoft added support for AllJoyn to Windows in 2014.
Analysis will become important in 2016 on IoT discussions. There’s too much information out there that’s available free, or very cheaply. We need systems to manage the information so we can make decisions. Welcome to the systems age.
The rise of the Internet of Things and Web services is driving new design principles. The new goal is to delight customers with experiences that evolve in flexible ways that show you understand their needs. “People are expecting rich experiences, fun and social interactions… this generation gets bored easily so you need to understand all the dimensions of how to delight them”
With huge number of devices security issues will become more and more important. In 2016, we’ll need to begin grappling with the security concerns these devices raise. The reality of everything being connected can have unintended consequences, not all of them useful – Welcome to the Internet of stupid (hackable) things.
Security: It was a hot topic for 2015 and if anything it will get hotter in 2016. The reason is clear. By adding connectivity embedded systems not only increase their utility, they vastly increase their vulnerability to subversion with significant consequences. Embedded systems that add connectivity face many challenges, of which the need for security is both vital and misunderstood. But vendors and developers have been getting the message and solutions are appearing in greater numbers, from software libraries to MCUs with a secure root of trust.
Bruce Schneier is predicting that the IoT will be abused in conjunction with DMCA to make our lives worse instead of better. In theory, connected sensors will anticipate your needs, saving you time, money, and energy. Except when the companies that make these connected objects act in a way that runs counter to the consumer’s best interests. The story of a company using copy-protection technology to lock out competitors—isn’t a new one. Plenty of companies set up proprietary standards to ensure that their customers don’t use someone else’s products with theirs. Because companies can enforce anti-competitive behavior this way, there’s a litany of things that just don’t exist, even though they would make life easier for consumers.
Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. Maybe it’ll be 2016, maybe the year after, but the train is coming. It’ll have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and probably eight other things, and you’ll definitely get a push notification when it gets here.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Turn Your Motorola Android Phone Into a Raspberry Pi
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/15/turn-your-motorola-android-phone-into-a-raspberry-pi/
In the surest sign that hardware hacking is the new hotness, Motorola and Farnell/Element 14 have developed an add-on board and SDK that will let you connect virtually anything to your mobile phone. Motorola is calling it the “Moto Mods” system, and it looks like its going to be a dedicated microcontroller that interfaces with the computer inside the phone and provides everything from GPIOs to DSI (video). Naturally, I2C, I2S, SPI, UART, even two flavors of USB are in the mix.
dev-config-diagram-5
The official SDK, ahem Mods Development Kit (MDK), is based on the open Greybus protocol stack (part of Google’s Project Ara open phone project) and it’s running on an ARM Cortex-M4F chip. It’s likely to be itself fairly hackable, and even if the suggested US $125 price is probably worth it for the convenience, we suspect that it’ll be replicable with just a few dollars in parts and the right firmware. (Yes, that’s a challenge.)
Moto Mods System Architecture
http://developer.motorola.com/explore/system-architecture
An Introduction to Greybus
https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2015/talks/an-introduction-to-greybus/
Greybus is the name for a new application layer protocol on top of Unipro that controls the Ara Phone from Google. This protocol turns a phone into a modular device, allowing any part of the system to be hotplugged while the phone is running.
This talk will describe what this protocol is, why it was designed, and give the basics for how it works. It will discuss how this is implemented in the Linux kernel, and how it easily bridges existing hardware like USB, I2C, GPIO and others with little to no changes needed to existing kernel drivers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sprinkling of neural dust opens door to electroceuticals
http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/08/03/sprinkling-of-neural-dust-opens-door-to-electroceuticals/
UC Berkeley engineers have built the first dust-sized, wireless sensors that can be implanted in the body, bringing closer the day when a Fitbit-like device could monitor internal nerves, muscles or organs in real time.
Because these batteryless sensors could also be used to stimulate nerves and muscles, the technology also opens the door to “electroceuticals” to treat disorders such as epilepsy or to stimulate the immune system or tamp down inflammation.
The so-called neural dust, which the team implanted in the muscles and peripheral nerves of rats, is unique in that ultrasound is used both to power and read out the measurements. Ultrasound technology is already well-developed for hospital use, and ultrasound vibrations can penetrate nearly anywhere in the body, unlike radio waves, the researchers say.
“I think the long-term prospects for neural dust are not only within nerves and the brain, but much broader,“ said Michel Maharbiz, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and one of the study’s two main authors. “Having access to in-body telemetry has never been possible because there has been no way to put something supertiny superdeep. But now I can take a speck of nothing and park it next to a nerve or organ, your GI tract or a muscle, and read out the data.“
Motes sprinkled thoughout the body
In their experiment, the UC Berkeley team powered up the passive sensors every 100 microseconds with six 540-nanosecond ultrasound pulses, which gave them a continual, real-time readout. They coated the first-generation motes – 3 millimeters long, 1 millimeter high and 4/5 millimeter thick – with surgical-grade epoxy, but they are currently building motes from biocompatible thin films which would potentially last in the body without degradation for a decade or more.
Maharbiz and Carmena conceived of the idea of neural dust about five years ago, but attempts to power an implantable device and read out the data using radio waves were disappointing. Radio attenuates very quickly with distance in tissue
Marharbiz hit on the idea of ultrasound, and in 2013 published a paper
“Ultrasound is much more efficient when you are targeting devices that are on the millimeter scale or smaller and that are embedded deep in the body,” Seo said. “You can get a lot of power into it and a lot more efficient transfer of energy and communication when using ultrasound as opposed to electromagnetic waves, which has been the go-to method for wirelessly transmitting power to miniature implants”
New “Neural Dust” sensor could be implanted in the body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO0zy30n_jQ&feature=youtu.be
University of California, Berkeley engineers have built the first dust-sized, wireless sensors that can be implanted in the body, bringing closer the day when a Fitbit-like device could monitor internal nerves, muscles or organs in real time.
The so-called neural dust, which the team implanted in the muscles and peripheral nerves of rats, is unique in that ultrasound is used both to power and read out the measurements. Ultrasound technology is already well-developed for hospital use, and ultrasound vibrations can penetrate nearly anywhere in the body, unlike radio waves, the researchers say.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solar-powered Weather Station Has the Complete Suite of Sensors
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/17/solar-powered-weather-station-has-the-complete-suite-of-sensors/
There was a time when getting weather conditions was only as timely or as local as the six o’clock news from the nearest big-city TV station. Monitoring the weather now is much more granular thanks to the proliferation of personal weather stations. For the ultimate in personalized weather, though, you might want to build your own solar powered weather station.
It looks like [Brian Masney] went all out in designing his weather station. It supports a full stack of sensors – wind speed and direction, rain, temperature, pressure, and dew point. About the only other parameters not supported (yet) are solar radiation, UV, and soil moisture and temperature. The design looks friendly enough that adding those sensors should be a snap – if fact, the 3D models in his GitHub repo suggest that he’s already working on soil sensors.
All in all it’s a comprehensive build; you can check out the conditions at [Brian]’s place on Weather Underground.
A lightweight, self contained, solar-powered weather station for the Raspberry Pi.
https://github.com/masneyb/weather-station
Tomi Engdahl says:
LIFX expands smart home lighting possibilities with “if this then that” deal
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2016/08/lifx-expands-smart-home-lighting-possibilities-with-if-this-then-that-deal.html?cmpid=EnlLEDsAugust172016&eid=289644432&bid=1500549
Lights can now easily flash Twitter alerts, sports scores, weather changes, and more via IFTTT.
LED bulb pioneer LIFX continues to widen the possibilities for residential smart lighting enthusiasts, as it now allows LIFX app users to program their lights to respond to an abundance of physical world and cyber events such as rain, snow, sports scores, or Twitter alerts by using the popular IFTTT — “if this then that” — tool from service company IFTTT.
Redwood City, CA-based LIFX said it is helping IFTTT develop the latest “beta” version of IFTTT. As a development partner, LIFX is adding support for IFTTT to the LIFX app. Until now, if LIFX users wanted to use IFTTT commands, they had to go to the IFTTT website.
“We’ve worked closely with IFTTT to bring their experience seamlessly to the LIFX app,” LIFX said. “With just a few well-placed swipes and taps on your smart device, you can set your lights to blink when you’re mentioned on Twitter, dim when you leave the house, or change color when it rains.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Things We Would Like to Ignore About Smart Lighting
http://www.strategies-u.com/articles/2016/08/things-we-would-like-to-ignore-about-smart-lighting.html
‘Smart Lighting’ is all the buzz right now and most of my past blogs have all revolved around this topic. One of the reasons for that is that there is always something new in this emerging market. In this article, I would like to talk about some uncomfortable situations that could be associated with or caused by smart lighting. We always talk about the benefits of Smart Lighting but this new business has been fairly disruptive to the traditional world of lighting.
There are so many benefits being attached to Smart Lighting these days. One of the biggest claims has been that it will further amplify your energy savings if you couple them with LED lighting.
Another disruption Smart Lighting may cause could be in the field of evaluation, measurement and verification (EMV)
With the integration of Smart Lighting with the overall building all the lighting system, HVAC unit and other building equipment could be monitored directly and evaluated. Also, instead of a one-time evaluation of the newly installed system the continuous flow of data can make real-time system changes possible to ensure that the building/facility is being run in the most effective and efficient way. Integration of smart lighting with the overall building is still a few years away because there are still interoperable issues that the industry has to deal with
Another side-effect of Smart Lighting has been that some traditional lighting companies do not have the in house talent or resources to compete in the fast evolving world of Smart Lighting. Some companies do not think that connected lighting or smart lighting will be something that will catch on. So these companies might get a rude awakening in a couple of years when they have to play catch-up with other competitors who have already built a strong business in Smart Lighting.
Smart Lighting is here to stay and it is something that cannot be ignored.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Watson for the Masses
CognizeR offers millions AI
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330313&
The Columbus-Collaboratory has integrated IBM’s Watson into the R programming language with its CognizeR.
The open-source R programming language, used by millions of engineers, scientists, statisticians and researchers worldwide, now has direct access to Watson on IBM’s Bluemix cloud. Called CognizerR, the new capability is offered, courtesy Columbus Collaboratory—an ecosystem of companies focused on compiling a common repository of open-source code for advanced analytics and cyber security. Download CognizeR for free.
As the premier artificial intelligence (AI) solution from IBM, Watson has in the past required the manual coding of calls to its application programmer interface (API) for every app being developed to use Watson. CognizeR simplifies access to Watson’s “Cognitive AI” capabilities by inserting a bullet-proof family of built-in calls to the increasingly popular R language.
“What is important here is that as more and more people start using standard statistical packages like R, Watson’s API services become a viable option for modeling and deep learning using the cloud services available on IBM’s BlueMix,”
Eventually the whole repertoire of Watson’s AI capabilities will likely be added to CognizeR, but the first release includes just its Language Translation, Personality Insights, Tone Analyzer, Speech to Text, Text to Speech and Visual Recognition algorithms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Programmable Analog Coprocessor Takes Many Sensor Inputs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330320&
Cypress Semiconductor’s latest PSoC programmable system-on-chip, the PSoC Analog Coprocessor, simplifies the design of next-generation industrial, home appliance and consumer systems that require multiple sensors.
Many IoT applications require multiple sensors and can benefit from dedicated coprocessors that offload sensor processing from the host and reduce overall system power consumption. The new chip integrates programmable analog blocks, including a new Universal Analog Block (UAB), which can be configured with GUI-based software components. This combination simplifies the design of custom analog front ends for sensor interfaces by allowing engineers to update sensor features quickly with no hardware or host processor software changes, while also reducing BOM costs.
Based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+, the PSoC Analog Coprocessor comes in a 3.7×2.0mm chip-scale package option.
The PSoC Analog Coprocessor is currently sampling with production expected in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Releases The Tiny Joule Compute Module
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/17/intel-releases-the-tiny-joule-compute-module/
At the keynote for the Intel Developers Forum, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich introduced the Intel Joule compute module, a ‘maker board’ targeted at Internet of Things developers. The high-end board in the lineup features a quad-core Intel Atom running at 2.4 GHz, 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 16GB of eMMC, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, USB 3.1, CSI and DSI interfaces, and multiple GPIO, I2C, and UART interfaces. According to the keynote, the Joule module will be useful for drones, robotics, and with support for Intel’s RealSense technology, it may find a use in VR and AR applications. The relevant specs can be found on the Intel News Fact Sheet (PDF).
This is not Intel’s first offering to the Internet of Things. A few years ago, Intel partnered up with Arduino (the Massimo one) to produce the Intel Galileo. This board featured the Intel Quark SoC, a 400MHz, 32-bit Intel Pentium ISA processor. It was x86 in an Arduino format. This was quickly followed by the Intel Edison based on the same Quark SoC, which was followed by the Intel Curie, found in the Arduino 101 and this year’s DEF CON badge.
We’ve seen plenty of Intel’s ‘maker’ and Internet of Things offerings, but we haven’t seen these platforms succeed.
Make Amazing Things Happen in IoT and Entrepreneurship with Intel Joule
https://newsroom.intel.com/chip-shots/make-amazing-things-happen-iot-entrepreneurship-intel-joule/
Intel® Joule™ Platform
Big Compute in a Small Package to Drive IoT Innovation
https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2016/08/intel-joule-fact-sheet.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart electricity meter revenue to reach $7 billion globally in 2021
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/smart-electricity-meter-revenue-to-reach-7-billion-globally-in-2021/f8c0680ba0e3baf44711300582335912.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
As smart metering technology continues to gain a wider understanding, alongside the ever-increasing value of data, the market for communicating meters will continue to grow, albeit at a more moderate pace than the breakneck speed of recent years.
As the global market continues to move toward more advanced technologies, electricity meter manufacturers shipped more than 100 million smart meters globally in 2015, generating more than $4 billion in hardware revenue. The market is estimated to have grown by 4% over 2014 and is forecast to reach almost $7 billion annually by 2021, according to IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics, and solutions.
“A number of factors came together to create such a strong smart meter market in 2015,” said David Green, research manager at IHS Markit. “At the top of the list, China continues to roll out massive numbers of smart meters, as part of the government’s 10-year plan.”
In fact, China was again the largest single global market for electricity meters in 2015, accounting for almost half of all basic and smart meters shipped globally.
“The long-awaited European rollouts are gaining steam, with multiple countries installing millions of meters in 2015, and many more ramping up to that level in an attempt to meet their deadlines,” Green said. “Meanwhile, the North American market also came out of a stagnant phase, further bolstering the overall global market in 2015.”
A bright, growing future for smart meters
As smart metering technology continues to gain a wider understanding, alongside the ever-increasing value of data, the market for communicating meters will continue to grow, albeit at a more moderate pace than the breakneck speed of recent years.
“Looking to the future, the networking infrastructure side of the smart metering picture is becoming increasingly competitive, especially as the pool of companies involved in the projects increases,”
” merger and acquisition activity is definitely in play for the short term, as utility companies around the world get more comfortable discussing smart-grid applications, security, and services with a wider array of potential suppliers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The $5 Onion Omega2 Gives Raspberry Pi a Run For Its Money
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/08/18/2027250/the-5-onion-omega2-gives-raspberry-pi-a-run-for-its-money
Onion’s Omega2 computer may give the Raspberry Pi a run for its money if the success of the Kickstarter campaign is any indication. The Daily Dot reports: “With an initial goal of just $15,000, over 11,560 backers have pledged the company $446,792 in hopes of getting their hands on this little wonder board. So why are thousands of people losing their minds? Simple; the Omega2 packs a ton of power into a $5 package. Billed as the world’s smallest Linux server, complete with built-in Wi-Fi, the Omega2 is perfect for building simple computers or the web connected project of your dreams
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onion/omega2-5-iot-computer-with-wi-fi-powered-by-linux
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:
Amazon’s Echo stands out as antithetical to the typical cheap consumer electronics approach in IoT, from buggy Nest products to insecure lightbulbs
The Internet of Poorly Working Things
https://mondaynote.com/the-internet-of-poorly-working-things-cda7a147af#.5aybr2z5i
In the mythical Land of Theory, where everything ‘just works’, we can connect all the objects in our lives. We have the sensors, the wireless networks, and the computing power, but progress is slow if not comically wrong. Why?
Cerf’s pithy IP On Everything prophecy was simple, resonant, and inexorable: All objects in our lives will someday feature an IP Stack.
Two decades later, where are we? Moore’s Law has given us a 2¹⁰ to 2¹³ improvement in chip performance. — that’s 1,000 to 8,000 times more computing power. Personal computers and smartphones are everywhere, well adopted, put to productive and enjoyable uses.
With a three-orders-of-magnitude power increase and oceans of wireless data packets, surely we can endow our everyday objects with all sorts of sensory and connectivity magic.
So how is it that we don’t have connected objects that Just Work?
Of course, not all connected devices are so easily mocked; some devices are dead serious: home security, HVAC, almost any kitchen appliance — even our very smart toaster. And it’s not that the IoT doesn’t work. The situation is actually worse than that: The IoT randomly works. Devices stop and restart, they require visit to unsupportive customer support pages and helpless Your Call Is Important To US help lines (and now we have chatbots). If you think I exaggerate, google “Nest trouble” or “smart bulbs trouble”.
With a tight budget and limited software know-how, the Consumer Electronics product development team is issued orders from on high: Get on the IoT train…now! They buy the cheapest possible processor, grab some software from the open source shelves, throw on a skimpy UI, hastily assemble and test, ship it.
The meager budget doesn’t leave much room for user instructions and customer support, and sometimes leads to dubious design solutions.
After a device has made it to the market, the real fun begins. Software updates are a problem when your connected lock or your connected car is in the middle of an update and you need to get in the house or drive to the emergency room.
There’s another reason for disappointing adoption: Complexity. It’s one thing to power cycle your router when your internet connection slows to a halt. How do you debug a network of ten, twenty, more connected objects in your house, from light bulbs to locks and sprinklers, that run on a mixture of WiFi and something else such as ZigBee for LED lights that require a special bridge?
Even tech experts are frustrated by the complexity. ‘In one out of 10 cases, I get in my car and my smartphone just won’t connect to the stereo system,’
Then there’s the truly ugly side of Consumer IoT: security, or the lack of it. The lackadaisical, to be polite, approach to software leaves many connections open to hackers who can see passwords exchanged in clear text on home WiFi while they sit in a car parked outside the house. Or we see that 100M Volkswagen cars are open to wireless hacking. Using the One Cockroach Theory, how many more other makes of cars will be found to be insecure?
On the bright side, we do have an Internet of Things that works: The industrial version. Modern buildings are equipped with sensors, connected HVAC, security and power management. But there’s no scrounging on the cost of devices, they must work and last, and the building owner has a technical team to install, maintain, and run the whole system.
This is the lesson that Consumer Electronics makers must learn: A successful IoT can’t be built on the cheap.
Amazon spared no expense in developing and supporting the Echo, and the investment has been repaid by excellent Word-of-Mouth. This is the antithesis of the cheap CE approach: A well-funded company with proven technical expertise in Cloud services, a successful history with Kindle devices, and, above all, a determined group playing the long game with Jeff Bezos at the helm.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multi Sensor Security Camera Has You Covered
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/21/multi-sensor-security-camera-has-you-covered/
Security in the home — especially a new home — is a primary concern for many. There are many options for security systems on the market, but for those will the skills, taking matters into your own hands can add peace of mind when protected by a system of one’s own design. [Armagan C.] has created their near-ideal multi-sensor security module to keep a watchful eye out for would-be burglars.
Upgrading from their previous Arduino + Ethernet camera — which loved to trigger false alarms — [Armagan] opted for a used Raspberry Pi model B+ camera module and WiFi connection this time around. They also upgraded the unit with a thermal sensor, LPG & CO2 gas sensor, and a motion tracking alarm.
Home security system v2
https://hackaday.io/project/13054-home-security-system-v2
Raspberry pi powered home security station which measures temperature, light level, lpg & co2 gas and detects human movement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A few weeks ago, the RTL8710 WiFi module showed up on the usual online marketplaces. Initially, we thought it was a competitor to the ever-popular ESP8266, offering a small microcontroller, WiFi, and a bunch of useful output pins. A module based on the RTL8710, the RTL-00, is much more than a competitor. It’s pinout compatible with the ESP8266. This module can be swapped into a project in place of the ESP-12, probably the most popular version of the ESP8266. This is genius, and opens the door to a lot of experimentation with the RTL8710.
Source: http://hackaday.com/2016/08/21/hackaday-links-august-21-2016/
New Chip Alert: RTL8710, A Cheaper ESP8266 Competitor
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/28/new-chip-alert-rtl8710-a-cheaper-esp8266-competitor/
First RTL-00 module tests
https://www.rtl8710forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10&p=23#p23
I’ve found some time to confirm my suspicion of the B&T RTL-00 RTL8710 module being pin compatible with the ESP12E module. I have desoldered the ESP12E from it’s board and soldered on the RTL-00 module on it
As you can see it’s a perfect fit.
According to the datasheet it should support an AT+ command set.
It seems these modules run on 38400 by default and currently run ROM Version 0.3 built by gcc version 4.8.3 (Realtek ASDK-4.8.3p1 Build 2003)
Ok so this thing is running an operating system of some kind and presents us with a command line, great
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Interscatter’ Tech Lets Implants Talk Wi-Fi
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330326&
University of Washington researchers have developed what they call “interscatter communication” technology that backscatters (or reflects) existing signals like Bluetooth in the air, transforming wireless transmissions from one technology to another.
Specifically, the team of UW electrical engineers and computer scientists has demonstrated for the first time that Bluetooth transmissions can be used to create Wi-Fi and ZigBee-compatible signals.
As a result, the new technology can now give power-constrained devices like medical implants the ability to “talk” to other devices using standard Wi-Fi communication.
Instead of generating their own radio signals, those “interscatter” devices can “recycle” radio signals transmitted by nearby devices like smart watches.
“We allow a device like a smartwatch or smartphone to do the power expensive generation of radio signals, and then our low-power contact lens, implant or credit card reflects this signal in a way that encodes its own data,” he explained.
The transmitter of such interscatter devices isn’t a normal radio. It’s just a switch connected to an antenna, Iyer added.
“Turning on and off this switch allows us to change how the antenna reflects energy. Just by turning on and off this switch at the right rate, our interscatter device is reflecting a Bluetooth signal created by something like a smartwatch to make it look like a Wi-Fi packet that can be received on your phone.”
In one example, the team demonstrated a smartwatch transmitting a Bluetooth signal to a smart contact lens outfitted with an antenna.
UW team developed a way to transform the Bluetooth transmission into a “single tone” signal that can be further manipulated and transformed.
By backscattering that tone signal, the contact lens can encode data — such as health information it may be collecting — into a standard Wi-Fi packet readable by a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solar Powered Garden Irrigation System
Minimal effort Solar powered wireless controlled automatic watering
https://hackaday.io/project/10785-solar-powered-garden-irrigation-system
The. aim of this Project is to design and build a Garden Irrigation Syatem incorporating PCBs using low powered SMD components to control the Zone Solenoids thus permitting wireless control of watering periods with limited water pressure from an external Pump Unit fed from a Waterbutt. The Project, initially submitted at the Concept Stage, now covers multiple Raised Beds.
Let’s be clear from the beginning. This will not be a particularly innovative Project and it won’t result in a ‘cheap and cheerful’ watering aid. You can’t produce a waterproof reliable Product without some relatively expensive parts. This Project is about (hopefully) demonstrating that it’s never too late to learn new skills and apply them to a practical requirement that will help people whose physical health precludes using simpler, albeit less costly, solutions.
Open-source, lower cost and expandability are key features that will diffentiate this Unit from most commerciall
Decisions are now close and currently I’m conducting tests using MQTT with a RaspberyPi as a ‘Broker’ and the target ESP8266 Solenoid Controllers as Clients/Servers. Once I have concluded these tests I shall look at redesigning the original PCB to conform t a modified form factor to fit my selected housing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IHS: Smart home growth hindered by lack of awareness, fragmentation
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/news/12242506/ihs-smart-home-growth-hindered-by-lack-of-awareness-fragmentation
While the advent of smart home solutions has created new revenue streams for residential security companies and subsequently increased the value that an alarm system provides to consumers, the technology still faces several challenges that could hinder its growth moving forward.
In fact, according to Tim Hewitt, analyst for security and building technologies at IHS Markit, while the initial uptake of smart home systems by early adopters was in line with expectations, existing market barriers have become more significant as companies have tried to expand their offerings to the broader market. As a result, Hewitt said the market research firm has revised its forecasts to account for the lack of broader consumer interest in connected home products.
The connected remote monitoring market in the Americas is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9 percent, from 5.5 million subscribers in 2015 to 11.5 million 2020, according to IHS Markit’s latest “Remote Monitoring Services Report.” While the growth in this segment is strong, Hewitt said the traditional side of remote monitoring is experiencing a decline as consumers migrate toward connected products. For many service providers, the growth in connected systems is not providing substantial top-line subscriber growth but it does help counter the decline in their traditional security business.
Despite these challenges, research has revealed that there is still a lot of consumer desire and enthusiasm for smart home devices and systems. Surveys show that half of consumers in North America plan to purchase smart home devices within the next year, but Hewitt said these types of findings can also lead to overambitious projections for consumer adoption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Discussion of the IoT must stratify
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442573/Discussion-of-the-IoT-must-stratify?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160822&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160822&elqTrackId=b42a1dd956774c9d90e433a60d947c9b&elq=1fc7369c90494e2497165a33ea9a8a34&elqaid=33536&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29318
Love it or hate it, the term “Internet of Things (IoT)” has taken hold. But the technology trend behind the term has grown beyond the point that a single term can encompass everything. It’s time for discussions of this technology trend to find new terminology and stratify into more meaningful regimes.
Part of the problem with the term IoT is the lack of a clear definition. Ask a variety of people in the industry what constitutes an IoT device and you’ll get at least as many answers as the number of people you ask. Most would agree, however, that an IoT device has some key characteristics. These include:
Connectivity (usually, but not always, wireless) that ultimately reaches to public or private cloud services
The ability to send and/or receive data and/or commands through its connection
A high degree of autonomy in its routine operation, i.e., little or no human interaction is needed beyond setup and configuration
Other characteristics that are frequently, but not always, mentioned include battery powered operation, sensors, WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile apps, and analytics. However, these are not universally seen as necessary for something to be part of the IoT.
This fuzzy definition highlights a second part of the problem with the term IoT. There are virtually endless applications in which a device possessing the three key characteristics might be useful. From a single doorbell to an entire city infrastructure, IoT devices have a potential home. That’s a lot of territory to encompass with a single term.
Take the introduction of the Intel Joule at the Intel Developer Forum earlier this week. This dev kit features a 64-bit quad core processor running at 1.7 GHz with 4G of RAM and 16G of program memory. The kit also provides support for cameras that provide 3D capability. And it has both Bluetooth and WiFi.
Calling this a “platform for driving IoT innovation,” as Intel does, can seem like a bit of a stretch, though. So far, at least, IoT platforms and products that have hit the market use far fewer resources.
And much of the discussion about IoT platform needs has centered on further lowering of power and software footprints, not increased performance. In this “smaller is better” environment, a powerhouse like the Joule seems wildly out of place.
Still, it is a stretch to lump an autonomous, vision-guided robotic system with a collar that reports your pet’s activity and whereabouts all together under the single term Internet of Things
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT technologies used to make power plants more efficient
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/iot-technologies-used-to-make-power-plants-more-efficient/c9373673ada619daec5f9e110a495e53.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Companies such as GE are launching digital power plant systems in gas and coal plants to make operations cleaner and more efficient by using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.
Ideologically, many people working within the tech sector are looking for the energy industry to pivot for good, move away from fossil fuels, and instead focus on greener, renewable alternatives. The realists will also admit the need in the short term to simply make the process as clean and efficient as possible, especially in developing countries where such projects are only just getting underway.
GE and the IoT
In the last year, digital industry solutions specialist GE has launched digital power plant systems for gas and coal plants. In new plants, GE’s technologies have increased the average conversion efficiency from 33 to 49%.
For the longer-standing coal plants, efficiency improvements are substantially less, although emissions of greenhouse gases can be reduced by 3%. These efficiency gains come about through a clever blend of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and active monitoring. Optimizing fuel combustion, tuning the plant to adjust to the properties of the coal being burned, adjusting the oxygen levels in the boiler, and reducing downtime due to equipment failures all have an impact.
“Access to precise, real-time information on the amount of gas flared at different sites can be compared to more effectively manage the flaring process—site to site, country to country, or process to process—enabling continuous improvement based on best practice from top performing (low emission) sites,”
“Information can be presented on a dashboard for real-time analysis, enabling a business to reduce workforce costs, increase employee safety, reduce carbon tax obligations and provide significant environmental benefits by reducing emissions and fossil fuel waste,”
Connected power plants can help to integrate renewables in the long term. This is made possible because smarter plants are more flexible and better able to respond to fluctuations in the power supplied by intermittent sources like wind and solar. In short, more connectivity means more efficiency
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tampere WIREPAS leaves of Swiss cooperation with GPS-modules manufacturing company Ublox. The aim is to simplify the module manufacturer with the introduction of large-scale, distributed communication networks, the Internet industrial IoT applications. Tampere is known for WIREPAS MESH-type wireless network protocol, which was originally developed in Tampere University of Technology. Collaboration will focus initially on the case ubloxin module Nina-B1, which is a Bluetooth Low Energy 4.2 compatible, low-power ARM Cortex-M4-based solution.
Finnish BiiSafe soon to be launched new generation of smart button was associated with a Wi-Fi connection, via the Zigbee access point or a Bluetooth 4.2 interface. Novelty can be integrated piece of jewelery and it can act as panic button, the locator or indicator of well-being. The company’s product is also integrated in the Kalevala Koru smart jevelery.
Sources:
http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/08/23/suomalaisyritys-iot-verkkomoduuleihin/
http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/08/19/alynapista-tulossa-uusi-versio/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-14/
Market Research
Remember “50 billion connected devices by 2020”? That famous prediction, made by Ericsson and Cisco Systems executives, has lived on in thousands of PowerPoint presentations, maybe millions and billions. Gartner estimates there are 6.4 billion connected devices at present, not including PCs, smartphones, and tablet computers, while IDC puts the tally at 9 billion and IHS says 17.6 billion, including PCs, smartphones, and tablets. By 2020, Gartner forecasts there will be 20.8 billion IoT devices, IDC sees 28.1 billion, and IHS Markit predicts 30.7 billion.
The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) published a new document that tackles defining the Internet of Things, while making reference to the Network of Things. The author, Jeffrey Voas, notes that some IoT networks are connected to a local-area network and not to the Internet. The four fundamentals for the Network of Things – computation, communication, actuation, and sensing – are similar to the concept of distributed computing, according to Voas.
NIST is first to ask: ‘What is Internet of Things anyway?’
http://federalnewsradio.com/federal-drive/2016/08/nist-first-ask-internet-things-anyway/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT: The New Convergence and the Challenges It Brings
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=reg20.jsp&partnerref=ws&eventid=1240266&sessionid=1&key=E11085AE1D5FEF5A2961ACB625C97F8B®Tag=&sourcepage=register
The next wave of convergence – the Internet of Things (IoT) – is set to capitalize on the Internet. Billions of previously disparate, unconnected devices are moving to our networks and communicating directly without any human interaction or intervention. By 2020, Gartner estimates that at least 20.8 billion IP-enabled devices will be connected to networks. To support and manage the signal transmission required to make IoT a reality, a common communications infrastructure is necessary.
organizations of all types are using IoT to take a new approach to sharing information, communicating, delivering high-quality AV, ensuring life safety and improving building management.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Single-Chip Security for IoT Devices Connected to Amazon Cloud
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330324&
Amazon has teamed with Microchip to create a seamless solution in the form of the ECC508A crypto-companion chip.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to change the world, but only if it’s secure. Securing the IoT is currently one of the greatest challenges for the creators of IoT devices and the providers of cloud services.
Amazon is one of the major cloud players with its Amazon Web Services (AWS). The folks at Amazon have stepped up to the plate by adopting a mutual authentication security model that requires a unique identifier (digital certificate) for every device that connects into the cloud. This includes an industry-first called the Just in Time Registration (JITR) certificate registration process.
Single-chip end-to-end security for IoT devices connected to the Amazon cloud
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/max-unleashed-and-unfettered/4442574/Single-chip-end-to-end-security-for-IoT-devices-connected-to-Amazon-cloud
Tomi Engdahl says:
WIREPAS display model IoT area
Tampere WIREPAS focuses on the Internet of Things, such as in Finland and dozens of other thousands of companies abroad. WIREPAS model entering the market is the alliance with the partners and it seems to be bearing fruit.
WIREPAS developed IoT protocol allows for unlimited scalable, efficient and secure way to connect devices to each other.
The latest partnership with the Swiss module manufacturer u-Bloxin is a good example. Planting protocol u-Bloxin that use Bluetooth Nina-B1-module took the time to just two weeks.
Heme praises u-Bloxia ideal partner. – U-Blox is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of radio modules, with a global sales network.
WIREPAS and u-Bloxin project to rely on Bluetooth, but a lot of other radio technologies are available IoT area. WIREPAS follow them closely.
- IoT networks are a relatively new and rapidly developing area where new technologies are constantly being developed.
According to him, WIREPAS stands out from many other business model. – In general, the area of IoT products will be billed on a monthly and annual basis. Our model, which is based on licensing and the one-time compensation, is exceptional in the market.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4894:wirepas-nayttaa-mallia-iot-alueelle&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Streamline Your Network With A Syslog-enabled RTU
http://www.dpstele.com/network-monitoring/syslog-protocol-alarms.php?article_id=61260&m_row_id=1999640&mailing_id=10781&link=D&uni=2055057bb9e5158060
Syslog is a standard protocol for logging event messages. A wide range of devices support Syslog Protocol, and it can be used to log different types of events. This flexibility makes it a popular choice in many networks.
Unfortunately, it can be a challenge to find a quality Remote Telemetry Unit (RTU) that also report Syslog messages to your Syslog server. Most RTUs use telecom/SCADA protocols like SNMP or DNP and don’t support Syslog.
Remember, you can’t ignore core monitoring capacity when looking for a Syslog RTU.
Tomi Engdahl says:
High-voltage converter targets smart homes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4442466/High-voltage-converter-targets-smart-homes
VIPer01 from ST Microelectronics is an offline AC/DC converter that integrates an 800-V avalanche-rugged MOSFET with PWM current-mode control. The part enables designers to build a low-power switch-mode power supply with a 5-V output for use in home appliances, building and home control, lighting, and motion control, as well as small industrial and consumer applications. It also provides the auxiliary supply to microcontrollers in IoT devices that are permanently connected to the internet or local network.
With its low power consumption and automatic PFM operation under light load, the VIPer01 meets stringent energy-saving standards, including U.S. Energy Star and the European EuP Lot 6 Tier 2 of the EC Ecodesign Directive. System input power consumption is less than 10 mW at 230 VAC in no-load condition and less than 400 mW at 230 VAC with a 250-mW load.
VIPerPlus family: Low voltage energy saving fixed frequency high voltage converter
http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/power-management/ac-dc-converters/high-voltage-converters/viperplus/viper01.html?icmp=tt3928_gl_pron_jul2016
Wide supply voltage range: 4.5 V to 30 V
Self-supply option allows the auxiliary winding or bias components to be removed
Minimized system input power consumption:
Less than 10 mW @ 230 VAC in no-load condition
Less than 400 mW @ 230 VAC with 250 mW load
Jittered switching frequency reduces the EMI filter cost:
30 kHz ± 7% (type X)
60 kHz ± 7% (type L)
120 kHz ± 7% (type H)
Tomi Engdahl says:
This tech will kill almost 70,000 jobs in India – The Times of India on Mobile
http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/jobs/IoT-will-impact-120000-jobs-in-India-by-2021-Report/articleshow/53767285.cms
Even as Indian IT firms corner a large chunk of the market that arises from services related to the internet-of-things, the country will lose about 69,000 jobs until 2021 due to the adoption of the technology, a report by consulting firm Zinnov said. This number is over and above the hundreds of thousands of jobs that experts say will be lost due to automation in IT and will predominantly impact unskilled and blue-collar workers.
“Internet-of-things technology will impact 120,000 jobs in the country by 2021. 94,000 jobs will be eliminated, and 25,000 jobs will be created in the five-year period,” Hardik Tiwari, engagement lead at Zinnov, told ET.
People working in areas such as office administration, support staff and those in maintenance will see their roles being taken over by technology. The new jobs created will be IoT product managers, robot co-ordinators, industrial programmers and network engineers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor Horizon Gets Wider
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1330347&
Semiconductors are pivoting again, and the space is exploding.
As someone who’s been involved with semiconductor flows from front to back over the years, I’m observing a profound shift. Many tremendous opportunities in semiconductors – nascent just a short while ago – are suddenly coming into focus.
When I started in the industry over 35 years ago, we were building chips for mainframes. Today, semiconductors and the applications they enable are moving into every industry verticals that were unimaginable just a short while ago.
Today we are finding that the sky is no longer the limit. Here are a few of my views on the current horizon.
Semiconductors heading into new industry verticals will require a different approach than in the past, demanding some level of understanding to meet each vertical’s needs. In each, optimization of critical factors such as performance, functionality, reliability and cost for specific industries will be essential.
With each industry, we will be picking the best technologies to fit the needs – this includes re-using older process nodes or increasingly more powerful reconfigurable interconnects.
On the production side, the need for low-cost, low-power, low-level processing at the edge will send us back to using older process nodes. The cool upshot of the Internet of Things, for instance, is that we can dust off old fabrication designs that are good enough for edge-of-network sensors. IoT can go crazy on something we developed 10 years ago.
Lifecycle also plays a part. For example, those designing in spaces such as automotive must learn how to embrace innovation within longer overall hardware lifecycles.
Security is likely to get baked in at every level. The need for security is rising as applications move into a real world where cars crash and industrial control technologies get hacked with people’s lives at stake.
Every vertical has different requirements and we’re going to need specialists in each one
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oulu-based design house Haltian to expand the scope of Thingsee IoT to the base unit with small sensors. They take advantage of the Tampere-based WIREPAS Connectivity network protocol. The system consists of things router and small POD, TAG sensors.
Among the smaller POD sensor (pictured) is a golf ball Haltian low-power sensor device that the operating time can be up to several years. Larger TAG is also a coin-sized. The sensors can also be customized version. First prototypes are already available business development.
Things router and send this collected by sensors in the customer’s systems using a mobile connection. Things platform is now available on the Tampere-based WIREPAS network protocol.
“We believe that the IoT platform will revolutionize the company’s suppliers and transport monitoring, as well as the price that the information collected earnings”
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/08/25/pienet-iot-anturit-esineiden-internetiins/
More: http://www.haltian.com/Internet-Of-Things
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Hypervisors Protect Us?
http://semiengineering.com/can-hypervisors-protect-us/
They may not be a silver bullet, but they are a good first step when it comes to securing cars and the Internet of Things. Problems start when people believe the job is complete.
Another day, another car hacked and another report of a data breach. The lack of security built into electronic systems has made them a playground for the criminal world, and the industry must start becoming more responsive by adding increasingly sophisticated layers of protection. In this, the first of a two-part series, Semiconductor Engineering examines how hypervisors are entering the embedded world.
“In the past, if I wanted to have separate tasks running, I would probably design it so that I would have one on the left, one on the right, each running on different processor subsystems and the two would never touch. I would pipeline data from one to the other. They were inherently separated except for the information that they shared. The move to modern hardware, where you have multi-core processors or a farm of machines, means that everything is connected. And yet, you still want to be sure that they do not touch each other – that the jobs don’t infringe upon each other.”
It is the role of the hypervisor to achieve exactly that separation. Its main function is to create and manage virtual machines where the software believes it is running on its own dedicated machine. It is completely unaware of other software that may be running in another virtual machine, even though both are running on the same hardware.
Virtualization has become a staple in the data center and provides many advantages, such as CPU consolidation, fault tolerance and job isolation. But deeply embedded systems are not as regular as server farms and the priorities are different. Embedded systems tend to be heterogeneous and contain different memory architectures. In addition they contain multiple types of processing engines, including CPUs, GPUs and possibly FPGAs.
Hypervisors have seen adoption where the need is the most critical. “The usage of hypervisors is a trend but not a revolution,” says Vicent Brocal, general manager for FentISS. “We have been working with aircraft manufacturers and hypervisors are a key technology for them. The technology has gone through a natural evolution. It is an enabling technology. It provides an opportunity to different sectors in the industry, and most recently in automotive where they are looking to see how it could be applied to their specific needs.”
It is security that is changing the game. “The hypervisor market was primarily for factory automation or automotive markets,”
Control systems are often implemented using a real time operating system (RTOS), but then they want to run graphics rich content on top of Linux or Android. Factory automation was similar, where there is real time control and either Windows or Linux on top of that. In automotive, they want to separate the infotainment from the control systems. The hypervisor can do that.”
But there are other important changes. “Most embedded systems are connected,” points out Majid Bemanian, director of segment marketing for Imagination Technologies. “The majority also have third-party applications running on them as well. With this kind of complexity, most of the players are concerned about how to protect themselves from all sorts of challenges.”
Mixed OSes
A common characteristic of embedded systems that run hypervisors is the combination of a real time function and the need to run a legacy stack of software that is available within a specific operating environment. This has to be done is a safe and productive manner. “Many times, the critical components are real time and have strict timing constraints,” says FentISS’ Brocal. “In the hypervisor, we have a fixed allocation of resources so we can guarantee that the application has the appropriate allocation of CPU processing and other less critical functions that may be running within a Linux environment.”
“If you take a CPU that does not provide a lot of support for the hypervisor, then you will see an overhead around 10% to 15%, but that will drop to less than 1% to 2% with hardware support, depending on workload. In terms of silicon impact, it is noise level. We are talking about a hundred thousand gates in millions of gates.”
Hardware support
None of this can happen without some hardware support. “If hardware support is not provided, the overhead of a hypervisor becomes quite large and in general it just doesn’t make sense,” says Egawa. “Hardware virtualization, trust zone, or several other ideas that are coming up, each accelerate hypervisor performance. We only use 1% of the CPU performance. The target is not only the big CPUs but the IoT market and that requires the usage of microcontrollers. These have very limited memory, so we have to make the hypervisor small and compact.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical IoT Showing Signs Of Life
Market growth is expected to be strong, but development cycle is slow.
http://semiengineering.com/iot-will-impact-health-and-medicine/
Mention the Internet of Things and many people think of fitness trackers on their wrists, or an Internet-connected thermostat at home. IoT technology, however, is also extending into the world of clinics, doctors’ offices, and hospitals.
Research and Markets is calling it the Internet of Healthcare Technology, bringing together IoT applications, services, and technologies. Electronic healthcare records, also known as electronic medical records, will be a key element of the IoHT, with real-time health systems drawing on big-data analytics processes and tools to help in diagnoses and treatments, according to the market research firm, which sees cost savings and improved service emanating from the use of IoT in health care.
Grand View Research forecasts the worldwide health-care IoT market will hit almost $410 billion by 2022. IBM’s Watson artificial-intelligence platform is being used in clinical trial matching, drug discovery, and oncology, the market research firm notes. Radio-frequency identification tags will be implemented for asset tracking and transportation, medication management, and development of “smart beds” and “smart pills,” according to Grand View.
Technavio looks for the global IoT market in healthcare to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of more than 36% through 2020. “IoT-enabled healthcare devices such as wearable and home health monitoring devices are interactive and informative, thus helping patients in their ongoing diagnosis and treatment. These devices transmit vital medical data of patients from home to hospital staffs for real-time monitoring,” Amit Sharma of Technavio said in a statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FPGA Prototyping Gains Ground
http://semiengineering.com/fpga-prototyping-gains-ground/
The popular design methodology enables more sophisticated hardware/software verification before first silicon becomes available.
FPGA technology for design prototypes is making new inroads as demands increase for better integration between hardware and software.
FPGA prototyping, also known as physical prototyping, has been supported by all of the major EDA players for some time, and it has been considered an essential tool for the largest chipmakers, along with emulation and simulation. But its reach is growing, spurred by the Internet of Things (IoT), a variety of new markets, and most importantly the tighter connection that exists between hardware and software in sophisticated chips, which can have a significant impact on power and performance.
Still, FPGA prototyping isn’t always user-friendly. It’s difficult to work with, particularly when it comes to partitioning. And while the technology is fast, it has limits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Internet of Things Drives More Diverse Design Considerations
http://semiengineering.com/how-the-internet-of-things-drives-more-diverse-design-considerations/
For the IoT, designers must look beyond just power, performance and cost.
SA started with outlining the universal IoT drivers, from wearables connected to mobile devices, through smart homes connected to set-top boxes, the connected car including driver assistance and car-to-car connections, all the way to enterprise automation for smarter industrial, healthcare, city, and energy management.
Talking about requirements, SA made development of mobile applications almost sound “easy” as they are driven by power first, speed second and cost third. For IoT, not only the design considerations themselves need to be extended, but they also become more diverse depending on which areas of the IoT are actually targeted.
First, power, performance and cost are joined by security, connectivity and maintainability. So instead of three design considerations, design teams need to balance six considerations. And just to make life more interesting for design teams, the priorities change depending on the end application. SA cited, as examples, fitness tracking, health implants, ADAS/robotics and traffic infrastructure.
Linking back to EDA and design requirements, SA called for validation and verification to extend from single chip methodologies to multiple chips
In closing, SA pointed out that the momentum of IoT applications is definitely confirmed, but emphasized that smartphones are an important enabler as they serve as an IoT gateway. And the diversity of architecture and design considerations, as described above, is definitely much broader compared to smartphones.
For me all of this is great – IoT continues to drive interesting development challenges for EDA to solve.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making fog computing sensors clearly reliable
http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4442602/Making-fog-computing-sensors-clearly-reliable?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160825&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160825&elqTrackId=5f82c9a5d97b4013b4aa08ee4514cd38&elq=10bc8150a4de4c878cd07ccabbc27c00&elqaid=33591&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29365
As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, decentralized, distributed-intelligence concepts such as “fog computing” are taking hold to address the need for lower latencies, improved security, lower power consumption, and higher reliability. Such trends towards a more distributed approach to data processing and storage demands smarter sensors and new wireless sensor network architectures.
While the terminology is new, the basic premise of fog computing is classic decentralization whereby some processing and storage functions are better performed locally instead of sending data all the way from the sensor, to the cloud, and back again to an actuator. This reduces latency and reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent back and forth. Reducing latency improves the user experience for consumer applications, but in industrial applications it can improve response times for critical system functions, saving money, or lives.
This distributed approach improves security by reducing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted from the edge to the cloud, which also reduces power consumption and data network loading to enhance overall quality of service (QoS). Fog computing also strives to enable local resource pooling to make the most of what’s available at a given location, and adds data analytics, one of the fundamental elements of the IoT, to the mix.
The nuances of fog computing, in terms of network architecture and protocols required to fully exploit its potential, are such that groups such as the Open Fog Consortium have formed to define how it should best be done
Members to date include Cisco, Intel, ARM, Dell, Microsoft, Toshiba, RTI, and Princeton University, and it is eager to harmonize with other groups including the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), ETSI-MEC (Mobile Edge Computing), Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), and the OpenNFV. The consortium has already put out a white paper that will guide you through its current thought processes
OpenFog Reference Architecture White Paper
https://www.openfogconsortium.org/white-paper-reference-architecture/
This white paper outlines the OpenFog Consortium’s approach to an open fog computing architecture (OpenFog architecture). It provides an overview of fog computing, four industry scenarios, details on the eight pillars in an OpenFog architecture, and a glossary of important fog computing terms. The eight pillars of an OpenFog architecture described in this paper are: Security; Scalability; Open; Autonomy; Programmability; RAS (Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability); Agility; and Hierarchy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seeed Studio’s ReSpeaker Speaks All the Voice Recognition Languages
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/25/seeed-studios-respeaker-speaks-all-the-voice-recognition-languages/
Seeed Studio recently launched its third Kickstarter campaign: ReSpeaker, an open hardware voice interface. After their previous Kickstarted IoT hardware, such as the RePhone, mostly focused on connectivity, the electronics manufacturer from Shenzhen now tackles another highly contested area of IoT: Voice recognition.
The ReSpeaker Core is a capable development board based on Mediatek’s MT7688 WiFi module and runs OpenWrt. Onboard is a WM8960 stereo audio codec with integrated 1W speaker/headphone driver, a microphone, an ATMega32U4 coprocessor, 12 addressable RGB LEDs and 8 touch sensors. There are also two expansion headers with GPIOs, I2S, I2C, analog audio and USB 2.0 and an onboard microSD card slot.
The latter is especially useful to feed the ReSpeaker’s integrated speech recognition engine PocketSphinx with a vocabulary and audio file library, enabling it to respond to keywords and commands even when it’s not hooked up to the internet. Once it’s online, ReSpeaker also supports most of the available cloud based cognitive speech recognition services, such as Microsoft Cognitive Service, Amazon Alexa Voice Service, Google Speech API, Wit.ai and Houndify. It also comes with an SDK and Python API, supports JavaScript, Lua and C/C++, and it looks like the coprocessor features an Arduino-compatible bootloader.
The expansion header accepts shield-like hardware add-ons. Some of them are also available through the campaign.
Seeed also cooperates with the Meow King Audio Electronic Company to develop a nice tower-shaped enclosure with built-in speaker, 5W amplifier and battery.
ReSpeaker – Add Voice Interaction To Anything You Like
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seeed/respeaker-an-open-modular-voice-interface-to-hack
Open Source, Modular design. Voice Interaction Development Board. IoT controller. Interact with the world, just using your voice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Too much IoT
http://www.analog-eetimes.com/news/too-much-iot-0
Bill Schweber asks if a scramble to add IoT to power tools and battery packs and to create related applications for smartphones is more of a marketing foible and in some cases less than useful.
It looks as though even basic power tools are not immune from the lure of IoT and wireless connectivity as a “feature.” Black & Decker has joined Milwaukee Tool and DeWalt by introducing the Smartech 20-V lithium-based battery , a Bluetooth- enabled power-tool power pack which can be used with some of their cordless tools. Using the iOS and Android-compatible app, their Smartech unit lets you enable or disable the battery (to lock it out), view the percent of the battery’s remaining charge, turn on a “locate” feature to find a missing battery, or activate the battery’s built-in USB port for operating/charging external devices.
I can see where this makes for a contractor who has many tools, or has a pool of tools which are often shared by a crew. But I wonder if it is needed for the average do-it-yourselfer, whose tools are likely close by all the time, and only used personally or perhaps with helper.
Putting wireless connectivity in the battery pack adds cost, complexity, and something else to go wrong to a basic tool. You’re adding more analog and wireless to a basic power product, so now you have issues of EMI/RFI, regulatory approvals, antenna placement, and more.
worst-case bug/feature scenario, the “smarts” locks out the battery so you can’t use it, even if you are OK to do so.
Still, is this IoT-like add-on is just one more symptom of the classic “we can do it, so why not?” syndrome which affects so many products? Sometimes, despite the strong temptation to add more features and functions, keeping the architecture simple and focused on the primary task is the best design approach and end-user model.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building wearables that sense, think, and communicate, part 2
http://www.edn.com/design/wireless-networking/4442553/Building-wearables-that-sense–think–and-communicate–part-2-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160818&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160818&&elqTrackId=43129c810f764797bbcb528a218883b3&elq=beabba5be52e4a1883c8d1cbfce1731c&elqaid=33509&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29292
One design challenge for engineers is choosing an appropriate communication protocol among the wide range of possibilities, including Bluetooth classic, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth Low energy, Near Field Communication (NFC), and many proprietary protocols. A key consideration is to find a protocol that offers high throughput, low power, minimal board requirements, seamless interoperability, secure communication, and that is easy to integrate with the application at hand. Because the protocol defines what the wearable device is capable of transmitting, the right connectivity link plays a major role in how to design a wearable device. There are various options and trade-offs associated with them
It may be tempting to write your own custom proprietary protocol so that the design can achieve the optimal power consumption according the requirements of the specific product. However, today’s devices are expected to communicate with other devices in an ecosystem over a standard protocol. Thus, interoperability is key. This is one of the most compelling requirements motivating designers to choose standard protocols. The adoption of a standard communication protocol also helps developers write better applications that are energy efficient, highly responsive, and easy to adopt for wearable devices.
Wi-Fi is a popular choice of wireless protocol in general because it offers very high data throughput, is medium to long range, and has very sophisticated security options. However, Wi-Fi comes with the cost of consuming higher power than other protocols and so it is often not the best choice for a wearable device.
The other common choice is ZigBee, which offers low power, a light stack, and good market mindshare. However, ZigBee has not yet been universally adopted in PCs or smartphones. The best alternate is Bluetooth classic, which was developed as a way to exchange data over a short range.
for extreme low power consumption, Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth Smart/BLE) is the often a better choice
There are a couple of reasons why BLE is best suited for wearable devices. BLE technology is ideal for applications requiring episodic or periodic transfer of small amounts of data, which aligns with a typical wearable device data transfer requirement. Also, the key feature of BLE is its low power consumption that makes it possible to power a small device with a tiny coin cell battery, making it a clear choice for wearable devices. For these reasons, BLE is often the best choice for wearable devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Things providing an edge for micro data centers
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/internet-of-things-providing-an-edge-for-micro-data-centers/15496431dc0755096057b6a18ccb3e79.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
New data capture and analytics techniques thrown up by the Internet of Things (IoT) are having a profound effect upon the way back office information technology (IT) shop engineering is developing and the data center is going through rapid changes.
The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has helped continue to drive the need for data center construction and development. The streams of data produced by the proliferating variety of devices has to reside somewhere and most typically it has to reside “in the cloud,” as the expression goes. That cloud is the cloud data center and the cloud data center houses the server racks that hold the IoT.
Cloud data centers do a great job if looking after IoT data, but one of their limitations is that they are not completely virtual i.e. they have to physically exist somewhere on planet Earth and this it turns out is their Achilles heel. Not just for reasons of compliance and governance, very often we want data to reside ‘on the edge’ i.e., close to its original source. This is precisely why we talk about so-called Edge Computing.
Wouldn’t it be great if the data center could be brought closer to the sensors, devices, and networks that are producing IoT data?
Micro data centers are compact prefabricated pieces of hardware and management software intelligence designed to live in a single unit. In terms of form and function, micro data centers boast many of the components found inside a full blown data center but scaled down and in some areas rationalized for size.
Inside the micro data centers ‘box’ we will find processing power, memory, input/output (I/O) intelligence, cooling systems, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) hardware, security software, and telecommunications power.
Manufacturers producing micro data centers include Huawei, Zellabox, Dell, Canovate Group and SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study suggests companies are adopting IoT technologies without realizing the benefits
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/study-suggests-companies-are-adopting-iot-technologies-without-realizing-the-benefits/1c8406f23c1cf3d10b5b335e724c237d.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
Businesses are increasingly adopting Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, even if some don’t yet truly understand the benefits they can bring to their company, according to a survey by Strategy Analytics.
More than two-thirds of companies (70%) of companies are now using or planning to use the Internet of Things (IoT) in some capacity, a significant increase from the 32% recorded in last year’s study, according to analyst house Strategy Analytics, which recently polled over 350 global businesses from 23 vertical markets for its “IoT 2016 Deployment Trends and Usage” survey.
Big Data analytics is the primary driver propelling these deployments, according to 56% of respondents, while the top IoT services deployed to date are for office security/surveillance, smart building controls, financial and healthcare analytics.
Despite this, 51% of adopting companies admitted they aren’t sure whether the new technology is paying off yet. Strategy Analytics director of IoT systems research and consulting, Laura DiDio, explained that this means companies don’t yet know if the project is saving them money or improving their business.
Strategy Analytics further indicates that 80% use or plan to deploy IoT within next 3 to 12 months; only 25% have full-scale end-to-end deployment.
Fluke
This suggests that like some of the companies don’t know why they’re engaging with these technologies, or may be falling back on age-old industry values when rolling out such plans.
IoT market still at an early stage
This report comes weeks after Vodafone’s fourth annual IoT barometer indicated IoT budgets are on the rise. The report revealed that 89% of companies (of over 1,000 polled across Europe) are investing in IoT and have increased their budgets in this area over the last 12 months.
Just over three-quarters of all companies believed that taking advantage of IoT technologies will be critical for the future success of any organization. Crucially, 63% of IoT adopters in the report already claimed to have seen “significant” returns on their investment, a small rise from 59% the year before.
“IoT today is still at a very early stage. Where we have numbers on IoT revenues, they are typically low, but growing quickly,” Rebecck said. “But, if we think of the long-term vision of IoT-areas like smart cities, smart agriculture, driverless cars-to realize the full potential there are lots of challenges that need to be overcome on aspects such as standards, data ownership, privacy, security, data formats, micro-payments for data, business models and so on. They will take many years to resolve. I think firms understand the potential benefits of IoT but are struggling with how to resolve these problems.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let’s clear the air: analog and power management of environmental sensor networks
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4442580/Let-s-clear-the-air–analog-and-power-management-of-environmental-sensor-networks?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20160826&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20160826&elqTrackId=4026392e8d2d4754ae99b9a81da33699&elq=0b9317b9ee70418299d243612ae97eff&elqaid=33603&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29376
Air quality is deteriorating around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that in 2014 there were 3.7M deaths from ambient or outdoor air pollution and 4.3M deaths from indoor or household pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a good treatment of indoor air here.
In this article, I will be giving an overview of a typical environmental sensor network system design for analyzing outdoor air from the analog and power management design aspects that can be employed in a smart city or region. This type of system deployment can help raise awareness of the quality of air that one breathes during day-in and day-out activities. The goal will be a closed feedback system that includes sensors for the benefit of users as well as local authorities that can adjust and fine tune efforts to improve the air in a region with the goal of health improvement, lower medical costs, longevity and quality of life for the local population.
I will start with electrochemical sensors because of their ultra-low power consumption which is a key element in the wireless sensor nodes employed in such a system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Contributors to poor air quality and ultimately the health of inhabitants could typically be due to transportation, road traffic, home heating, industrial emissions, and other local anthropic actions are the major emission sources of toxic gases (NOx, O3, CO, SO2, NH3, H2S), volatile organic compounds (benzene, toluene, xylene), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O), particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5, PM1.0 are particles less than 10 micrometers in diameter), aerosol and dust, heavy metals, pollens in the environment. Humans inhaling pollutants for an extended period of time will cause irreversible damage to their health.
Sensor-nodes can be made part of a fixed and/or mobile sensor network as well as attached to streetlights and traffic lights. Each node can transmit the sensing data to a gateway via ZigBee or other low power wireless protocol, and the gateway would then send data to a control center via a wireless network such as GSM. Mapping of urban pollution would be created for further analysis
In the final step, data processing can convert the raw sensing data into individual an Air Quality Index (AQI) for each air-pollutant using the following Equation 1
The AQI numbers range from 0 to 500. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of the air-pollution, and therefore the greater the health concern to the residents. To put things in perspective, an AQI value of 33 represents very-clean air that contains little or no potential to affect the residents’ health; an AQI value over 150 represents air quality so hazardous and heavily-polluted that just about every inhabitant may experience serious health effects. AQI values at or below 100 are seen as satisfactory.
For the wireless communication, ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4 protocol is sometimes chosen. The wireless sensor networks deployed can also be modules for Global Positioning System/General Packet Radio Service (GPS/GPRS).
Source: http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4442580/2/Let-s-clear-the-air–analog-and-power-management-of-environmental-sensor-networks
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-15/
VMware this week announced Internet of Things strategic alliances with Bayshore Networks, Dell, Deloitte Digital, Intwine Connect, PTC, and V5 Systems. IDC estimates IoT spending will reach almost $1.3 trillion by 2019.
SIGFOX has collaborated with myDevices to offer the Cayenne drag-and-drop Internet of Things project builder to its partners.
Gridbee Communications reported winning first-pass silicon success for its integrated Internet of Things secure wireless communications chip design using Synopsys DesignWare ARC EM6 Processor.
Market Research
Business Insider names Honeywell, Hitachi, Comcast, and T-Mobile as leading companies that will benefit from spending on Internet of Things technology. BI Intelligence forecasts there will be 34 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020, compared with 10 billion last year. Of that 34 billion, IoT devices will represent 24 billion, with the remaining 10 billion being traditional computing devices, such as smartphones, smartwatches, and tablet computers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Tools Have Arrived for the Fully Digital Plant
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=281380&cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20160829.tst004c
The technology to support the move to the digital plant has come a long way in recent years. New technologies and techniques are available right now to monitor equipment, including sensors, visualization devices, vibration and noise detection, thermal detection, and more.
The goal is to take these tools and use the data collected during what could-have-been a machine malfunction to improve the production process. “That’s a matter of developing a cost-effective balance between predictive maintenance and routine preventative maintenance,” Zhang told Design News.
The IoT Accelerates Plant Connectivity
While machine data has been used for decades to manage plant activities, much of the potential machine-to-machine connectivity and data collection was conducted via Ethernet wires. Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) systems have multiplied the possibilities for using plant data. “Connectivity of the shop floor is greatly facilitated by the growth and adoption of the Internet of Things,” said Zhang. “We can now connect our assets, equipment, and system, and we can gather live, real-time data about the manufacturing environment to make decisions and increase productivity.”
One of the major changes brought about by the IoT is the ability to connect a wide range of devices and collect a large amount of data about plant functions. Even before wireless connectivity, plants were vulnerable, since their wired connections usually stretched into ERP and partner systems. The IoT offers greater ease of connection and wider reach, but it also increases vulnerabilities to intrusion. “The connectivity needs to be easy, but it also needs to be robust, scalable, and secure,” said Zhang.
A connected plant helps managers improve productivity and reduce downtime, but the ability to collect plant data and analyze it can accelerate those improvements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Context Is Everything
http://semiengineering.com/context-is-everything/
Knowing what’s around a chip determines success and failure of designs.
With consumer and industrial IoT applications, the importance of system context to IC vendors is paramount. No more are the days of developing a chip in isolation; close partnership with systems companies is de rigueur as they provide the use case data that is foundational to development of systems that work.
While this makes sense in a smartphone, it’s significantly harder to achieve in an IoT device for a couple reasons. First, many of these devices require low cost but they’re developed in lower volumes. Moreover, time to market is a competitive advantage, which greatly increases the pressure to churn out chips quickly while also understanding how those chips will behave in the context of not only one system, but other systems to a device is connected.
The first step in all of this is defining you mean by ‘system,’ and ‘system-level design.’
“Your system is a component for the next system higher up,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ford / MIT Collaborate on Future
Smartphones Accelerate Urban Planning
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330368&
By harnessing the anonymous locations of the smartphones that nearly everyone carries nowadays Ford Motor Company and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe they can plan a better future, at least for urban areas, with near realtime analytics. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — the world’s most cited general scientific journal — Ford and MIT demonstrated today [Aug. 29, 2016] how a mere six weeks of historical cell phone location data could be nearly instantly analyzed to provide optimal plans for infrastructure development and resource allocation that city planners might take years to sift out.
“The great advantage of our framework is that it learns mobility features from a large number of mobile phone users, without having to ask them directly about their mobility choices. Based on that we create individual models to estimate complete daily trajectories of the vast majority of mobile phone users,”
By giving EE Times advance notice of its breakthrough analytics, Ford and MIT were probably expecting an article crammed with buzzwords like Big Data, Crowdsourcing and Disruptive Technologies.
Because most smartphones have not only location data but accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer readings, Ford and MIT’s algorithms can also determine whether their users are walking, biking, taking mass transit (and which kind — bus, trolley, train) or driving in a car. They can even determine whether those traveling by car are alone or car-pooling (by merely counting the number of smartphones in the vehicle). Likewise, the software can determine how many riders there are on each particular bus/trolley/train.
In the past, all these data types had to be gathered and correlated from massive surveys, which were notoriously inaccurate since people tend to lie (exaggerate) about their use of mass transit to impress the surveyor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Sonos speakers will integrate with Amazon’s Alexa next year and will let Spotify’s app control audio starting this October
Sonos partners with Amazon, Spotify for enhanced music control
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/sonos-partners-with-amazon-spotify-for-enhanced-music-control/
Wireless speaker system maker Sonos announced two software partnerships today with Spotify and Amazon. The Spotify integration allows users to control their Sonos speakers via the Spotify app, essentially turning each Sonos speaker – or all of them – into a Spotify Connect system.
The Sonos/Amazon partnership is a bit more interesting. Your Sonos speakers will be able to work with Alexa and you will be able to request songs and modify the audio with just your voice. Given that Sonos doesn’t have an Alexa-capable microphone built in, you can only talk to your speakers through Amazon products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fortune:
Nest’s platform team to become part of Google to create a unified IoT platform, which will be led by Hiroshi Lockheimer, currently SVP of Android
Exclusive: Google Will Absorb Nest Developers
http://fortune.com/2016/08/30/google-nest-developers-alphabet/
Alphabet shakes up the Nest. Again.
Alphabet subsidiary Nest Labs, maker of Internet-connected thermostats and smoke detectors, is undergoing yet another restructuring, Fortune has learned.
Nest’s entire platform team will become part of Google, which also resides under the Alphabet GOOGL -0.56% umbrella, in order to create a unified Internet of things platform. It will be led by longtime Google executive Hiroshi Lockheimer, who currently serves as senior vice president of Android and who recently assumed more responsibility for “living room” products.
The combined group also will continue to work on Google Home, a smart speaker rival to the Amazon Echo, while simultaneously fending off Amazon challenges elsewhere in the smart home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The latest IoT technologies in real estate
Aalto University’s new Internet of Buildings research project explaining how real estate can be networked via a remote host, the Internet of machines or complete systems service organization.
What if the access control data to accumulate, future weather forecasts, presence detection, could already predetermined to optimize the conditions of the property? What if in the future it would be possible to dispense altogether with proactive kausihuolloista and go for demand maintenance of the equipment?
“Our goal is to give our contribution to a significant real estate industry and society as a whole the development,”
Hand in hand with the Internet wave of Buildings with project also runs a relative in the same area of intelligent control room development project, which aims to find new solutions for remote monitoring and control of real estate maintenance.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/08/31/uusinta-iot-tekniikkaa-kiinteistoihin/
More: https://www.sttinfo.fi/data/attachments/00161/0793f012-0333-4a2e-ad24-87a57423092f.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t let Unreliable Data Storage Derail your IoT strategy
https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/events/acid-compliant–intelligent-and-reliable-storage-on-industrial-iot-devices?contactid=1&PC=L&c=2016_08_30_embedded_technical_news
Competition in the IIoT is unrelenting. Best-in-class IIoT devices offer superior performance, long lifespan, data integrity, and get to market ahead of their competition. By understanding how the components in your software stack work together and reducing redundant operations, you can improve system efficiency and performance without sacrificing reliability.
Most file systems do not comply with ACID properties and therefore databases must take steps to ensure the Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability of transactions. This often results in redundant writes which can lead to premature media failure. Our testing shows that using a transactional, copy-on-write file system ensures ACID compliance without redundant writes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data architecture in IoT: Identifying and breaking down silos
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/talking-things/4442610/Data-architecture-in-IoT–Identifying-and-breaking-down-silos?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160830&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160830&elqTrackId=8a04929cf6e44f56b44611d19ae92546&elq=7f36d97ab09b4f93b6fa92a0638a4fd8&elqaid=33632&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=29404
The Internet of Things (IoT) will generate unprecedented amounts of data—a staggering 400 zettabytes (ZB) of data a year by 2018, according to a report from Cisco. A major part of the value in this data will be in using it effectively across the enterprise or even across different enterprises and industries. If your legacy systems and/or new IoT data exist in silos, your IoT deployments will be limited in their ability to add value to the enterprise.
Most different types of IoT deployments will generate different types of data.
Some deployments will generate very high volumes of data that could be lots of noise and very little signal
Other deployments will generate a much lower volume of data, which could be of very high value; for example, an emergency service generates data only when it detects a critical emergency event alarm that requires immediate action.
In many cases, legacy enterprise IT infrastructure will form the basis for initial IoT deployments. For example, a recent survey from the Telecommunications Industry Association, and commissioned by my company InterDigital, found that 76% of companies are either exclusively or primarily focusing on integrating legacy business systems with IoT solutions to get them fit for purpose. Anyone with a passing familiarity of enterprise IT infrastructure will be able to see how the tendency exists for data to become siloed in legacy applications within an architecture that is not shared or available to other tools or applications. Some of the silos are formed due to different business organizations within an enterprise, but some of them are due to a non-scalable architecture. A typical design would call for one type of device to be connected via a secure gateway to a device management platform, and from there to a series of specific data services. That’s a perfectly acceptable model for a small-scale deployment, but what if you wish to evolve and add a second type of device to your infrastructure? Or a third?
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 Recommendations for Reducing the Costs and Complexities of Certifying Smart Appliances
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=281399&cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20160830.tst004c
Smart home appliances that connect to the Internet are the future. Judging by what we saw at Digital Destinations 2016, the recent Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers’ (AHAM) annual meeting, that future is fast approaching. Smart appliances promise to make their users’ lives easier, and even more fun. This means manufacturers must adhere to new safety and security requirements. But adopting three best practices will reduce the costs of demonstrating compliance. These steps must happen before the manufacturing process of any appliance, smart or “dumb.”
The near future looks bright for manufacturers and retailers. According to a new AHAM report, 26 billion so-called Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices will be in nearly every home by 2020. It also predicts IoT appliances will have an economic impact of $250 to $350 billion by 2025.
The goal is to establish standards in these three areas:
Safety: Connected appliances must meet the same quality and safety standards as all appliances. They must also address government requirements that require safety mechanisms users can operate remotely. These include protective overrides of door locks and remote starting features.
Privacy: Customers are willing to provide personal information to manufacturers and retailers. Reasons include warranty coverage, maintenance, and product information updates. Smart appliances can connect to their smartphones and access a wider range of personal information. That does not allow manufacturers and vendors to loosen their restrictions on only collecting information with its customers’ permission. They must also provide regular updates on how they’re using customer data.
Security: Manufacturers must build security into their smart appliances. This means following industry-standard security protocols, encryption, security reviews, and testing. That must happen before the product reaches the market. Consumers expect their computers and other connected devices to protect their information against theft. And they’ll expect the same with smart appliances. They will demand the ability to update firmware and create strong passwords. Manufacturers must also provide the latest Internet router security standards.
Home appliances are not toys; there are dangers. To limit liability, manufacturers must guarantee safety. But with so many certifications, it’s a difficult road to navigate. Here are three best practices any company should implement before the manufacturing process begins:
Assess risk: Conduct risk assessments for functional safety issues. That can include unforeseen misuse by the customer. This will enable you to identify and fix issues before submitting products for certification.
Material evaluations: Ensure the pre-approval of materials and components such as plastics, wires, and heating elements. If not, test them to ensure compliance. Discovering the need to certify a component or find a pre-approved component during crunch time will cause major delays.
Ratings: Check to make sure the overall product rating and supply cords meet the CEC and NEC restrictions. This is a common issue found during construction reviews.