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.
More interesting material links:
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Connecting information, engineering and operational technologies
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/connecting-information-engineering-and-operational-technologies/ca9ec3c1e0acabb044b6f7e0ad4f6e5c.html
Asset performance management provides the power of combining all systems into one that can deliver actionable intelligence.
As operations technology (OT) has become more sophisticated, organizations now have access to an enormous volume of performance data. In order to achieve optimal performance from assets, it is essential for organizations to find ways to best manage and use available data in real time. Realistic 3-D models of assets can help operations and maintenance teams forecast problems, develop better planning strategies and improve performance. It is now possible for companies to converge their information, operational and engineering technologies in order to integrate processes and information flows between them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Things alliance LoRa: Licence to WAN? Yes please
Coughing up for spectrum might be worth it for quality of service
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/02/lorawan_may_go_licensed_spectrum/
Internet of Things folk the LoRa Alliance reckons its LoRaWAN may move from unlicensed to licensed spectrum to help guarantee quality of service, according to reports.
An unnamed spokesman for LoRa*, speaking to wonderfully named communications industry news website Light Reading, said that the move was prompted by major mobile operators using their licensed spectrum to adopt new cellular IoT networking standards such as Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT).
“The only benefit carriers have is that they can guarantee quality of service because it’s a licensed band,” said the mystery mouthpiece. “The only move that LoRa and Sigfox can make to counter that is to put the technologies in licensed bands and I predict that will happen at some point.”
The basic thrust of the argument for licensed spectrum is exclusivity over spectrum in order to minimise interference and maximise range.
Is LoRa Going Licensed?
http://www.lightreading.com/iot/nb-iot/is-lora-going-licensed/d/d-id/728603
Mobile operators that have made investments in LoRa networks are now looking at using licensed spectrum to support the technology, according to a spokesperson for the LoRa Alliance .
LoRa has so far relied on unlicensed spectrum to provide connectivity for sensors used in smart meters, asset-tracking devices and other “Internet of Things” (IoT) networks. Running the technology over licensed spectrum could help operators overcome one of the main drawbacks of the technology — the interference and congestion that can occur in unlicensed airwaves.
It might also have implications for a crop of cellular standards that have emerged in response to LoRa and other unlicensed-spectrum technologies, including France’s Sigfox . At the forefront of those cellular standards is NB-IoT, which a number of mobile operators plan to launch in the coming months. (See Vodafone Ireland to Launch NB-IoT in Jan 2017 and Telia ‘Betting’ on NB-IoT Over LoRa, Sigfox.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT to Get Security, Gateway Benchmarks
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330907&
The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) launched two new benchmarks for the Internet of Things. They aim to help engineers measure the effectiveness of end-node security and performance of gateways at the network’s edge.
EEMBC invites interested companies to join the efforts that hope to deliver preliminary metrics early next year. The two new efforts join one already in progress, a benchmark for IoT connectivity that is shedding light on trends in IoT networks.
The IoT Connect benchmark will measure performance and energy consumption across a range of communications tasks and system profiles. The first version focuses on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), measuring various aspects of microcontroller and RF performance and energy use on a simulated IoT end node.
EEMBC members, who represent most major microcontroller vendors, currently are most interested in a benchmark for BLE. The work group formed a year ago with a focus on Zigbee, but “Zigbee seems to be fading…[so the group] decided to focus on Bluetooth because it was moving towards mesh networking…people see Zigbee won’t go away, but it’s less interesting,” said Markus Levy, president of EEMBC.
The Bluetooth benchmark, now in an alpha version, could be finished by March. The group is then expected to move on to versions for other networks, probably Wi-Fi or Thread, perhaps followed by LoRa or IoT variants of cellular.
In the fragmented space of IoT networks, companies express a diversity of preferences.
The working group for the gateway benchmark aims to deliver system-level benchmarks measuring overall throughput, latency and energy consumption for node-to-cloud communications. It will probably start with an industrial profile but has not yet specified what parameters it will measure.
The group currently includes members from ARM, Dell, Flex and Intel and hopes to deliver a complete spec by next fall.
“Today, without a standardized methodology, IoT gateway benchmarking is not realistic,”
“Subsequent phases [will] combine the standalone functions into specific IoT profiles that will allow users to better see, control, and optimize the impact of security at the system level,” said Mike Borza, a member of technical staff for security IP at Synopsys who co-chairs the effort.
Tomi Engdahl says:
STEVAL-STLKT01V1 Product is in volume production.
SensorTile development kit
http://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval-stlkt01v1.html
The STEVAL-STLKT01V1 is a comprehensive development kit designed to support and expand the capabilities of the SensorTile and comes with a set of cradle boards enabling hardware scalability. The development kit simplifies prototyping, evaluation and development of innovative solutions. It is complemented with software, firmware libraries and tools, including a dedicated App.
The SensorTile is a tiny, square-shaped IoT module that packs powerful processing capabilities leveraging an 80 MHz STM32L476JGY microcontroller and Bluetooth low energy connectivity based on BlueNRG network processor as well as a wide spectrum of motion and environmental MEMS sensors, including a digital microphone.
SensorTile can fit snugly in your IoT hub or sensor network node and become the core of your solution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interoperable Communications Using OPC UA Over Time Sensitive Networks
http://www.designnews.com/iot/interoperable-communications-using-opc-ua-over-time-sensitive-networks/128148245446216?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161206.tst004c
Use of OPC UA over networks using a TSN transport mechanism aims to enable new levels of device interoperability, cloud connectivity and IT-OT convergence.
A group of leading automation and information technology suppliers are committed to adopting a system architecture that uses the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) over Time-Sensitive Networking technology (TSN) to extend unified Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) communication to the controller level.
ABB, Bosch Rexroth, B&R, CISCO, General Electric, KUKA, National Instruments, Parker, Schneider Electric, SEW Eurodrive, and TTTech are jointly promoting OPC UA over Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) as the unified communication solution between industrial controllers and to the cloud, according to an announcement at the most recent SPS Show. Based on open standards, this solution “enables industry to use devices from different vendors that are fully interoperable. The participating companies intend to support OPC UA TSN in their future generations of products.”
The logic behind the group’s announcement is that industrial automation solutions have traditionally been differentiated and separated from one another by different incompatible and non-interoperable standards used for communication between devices. But the downside has been that users have often found themselves locked into proprietary ecosystems.
Support for OPC UA over TSN
“OPC UA has broad support from a massive number of different companies and is one of the most broadly supported IoT technologies. It offers an excellent data model on top of the base technology which, along with the configuration and protocol pieces, adds a lot of value as well,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Develop Your Own Home Automation Devices
http://www.designnews.com/automation/how-develop-your-own-home-automation-devices/81583690046215?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161206.tst004c
In this week long webinar course, participants will explore the inner workings of smart home technologies through hands-on prototyping and experimentation of home automation concepts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interoperable Communications Using OPC UA Over Time Sensitive Networks
http://www.designnews.com/iot/interoperable-communications-using-opc-ua-over-time-sensitive-networks/128148245446216/page/0/2?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161206.tst004c
Technology Collaboration
The goal of the companies that are part of the announcement is for an open, unified, standards-based and interoperable IIoT solution that can provide deterministic and real-time peer-to-peer communication between industrial controllers and to the cloud. The cooperation considers OPC UA TSN as the unified standard for industrial automation and IIoT connectivity. OPC UA TSN is the combination of enhanced OPC UA Publisher/Subscriber (Pub/Sub) technology with the IEEE TSN Ethernet standards. It provides all of the open, standard building blocks required to unify communication for industrial automation and it enables the broad convergence of information technology (IT) and operation technology (OT) that is fundamental to realizing the Industrial Internet of Things and Industrie 4.0.
The companies intend to support OPC UA TSN in future generations of their products. But first, pilot products are already being integrated in an IIC testbed. The objective is to show compatible controller-to-controller communication between devices from different vendors using OPC UA TSN over a standard IT infrastructure. Other companies that share this common vision of unified communication between industrial controllers and to cloud are welcome to join and contribute to this collaboration.
National Instruments has already released, for selected customers, a version of its CompactRIO controllers that supports TSN. It supports the technology at a foundational level but customers are able to build on top of that all kinds of protocols. That technology is being implemented in the TSN smart manufacturing testbed and, as different protocols are implemented, there is an intention to support those in the future as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building an IoT Drill Press for Reasons Unknown
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/06/building-an-iot-drill-press-for-reasons-unknown/
He’s a little cagey about the reasons, but [Ivan Miranda] plans to put a drill press on the internet. What could go wrong with that?
We’ll take [Ivan] at his word that there’s a method to this madness and just take a look at the build itself, in the hopes that it will inspire someone to turn their lowly drill press into a sorta-kinda 2-axis milling machine. [Ivan] makes extensive use of his 3D printer to fabricate the X-axis slide that bolts to the stock drill press table.
The motor switch was also replaced with a solid state relay. The steppers, relay, and limit switches are all fed into a Teensy that talks to an ESP8266, which will presumably host a web interface to put this thing online.
IoT Drill Press conversion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in7QHbu4Z2U
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Tampons
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/06/the-internet-of-tampons/
At the 2016 Hackaday Superconference, Amanda Brief and Jacob McEntire gave a talk on what they’ve been working on for the past few years. It’s My.Flow, the world’s first tampon monitor capable of tracking saturation, and eliminating anxiety, leakage, and infection. It’s better than a traditional tampon, and it’s one of the rare Internet of Things things that actually makes sense.
my.Flow
https://hackaday.io/project/11407-myflow
my.Flow is the world’s first tampon monitor, tracking saturation level with the goal of eliminating period anxiety, leakage, and infection.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Voice Activated Fireplace Is As Cool As It Gets
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/07/voice-activated-fireplace-is-as-cool-as-it-gets/
A fireplace can add a cozy, relaxed atmosphere — and a touch of style — to any home. Redditor [hovee] saw the opportunity to add some flair to his gas fireplace by making it voice activated.
Google Home and Google Assistant provides the voice recognition component. A Raspberry Pi 3 with Home Assistant does the legwork. An iTach TCP/IP-to-Contact-Closure relay toggles the fireplace, and an IFTTT account connected to Google Assistant brings it all together.
[hovee] then ran some thick 16/2 wire from the relay network port to the fireplace’s remote receiver circuit to actually turn it on. Some custom code and configuration of the Home Assistant files was necessary
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/5doqs8/ok_google_turn_on_my_fireplace/da6h33o/
Tomi Engdahl says:
AI warns of failure of a component
In all industries and production should benefit from the fact that the condition of the equipment should be known at all times. It has now been developed for testing environment, where big data can be used to continuously monitor the status of equipment. Environment utilize machine learning, ie artificial intelligence algorithms.
National Instruments says SparkCognitionin and to work together with IBM state monitoring and the development of predictive maintenance of the test environment. The aim of cooperation is to provide an unprecedented level of interoperability between engineering and information technology, as organizations are looking for better methods of control and trying to prolong the aging fleet life cycle of heavy industry, power generation, process manufacturing and many other industries.
The new Big Data solutions in the era of analog users can take advantage of machine learning
NI’s open, software-based platform provides the basis for state monitoring and predictive maintenance of the test environment, which implements the opportunities provided by the machine learning. Guests can use the SparkCognitionin cognitive analytics to proactively avoid unplanned equipment deterioration and failure of critical equipment assets.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5550:keinoaly-varoittaa-komponentin-pettamisesta&catid=13&Itemid=101
More:
CONDITION MONITORING & PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE TESTBED
http://www.iiconsortium.org/cm-pm.htm
Fast Facts
Member Participants:
IBM, National Instruments, SparkCognition
Market Segment:
Predictive maintenance focuses on high-value, industrial assets that are expensive to maintain, thus it cuts across multiple market segments like power plants, manufacturing, process, mining, transportation, aerospace, and defense.
Challenge:
The current state of condition monitoring requires manual measurements that are compounded with aging equipment and the retirement of knowledgeable personnel.
Solution:
Provide a multi-vendor, cloud-based predictive maintenance solution that proves out new business models. The Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance Testbed will offer continuous online measurements, automated analysis, and balance of plant coverage.
Commercial Benefits:
Develop new predictive maintenance analytics modeling techniques; Document standard and secure architecture patterns and data formats for predictive maintenance in the Industrial Internet era.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart steel to Internet of materials
SSAB Swedish Steel giant has completed the first phase of the development and research project, which is studying smart steel digital platform that allows the steel to download the manufacturing and other information. Identity Code would combine the steel plate and dissemination of the steel plate recovery operator and the end customer. A new idea tried out in the pilot project, which includes Finland, inter alia, Meyer, Cajo, Dimecc and research organizations.
For steel should be its own identity, which helped create SSAB’s according to a new kind of internet materials, as the current industrial internet. “Our vision is a cloud-based platform that includes different stakeholders in the value chain of instructions for use our steel,” says SSAB development director responsible for research and Eva Petursson.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/12/08/alyteraksesta-syntyy-materiaalien-internet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth Beams New Spec, Chips
Bluetooth 5 spec expands range, throughput
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330948&
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group officially ratified its version 5, which includes a modular set of optional extensions for throughput, range, and other features. Chip makers, including Cypress and Nordic, are already sampling parts supporting the specs that do not include mesh networking, a piece delayed until mid-2017.
The specs define a new modulation scheme for throughput up to 2 Mbits/second. A new forward error correction technique can quadruple range to an estimated 120 meters, albeit at significantly lower data rates.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group officially ratified its version 5, which includes a modular set of optional extensions for throughput, range, and other features. Chip makers, including Cypress and Nordic, are already sampling parts supporting the specs that do not include mesh networking, a piece delayed until mid-2017.
Among its challenges, Bluetooth needs to get designed into more hubs and gateways to enable mesh and long-range links. The community also has an ongoing debate about support for IPv6 to end nodes, something that some see as critical for interoperability and that others say generates unnecessary power and memory requirements.
“A Bluetooth light switch with a coin cell can last for years, and you can’t do that with Wi-Fi — there are a lot of apps that only need a small piece of data and low power and are only possible with Bluetooth,” said Mark Powell, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG.
Some 3.5 billion Bluetooth links are expected to ship this year, most of them in smartphones with the next largest group in wireless headphones and speakers. Apple’s decision to end support of headphone jacks in the iPhone is expected to drive wireless headsets to volumes greater than wired versions.
The smart home is Bluetooth’s biggest growth area. Its share of the smart home market is expected to rise from 8% today to more than 26% by 2021, according to ABI Research. By contrast, 802.15.4 variants including ZigBee, Thread, and 6LoWPAN will rise from just under 17% of the market today to almost 30% by 2021.
Bluetooth 5: What it’s all about
https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/bluetooth-core-specification/bluetooth5
With the launch of Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth® technology continues to evolve to meet the needs of the industry as the global wireless standard for simple, secure connectivity. With 4x range, 2x speed and 8x broadcasting message capacity, the enhancements of Bluetooth 5 focus on increasing the functionality of Bluetooth for the IoT. These features, along with improved interoperability and coexistence with other wireless technologies, continue to advance the IoT experience by enabling simple and effortless interactions across the vast range of connected devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arrow to sell Vodafone’s IoT services
Arrow Electronics distribution company has signed an agreement with Vodafone worldwide cooperation. Arrow offers based on Vodafone’s mobile networks M2M IoT services as part of the Evolve kehityspakettiaan. Arrow has the M2M modules in addition to the supply of components and card LoRa- and Sigfox sensor networks.
Arrow’n Evolve is a framework concept that companies are able to safely take advantage of network-connected devices worldwide throughout their life cycle.
There is between the machinery and equipment (Machine to Machine M2M) applications also slower 2G subscribers utilizing SIM cards.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2016/12/08/arrow-myymaan-vodafonen-iot-palveluita/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Things
Things Evolved
http://www.fiveyearsout.com/v/internet-of-things
Things used to be merely things. A watch was a watch; a house was a house. Fleet trucks were just fleet trucks. But things evolved.
They became smarter, better, more efficient. They changed the way business is done, the way processes work. They began to tell us things. They began to tell each other things. We marched forward into an inevitable future where everything was a stronger, better form of itself. Where the headaches of supply chain and logistics and manufacturing were replaced with the power of things – communicating and optimizing and finding a better way. Through IoT, they became more than things; they became Things Evolved.
Tomi Engdahl says:
1926 Nikola Tesla:
“When wireless* is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole…and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”
Source: http://iotfinland.fi/iot-yhdeksankymmenta-vuotta-vanhaa-hypea-vai-uuden-digitalouden-polttoainetta/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Safety and Cybersecurity — You Can’t Have One Without the Other
Security planning needs to include safety. The two can no loner be separate concerns.
http://www.designnews.com/cyber-security/safety-and-cybersecurity-you-cant-have-one-without-other/61645859446201?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161205.tst004c
Tomi Engdahl says:
URUS
Universal Robotic Unmanned System
https://hackaday.io/project/18002-urus
Urus project use the APM API and HAL to maximize the use in robotics world. With URUS you can make an automated home control (DOMOTIC systems), work like a LEGO mindstorm, profesional and industrial use like a PLC.
URUS system will be the first autoconfigurable and scalable BRAIN MODULE and a CAPE IO for ROBOTICS and AUTOMATED Systems, thinking on industrial aplications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-29/
Intel has hired Tom Lantzsch, the executive vice president of strategy at ARM Holdings, to serve as senior vice president and general manager of its IoT Group, effective in January.
Two cybercriminals claim to have modified the Mirai malware that brought down multiple leading websites on October 21 and are offering the botnet program to buyers. One of the hackers says he and his partner in crime have taken control of 1 million IoT devices. He also claims to be responsible for the Internet outage experienced last weekend by Deutsche Telekom customers.
The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) this week said its IoT Security working group is developing a benchmark to gauge the efficiency of security implementations in IoT devices.
The U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows cybersecurity professionals to hack IoT devices for research purposes, provided these acts are done within a controlled environment. Such experiments cannot be done for malicious exploits, the federal agency said.
Amazon Web Services collaborated with Eseye to develop the AnyNet Secure subscriber identity module for greater IoT security, using the AWS Cloud management console and platform.
The Internet of Things presents “a wondrous vision,” yet it obviously needs greater cybersecurity,
Bad (internet of) things
What we can do to keep all those clever devices from causing harm
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3146128/internet-of-things/bad-internet-of-things.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prototyping Home Automation Concepts
“Consumers want smart devices that automate themselves” as one of the most interesting concepts in home automation.
The Raspberry Pi and the Grove Pi+ kit will be the main development platforms used in prototyping home automation concepts for security alarms, digital door locks, temperature/humidity monitoring, and small electric appliance controls. Also, Velocio ACE PLC and littleBits electronics will provide additional resource materials to be used in prototyping home automation concepts
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maker of Internet of Things-connected vibrator will settle privacy suit
Lawsuit says company chronicled “vibration settings” and how long toy was used.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/maker-of-internet-of-things-connected-vibrator-will-settle-privacy-suit/
A few months back, we reported on the collision of the Internet of Things and sex toys. The maker of an Internet-connected, remote-controlled vibrator was sued in federal court for being a little too connected to its users: the company tracked various app settings such as vibration level and “temperature” without customer consent.
Standard Innovation, the company behind the We-Vibe vibrator, was extremely apologetic at the time. It also noted that no customer data was compromised and said that it was updating its privacy policy. But now, the company has “agreed” to settle the proposed class-action lawsuit
The lawsuit alleged the We-Vibe vibrator app—which is on iOS and Android—tracks how often and how long consumers use the sex toy, sending that data to the company’s Canadian servers. The suit said the app chronicles “the selected vibration settings” and the vibrator’s “temperature,” among other things.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analog’s Rising Status
http://semiengineering.com/analogs-rising-status/
Uptick in demand low power and power-sensitive designs brings new challenges and opportunities.
As more sensors and actuators are added into electronic devices, pressure is growing to more seamlessly move data seamlessly back and forth between analog and digital circuitry.
Analog and digital always have fit rather uncomfortably together, and that discomfort has grown as SoCs are built using smaller feature sizes. While digital transistors can continue to scale to well below 28nm—there is debate now about just how far the digital roadmap will continue—analog is moving at its own pace. In fact, in many cases it isn’t moving at all.
But if they don’t move at the same pace, at least they have to talk better. That helps explain why at 28nm and 16/14nm, standard “analog” IP includes a fair amount of digital content. And as the IoT pushes up demand for analog content, adding sensors to connect the physical world with electronic devices, the need for even greater interoperability and communication between these two worlds will continue to grow.
“The demand for analog silicon has always existed in the embedded space, but the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing the demand for connected mixed-signal content,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sophisticated Java Solutions Marry IoT and ARM Architecture
http://intelligentsystemssource.com/sophisticated-java-solutions-marry-iot-and-arm-architecture/
With an exploding number of devices for IoT and cloud computing, development with Java is becoming more attractive than ever. Java technologies for the ARM32 platform are a valuable piece of that puzzle.
Expanding Market Share
ARM has expanded its market share beyond the mobile and into embedded and IoT with its low power consumption and competitive price to compute ratio. It’s evident that ARM is now a mainstream embedded processor architecture. According to Linley Group, ARM has more than 77 percent of the licensed embedded processor market today and it has dominated the tablet and smartphone space. Now, it is expanding across consumer IoT markets and rapidly penetrating into the industrial IoT space where traditional x86, MIPS, and PowerPC processors have enjoyed a stable position for many years. According to ARM, it is looking to hit a compound annual growth rate of 5 percent in networking and 10 percent across all mobile, home, enterprise, and embedded segments by next year. In fact, major chipmakers are actively replacing legacy SoCs with ARM cores on their product roadmap
When ARM released its 64-bit ARMv8 with 32bit support, the mobile sector gobbled them up as soon as chip makers delivered them to the market. Now with devices like Raspberry Pi 3 (with 64-bit Cortex-A53) adoption of ARM has further increased—not only by the maker community but also by OEMs looking to take advantage of fast performance at an extremely competitive price. Sooner than expected by many, a revolutionary Pi Zero, 32-bit ARMv6 based SoC can be purchased for $5, is adding to the already huge ARM momentum. With its tiny form factor, Pi Zero consumes extremely low power, as low as 80mA. Yet it is fast and maintains binary compatibility with previous generations.
Java for Embedded & IoT
Java continues to be the most popular programming language. The latest TIOBE Index ranks Java as the #1 for the programming community. For the hardcore embedded community, C is still considered to be the most widely used programming language. However, interest and adoption of Java have been steadily growing
Java has been used in embedded devices since the 90s with Java ME CLDC (Micro Edition Connected Limited Device Configuration) used as a dominant platform for feature phones. Then Java ME CDC (Micro Edition Connected Device Configuration) and PBP (Personal Basis Profile) became a standard for Blu-ray disk players and cable television set-top boxes. Java SE began driving many embedded computers in the industrial setting and expanded into communications equipment and industrial printing.
Today Java SE is running on healthcare devices, network and storage appliances, gateways, automatic teller machines (ATMs), kiosks, imaging, and multi-function printers. With the advent of IoT, there is a blurring line between traditional embedded and enterprises.
For those that have been running Java, extending existing capabilities is less challenging. Besides, Cloud is what makes IoT possible today. IoT and Cloud are inseparable and a significant portion of the cloud computing platforms are Java-based. The third component that is critical for success is open source
Open Source Java & Zulu Embedded
A large portion of today’s technological innovations come from the open source community, Eclipse and Apache projects being good examples. For Java, OpenJDK is where open source Java has originated from. OpenJDK is the basis for Java SE’s Reference Implementation and the way the Java Spec is defined. Java SE is developed and maintained in the open under the OpenJDK projects. Companies such as Oracle, IBM, RedHat and Azul take the code in OpenJDK and use it to build JDKs.
Zulu Embedded is a certified build of OpenJDK for the embedded space. It supports both headful and headless modes. It also offers compact profiles of Java 8 for resource constrained devices in addition to Java 6 and 7. Java 8 Compact Profiles allow you to run Java in devices with a memory as low as 12mb. As far as operating systems are concerned, Zulu Embedded has been tested with most flavors of Linux, MacOS, as well as Windows 10 IoT Core.
Recently Azul Systems released Java APIs for accessing device peripherals. APIs are available on Windows 10 IoT and Linux as part of the Zulu Device APIs. Device APIs deliver optional Java extensions to the base Zulu Embedded JRE for enabling software control over device I/Os and their peripherals. It covers following peripheral access:
General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO).
Inter-Integrated Circuit Bus (I2C).
Serial Peripheral Interface.
For IoT services and gateway use cases, Zulu Embedded has been tested to work with all major OSGi implementations, including Eclipse and ProSyst.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software-Defined Infrastructure Sparks Digital Transformation of Industrial Automation
http://blogs.windriver.com/wind_river_blog/2016/10/software-defined-infrastructure-sparks-digital-transformation-of-industrial-automation.html
Industrial companies and manufacturers have historically paid steep prices for automation systems purpose-built to perform a single task and lacking the flexibility to adapt to changing market environments. These proprietary solutions are not designed for interoperability with other products, which locks the buyer into the vendor and restricts choices of components.
Working with a single industrial automation supplier may sometimes have benefits, but as technology advances and the marketplace demands and expects greater agility, the drawbacks become readily apparent. Proprietary systems are expensive to purchase (high CapEx) and expensive to maintain (high OpEx). Because they are developed in low volumes and built with highly specialized components, vendors lack the economies of scale inherent in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions.
Despite the Open Platform Communications (OPC) standard instituted in the 1990s, which enabled communications between proprietary systems, interoperability remains an issue.
The big issue, though, is that adding features and upgrading systems is costly and difficult, and usually takes place at the vendor’s pace, constraining the operator from taking advantage of the latest technological advancements and innovations.
Industrial automation developers can take a cue from the experience of the telecom sector. At one time, telecommunications service providers also faced a predominance of proprietary equipment, which was a drag on the industry’s growth. Over a dozen of the world’s largest providers got together to lead the transition to interoperable solutions based on industry-standard servers – an approach called network function virtualization (NFV). After a few short years, telecom equipment vendors were able to offer software-based network functions running on COTS servers, making possible large economies of scale, wider vendor choice, and interoperability – all of which has benefited not only the service providers, but also the end users.
Now, a comparable digital transformation is underway in industrial automation, sparked by software-defined infrastructure and enabled by the IIoT. The premise of software-defined infrastructure is that most operations and control functions in an automation system can be consolidated onto standard, high-volume COTS servers capable of satisfying the real-time performance requirements of industrial environments. This creates an efficient, flexible and light-footprint alternative to proprietary industrial solutions. Software-defined infrastructure utilizes open standards and open platforms, extending them to meet industrial requirements, thereby reducing OpEx and CapEx and reaping the benefits of the IT cloud.
A software-defined infrastructure approach allows users, software vendors and systems integrators to more easily develop interoperable components than proprietary solutions allow.
Flexible industrial automation, powered by a software-defined infrastructure, will enable companies to react more quickly and economically to an ever-evolving market landscape.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How OpenFog Consortium Powers Up Fog Computing
http://intelligentsystemssource.com/how-openfog-consortium-powers-up-fog-computing/
Fog Computing is a system-level horizontal architecture that distributes resources and services of computing, storage, control and networking anywhere along the continuum from the cloud to the things. High-performance, high-scale, high-availability IoT applications, which may have been impossible if run exclusively in the cloud, are enabled via a hierarchical fog system between the things and the cloud. This lets us grow IoT to support the existing and future performance-critical, mission-critical and life-critical applications.
Hundreds of use cases in vertical markets as diverse as transportation, utilities, smart cities, manufacturing, retail, energy, healthcare, agriculture, government, and the consumer space have demonstrated significant business values and the technical necessity of fog computing.
Currently, OpenFog is focused on producing the OpenFog Reference Architecture. This will be a comprehensive guide to the implementation and deployment of standard, interoperable fog computing capabilities. Systems designed in compliance with the OpenFog Reference Architecture should be expected to interoperate seamlessly. Looking beyond today’s cloud computing, you will see the emergence of the fog computing era. Fog computing bridges today’s Internet to the full potential of IoT to support everything from consumer electronics to industrial control systems to drones and pervasive virtual reality.
http://www.openfogconsortium.org
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables enhance the human condition with efficient, low power conversion ICs
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4443099/Wearables-enhance-the-human-condition-with-efficient–low-power-conversion-ICs-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20161208&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20161208&elqTrackId=a5a93f39c4ed49f2adc38f012cf74a14&elq=b07e7814b8fa44f8b67794c2fbce72fc&elqaid=35102&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=30658
No longer just a device you’d only see in a cool science fiction movie (thank you James Bond 007, Minority Report, and Dick Tracy!) and only dream about using; wearable devices are here to stay. In the beginning, they were as simple as a walking or running step counter (aka a pedometer). However, over a short time, wearable devices then became more advanced – or smart, including more emphasis on attractive design and not just features and functionality, thus enhancing their overall appeal. From smart clothing to Google Glass to advanced fitness activity trackers to virtual reality (VR) gear to night vision equipment and even heads-up imaging displays, wearable devices have become a part of the mainstream consumer, military, and industrial markets.
A “wearable” can be defined as a product that is worn by the user for an extended period of time and, in some way, enhances the user’s experience as a result of the product being worn.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Now Lets Developers Write Apps For the Assistant On Google Home
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/12/09/0022246/google-now-lets-developers-write-apps-for-the-assistant-on-google-home?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Google today announced it will open up Home to third-party developers, allowing all developers to start bringing their applications and services to the Google Assistant. Developers can start building “conversation actions” for the Google Assistant, which “allows developers to create back-and-forth conversations with users through the Assistant,” writes Frederic Lardinois via TechCrunch. “Users can simply start these conversations by using a phrase like ‘OK Google, talk to Eliza.’”
Google now lets developers write apps for the Assistant on Google Home
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/08/google-starts-opening-up-its-assistant-on-google-home-to-third-party-developers/
Google today announced that all developers (and not just those in its private preview program), can start bringing their applications and services to the Google Assistant, starting with what the company calls “conversation actions” on Google Home. This allows developers to create back-and-forth conversations with users through the Assistant and users can simply start these conversations by using a phrase like “OK Google, talk to Eliza.”
While the Assistant also runs on the Pixel phones and inside the Allo chat app, Google says it plans to bring actions to these other “Assistant surfaces” in the future, but it’s unclear when exactly this will happen.
To help developers who want to build these new Conversation Actions get started, Google has teamed up with a number of partners, including API.AI, GupShup, DashBot and VoiceLabs, Assist, Notify.IO, Witlingo and Spoken Layer. Google has also allowed a small number of partners to enable their apps on Google Home already. These integrations will roll out as early as next week.
Given that users will be able to invoke these new actions with a simple command (and without having to first enable a skill, like on Alexa), Google’s platform looks to be a rather accessible and low-friction way for developers to get their voice-enabled services to users. Google will have the final say over which actions will be enabled on Google Home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PURE modules
https://hackaday.io/project/12808-pure-modules
Simplifying development of low power wireless IoT hardware and software sensor prototypes with a modular sensor architecture
PUREmodules.com attempt to simplify developing (low power wireless) sensor prototyping.
UPDATE!! Just funded to 100%. Thanks all current backers
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pureengineering/puremodules-for-dreamers-tinkerers-hackers-and-des Check out the kickstarter Project page.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aquila 2.0 – MQTT-SN based IoT Platform
MQTT for low power devices
https://hackaday.io/project/16031-aquila-20-mqtt-sn-based-iot-platform
Aquila 2.0 implements a MQTT-SN gateway, bridge and libraries for wireless nodes.
It allows the communication of low power devices using various types of RF (currently 915MHz rfm69 radio and 2.4 Ghz 802.15.4 Altair board) with standard MQTT networks without losing the low power nature of the devices and the features of a full MQTT implementation.
Characteristics of Aquila 2.0:
- Ideal for low power networks
- MQTT all the way via MQTT-SN
- Sleeping nodes support according to MQTT-SN spec
- Security by default (using radio encryption features when available)
- Easy and flexible implementation
- Interoperability between different wireless networks via MQTT
Aquila 2.0 consists of:
- Gateway MQTT-SN
- Bridge (Firmware)
- Wireless nodes (Firmware and MQTT-SN libraries)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronic nose to detect fruit ripening
Can we get fruit trees to report to us when their fruit is ripe?
https://hackaday.io/project/16809-electronic-nose-to-detect-fruit-ripening
Our organization (Concrete Jungle) picks fruit from urban fruit trees around the Atlanta area. One problem that we face is that as we grow, it becomes harder and harder for us to keep track of our trees — they all produce on slightly different schedules (or not at all) and we need to know what each is doing before we can plan a fruit-picking event.
We’ve teamed up with Carl DiSalvo’s Public Design Workshop at Georgia Tech to try to create an electronic nose that can smell fruit ripening in a tree. This way the tree could let us know when it’s ready to be picked. We’re trying to work with cheap Taguchi gas sensors as you might find on Sparkfun. Although these sensors are sold as a propane/alcohol/… sensor, they are not particularly specific to those gases. We’re hoping that by using an array of these sensors we’ll be able to tease out a meaningful signal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Moynihan / Wired:
How devices like Echo and Home record your voice and why, what they do with the data, and how to scrub those recordings
Alexa and Google Home Record What You Say. But What Happens to That Data?
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/alexa-and-google-record-your-voice/
If you got an Amazon Echo or Google Home voice assistant, welcome to a life of luxurious convenience. You’ll be asking for the weather, the news, and your favorite songs without having to poke around on your phone. You’ll be turning off lights and requesting videos from bed. The world is yours.
But you know what? That little talking cylinder is always listening to you. And not just listening, but recording and saving many of the things you say. Should you freak out? Not if you’re comfortable with Google and Amazon logging your normal web activity, which they’ve done for years. Hell, many other sites have also done it for years. Echo and Home simply continue the trend of saving a crumb trail of queries, except with snippets of your voice.
However, it’s still a reasonable concern for anyone worried about privacy. If you only use Chrome in “Incognito Mode,” put tape over your laptop camera, and worry about snoops sniffing your packets, a web-connected microphone in your home seems risky. It’s a fair thing to be unsettled about. But recording your voice is a major part of how voice assistants work. Here’s how devices like Echo and Home record your voice, why they do it, what they do with the data, and how to scrub those recordings.
How In-Home Voice Assistants Work
Whenever you make a voice request, Google Home and Alexa-enabled devices record or stream audio clips of what you say. Those files are sent to a server—the real brains of the operation—to process the audio and formulate a response. The recorded clips are associated to your user account, and that process is enabled by default.
Because their brains are located miles away, Echo and Home need an internet connection to work. They do have a very rudimentary education, though: The only spoken commands they understand on their own are “wake words” or “activation phrases,” things like “Alexa” or “OK Google.” Once you say those magic words, the voice assistants jump to life, capture your voice request, and sling it to their disembodied cloud brains over Wi-Fi.
That means their mics are listening to you even when you’re not requesting things from Alexa or Google. But those ambient conversations—the things you say before “Alexa” or “OK Google”—aren’t stored or sent over a network.
Why Do They Need to Eavesdrop?
Listening to what you say before a wake word is essential to the entire concept of wake words.
Is This Secure? Can Hackers Tap In and Listen To Me?
Nothing is impossible, but Amazon and Google both have security measures that prevent snoops from wiretapping your home. The audio zipping from your home to Amazon and Google’s data centers is encrypted, so even if your home network is compromised, it’s unlikely that the gadgets can be used as listening devices. A bigger risk is someone getting hold of your Amazon or Google password and seeing a log of your interactions online.
There are also simple measures you can take to prevent Echo and Home from listening to you when you don’t want them to. Each device has a physical mute button, which cuts off the mic completely.
What About Siri?
Siri records your queries too, but she doesn’t catalog them or provide access to the running list of requests. You can’t listen to your history of Siri interactions in Apple’s app universe.
While Apple logs and stores Siri queries
Well, How About Cortana?
Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant on Windows 10 works a bit differently, but it still mirrors some of your personal information on servers. To customize your experience, Cortana uses a combination of cloud-stored data and on-device data.
What Happens To Your Recorded Audio Clips?
Google users can find everything they’ve asked for by visiting myactivity.google.com while they’re logged into their account. This query museum doesn’t just include voice requests. It also includes any Google searches, YouTube videos, and apps you’ve launched on Android, among other things. It’s all presented in a neat, searchable chronological stack.
How to Stop and Delete Voice Recordings in Google Home
There’s a hardware and a software way to silence Home’s microphone. The easy hardware method is to just tap the “Mute” button on the back of the device. Of course, the Assistant won’t record (or hear) your voice queries while mute is enabled.
How to Stop and Delete Voice Recordings in Alexa
Amazon’s Alexa app doesn’t let you stop recordings altogether, but just like Google Home, there’s a mute button on its Echo devices for temporary privacy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I want a smart home. What’s the simplest way to start?
Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode and Dan Seifert discuss on Too Embarrassed to Ask.
http://www.recode.net/2016/12/9/13894976/smart-home-homekit-smartthings-amazon-echo-dan-seifert-recode-podcast
“There is one that I can recommend that covers most of the bases: If you are looking to start with a smart home today, I would recommend looking at the Samsung SmartThings hub.”
So what makes SmartThings a better start than Apple HomeKit, which the listener who wrote in had bought? Seifert stresses that Samsung’s smart home hub isn’t “fully universal,” meaning it doesn’t work with everything, but it works with a greater portion of the hardware that’s currently on the market.
“SmartThings doesn’t work with HomeKit. Frankly, not much works with HomeKit,”
“The Echo and Echo Dot are not smart home hubs in and of themselves,” he said. “They are access points to control your smart home. Some things need a hub; some things work directly. The WeMo switch works directly with the Echo, so you don’t need a hub for that. However, a hub will give you many more options, so a SmartThings hub will let you add lights and switches and all kinds of things in the future.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Handy Tutorial For Voice-Command Awesomeness
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/09/a-handy-tutorial-for-voice-command-awesomeness/
Instructables user [PatrickD126] couldn’t find a write-up on how to connect Amazon’s Alexa service, and Echo to his Raspberry Pi home security system, so his handy tutorial should get you up to speed for your own projects.
Control Raspberry Pi GPIO With Amazon Echo and Python
http://www.instructables.com/id/Control-Raspberry-Pi-GPIO-With-Amazon-Echo-and-Pyt/
Tomi Engdahl says:
No Programming Required: Start-Up Rolls Out Simple IoT Solution
Low-cost system aims to take pain out of IoT set-up.
http://www.designnews.com/iot/no-programming-required-start-rolls-out-simple-iot-solution/112616127046242?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161209.tst004c
A start-up says it wants to take the pain and cost out of Internet of Things (IoT) sensing applications by offering a unified solution that requires no programming skills or technical expertise.
Swift Sensors Inc. debuted its Cloud Wireless Sensor System today, saying it delivers IoT technology to those who can benefit from cloud-based sensing but haven’t had the capability to set up such systems up to now. “You don’t have to have a background in engineering or IT to set up our sensors,” Ray Almgren, chief marketing officer for Swift Sensors, told Design News . “The sensors will automatically find our bridge and our bridge will automatically, securely communicate with the cloud. So in a matter of an hour, you can outfit an application and be looking at the data.”
The Cloud Wireless Sensor System represents a departure from the norm, in that it is low-cost and requires no programming or network configuration. Its main components are matchbook-sized wireless sensors, a sensor bridge that links the sensors to the cloud, and a web-based dashboard that configures the system for data monitoring.
“No on-premises equipment is needed by customers to be maintained, debugged, or updated,” Almgren told us. “All of the data stays on the cloud. We maintain it and keep it up to date.”
“Users can be plant managers, restaurant owners, or building supervisors,” Almgren said. “This system will do real-time tracking of all their sensors.”
Individual sensors start at $59 and sensor bridges at $149. Users must also pay a $3-per-sensor monthly cloud subscription fee. The system allows for thresholds to be set for sensor data, and if the data goes outside those thresholds, the users automatically receive warnings by text, email, or phone.
Swift Sensors Cloud is the control and storage center for the entire distributed sensing system
https://www.swiftsensors.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Develop Your Own Home Automation Devices
http://www.designnews.com/automation/how-develop-your-own-home-automation-devices/81583690046215?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161209.tst004c
In this week long webinar course, participants will explore the inner workings of smart home technologies through hands-on prototyping and experimentation of home automation concepts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
UART to Wi-Fi Bridge with 24 VAC Power Reference Design
http://www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00375?hqs=sys-ind-ba-pentonever-asset-rd-null-wwe&DCM=yes
The TIDA-00375 TI Design uses Texas Instruments SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3200 Internet-on-a-chip Wireless MCU module to create a data bridge between existing hardware with a logic-level UART interface and a Wi-Fi network. The design also contains a Simple Switcher power supply with a wide input range suitable for 24 volt HVAC systems. The UART interface has buffers to allow this design to interface with equipment that has logic levels between 3.3 volts and 5 volts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forrester recognizes IBM as a leader among IoT platforms
https://developer.ibm.com/iotplatform/2016/11/21/forrester-lists-ibm-as-an-iot-platform-leader/?WOW_IoT_Sense_Newsletter_12092016_Send1%20remainder
Forrester has positioned IBM as an IoT platform leader
In the newly-published report, The Forrester Wave™: IoT Software Platforms, Q4 2016, vendors are evaluated on their current offering, strategy and market presence. According to Forrester, IoT software platform vendors offer capabilities that fall into five core categories:
Connect: create and manage the link from the device to the internet.
Secure: protect IoT devices, data, and identity from intrusion.
Manage: control the provisioning, maintenance, and operation of IoT devices.
Analyze: transform data into timely, relevant insight and action.
Build: create applications and integrate with enterprise systems.
In the Forrester Wave report, IBM Watson IoT Platform is positioned in the leaders section.
”The Watson IoT Platform can serve a broad range of advanced IoT use cases. The tech giant doubled down on IoT in 2015 with an investment of $3 billion dollars to create a new IoT business unit. The new org includes more than 1,000 researchers, developers, and designers dedicated specifically to developing the Watson IoT Platform. Since then, IBM has added significant capabilities to the platform, including augmented reality, cognitive capabilities, blockchain, edge analytics, analytics tooling, and natural language processing to name a few.”
You can trial the Watson IoT Platform free.
You can also enroll in the IBM and Coursera “A developer’s guide to the Internet of Things” course.
And of course, if you’d like to read the full Forrester’s Wave on IoT Platforms, you can find the full report here The Forrester Wave™: IoT Software Platforms, Q4 2016
http://www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/learn/library/build-skills/?WOW_IoT_Sense_Newsletter_12092016_Send1%20remainder&spMailingID=16090219&spUserID=MzA4MTM5MjU5ODgxS0&spJobID=920846057&spReportId=OTIwODQ2MDU3S0
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
IIoT’s profit prospects; Intel inks a deal with AWS; security experts call on Congress.
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-30/
Some consumer IoT products are actually useful and helpful in daily life, such as the Nest Learning Thermostat and the Honeywell Lyric for home automation, David Pogue writes. Then there are the products that make most people scratch their heads – IoT water bottles, the IoT toilet-paper dispenser, the IoT toothbrush, IoT umbrella, IoT fork, the IoT egg tray, and so on, he notes. “Most people (and most reporters) who use the term ‘Internet of Things’ are talking about consumer products. And sure enough: IoT adoption in consumer products isn’t what you’d call white hot,” Pogue writes. “There is, however, a second IoT universe where these technologies make a lot more sense: Industrial and commercial uses.” Accenture forecasts corporate enterprises will be spending $500 billion a year on Industrial Internet of Things technologies by 2020.
Intel and Amazon Web Services have agreed to collaborate on developing products and services for the smart home, along with IoT-based asset tracking for industrial applications.
VeriSolutions is utilizing AT&T’s IoT technology as part of its IoT platform to ensure food safety in the restaurants it serves.
The October 21 cyberattacks on Dyn inconvenienced many people, unable to contact their favorite websites. Such distributed denial-of-service attacks have the potential to harm or kill people, cybersecurity experts testified before Congress. Kevin Fu, a University of Michigan professor specializing in cybersecurity, said hospitals are no place for unsecured IoT devices, for instance.
While unsecured IoT devices were used in the October DDoS attack that crippled many websites, unsecured routers are also vulnerable to hacking
The IoT security market is forecast to reach $37 billion by 2021, for a compound annual growth rate of 36%, according to the Global Internet of Things (IoT) Security Market Research Report 2016.
IoT In Action
Kii partnered with AQMesh to help The Hamburg Port Authority measure and analyze air pollutants at the German port. “The IoT pilot project has been very successful for us,” said Ulrich Baldauf, Head of IT Strategy at HPA. “We have been able to measure numerous parameters of air pollution live, e.g. the emission of particulate matter of particle size PM2.5 and PM10, or, in some cases, even nitrogen dioxides, which generally account for only 10 billionths of the total air. The Kii platform enabled us to collect the various data sources in a uniform manner and to prepare them for analysis.”
Testing
The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory this week launched its Internet of Things Internet protocol testing services, addressing IoT products in connected cars, home environments, industrial networks, and smart cities. “As the world becomes increasingly connected and demand for IoT devices grows, companies are facing the challenge of how best to ensure interoperability, functionality, and security, while maximizing quality of experience for customers,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security Experts Warn Congress That the Internet of Things Could Kill People
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603015/security-experts-warn-congress-that-the-internet-of-things-could-kill-people/?utm_campaign=internal&utm_medium=homepage&utm_source=features_1
Poorly secured webcams and other Internet-connected devices are already being used as tools for cyberattacks. Can the government prevent this from becoming a catastrophic problem?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turnkey Sensor System Gives Users Taste of the IIoT
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=8&doc_id=1330964&
Cost and design complexity have kept many potential beneficiaries from joining the IIoT, but turnkey systems can resolve those problems.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers great potential for substantial returns on investment when applied, but for many potential users the cost and complexity of designing and implementing a system is a roadblock. In addition, industrial users are reluctant to tinker with a working legacy system in order to add connectivity. Now a turnkey wireless sensor system has arisen that makes it easy for those users to automate cloud-based monitoring of their processes and equipment and take their first steps into the IIoT.
The developers at Swift Sensors have been quietly developing and field-refining with beta customers a suite of wireless sensor modules, bridge, and cloud services to provide users with a simple, scalable, and secure monitoring system for commercial applications, including industrial, retail, and restaurant services. But they’re not calling themselves an IoT company, yet, according to company CEO Sam Cece. “Most customers don’t know what that means,” Cece said in an interview with EE Times. What they do know is that they have processes and environments to monitor that they currently use manual methods for that they want to automate, he added.
https://www.swiftsensors.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sweating Big Human-Body Data Challenge
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330949&
Ali Javey, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, likes to describe his team’s wearable electronics project as “big data of the human body.”
Today’s wearable sensors are already tracking a user’s physical activities and vital signs. But “none can monitor health conditions of an individual at the molecular level,”
And yet, “data acquisition” remains the biggest challenge, as noted by a Texas Instruments (TI) research team who presented a paper on “Circuits and Systems for Energy Efficient Smart Wearables.”
The Holy Grail is the development of ultra-low power, flexible, printable electronics. This would enable continuous monitoring of health conditions and make real-time, non-invasive data acquisitions possible.
Among them, Javey’s team’s paper on “Wearable Sweat Bio-sensor” stood out, as the team explores “on-body monitoring of a wide spectrum of sweat biomarkers.”
“We chose sweat because it is the most easily accessible bodily fluid.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Canadian Startup Aims to Connect Everything With Style
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330968&
Recently founded Canadian startup Ubiqweus Inc. is launching a Kickstarter campaign for a set of super easy to deploy Wi-Fi-enabled one-inch cubic sensors, packaged attractively and made to last.
Of course there are many motes, beacons and sensor nodes on offer out there, so what’s the novelty in adding yet another pack of motion, light, temperature and humidity sensors to the market place?
“When we looked around for a solution, we found that the least expensive solutions were little boards like the Raspberry Pi, but you had to hack it in order to make it work your way, there were no easy consumer product able to do this. Any readily integrated industrial solution would cost over US$500 to have a hub and a few sensors and still, it took the most of a day to set up and make it work,”
“We were looking for a very simple sensor that anyone could use without requiring skills or a computer degree. So we decided to simplify it to the maximum and make one sensor per device, with each device connected independently,”
Once commercialized, the co-founders expect the qBiq sensors to retail for about CA$59, just over US$40. The Kickstarter campaign promises even more competitive pricing at CA$40 for early birds.
“Just scan the QRcode on the cube, and you get to the device’s website address, with a user interface that displays data the way you want,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Devindra Hardawar / Engadget:
Jaap Haartsen on how he invented Bluetooth back in 1994, the protocol’s future, the state of wireless audio now that Apple killed iPhone’s headphone jack, more
The inventor of Bluetooth on where wireless is going next
Twenty-two years after designing Bluetooth 1.0, Jaap Haartsen is still working to push the standard forward.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/09/bluetooth-inventor-jaap-haartsen-interview/
Bluetooth has come a long way. It’s gone from being a frustrating standard that only businesspeople used for mobile headsets to something that millions rely on daily for wireless speakers and headphones, syncing with wearables and more. And now, with Apple and other companies pushing consumers toward wireless headphones (and away from the tried-and-true 3.5 headphone jack), Bluetooth finally has a chance to shine.
Jaap Haartsen, who spearheaded the design of the standard in 1994 while working at Ericsson and currently serves as a wireless expert at Plantronics, was recently inducted into the Consumer Technology Association Hall of Fame.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineers have achieved Wi-Fi using 10,000 times less power
No more draining your phone’s battery.
http://www.sciencealert.com/engineers-have-achieved-wi-fi-using-10-000-times-less-power
Wi-Fi is amazing, but there’s no denying that all those hours of Netflix binging and scrolling Facebook can be a real energy suck, rapidly draining your phone’s battery life.
But engineers in the US have just generated Wi-Fi transmissions that use 10,000 times less power than conventional methods, which means you can have everything downloading all the time, without sacrificing battery life. And it can already be used with off-the-shelf smartphones.
So far, the team from the University of Washington has only managed to achieve speeds of 11 megabits per second with the new connection
But they’re working on getting the connection faster, and, more importantly, they’ve already shown that their ‘passive Wi-Fi’ technology works in real-world testing – it reportedly integrates “seamlessly” with existing routers and smartphones.
“We wanted to see if we could achieve Wi-Fi transmissions using almost no power at all,” says one of the team, Shyam Gollakota.
“That’s basically what Passive Wi-Fi delivers. We can get Wi-Fi for 10,000 times less power than the best thing that’s out there.”
relegating all analogue RF functions to one single plug in device.
That plugged in device generates the Wi-Fi signal using an array of sensors, and those Wi-Fi packets are then reflected and absorbed using a digital switch known as the ‘passive Wi-Fi’ device, which runs on barely any energy at all.
The passive Wi-Fi bounces the information to your smartphone or router, where it can be received by consuming only 15 to 60 microwatts of power
In real-world tests, the passive reflectors could communicate with off-the-shelf smartphones even at distances of 30 metres (100 feet).
“The passive devices are only reflecting to generate the Wi-Fi packets, which is a really energy-efficient way to communicate.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
nternet of Things Product of the Year
Winner: Battery Powered Mobile IoT Nursing Workstation — Onyx Healthcare USA, Inc.
Cassia Hub Bluetooth Router — Cassia Networks
Valor IoT Manufacturing Solution — Mentor Graphics Corporation
Source:
ACE Awards winners and finalists
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330959&
Tomi Engdahl says:
More Blinky = More Better – The WS2812FX Library
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/12/more-blinky-more-better-the-ws2812fx-library/
The WS2812 is an amazing piece of technology. 30 years ago, high brightness LEDs didn’t even exist yet. Now, you can score RGB LEDs that even take all the hard work out of controlling and addressing them! But as ever, we can do better.
Riffing on the ever popular Adafruit NeoPixel library, [Harm] created the WS2812FX library. The library has a whole laundry list of effects to run on your blinkenlights – from the exciting Hyper Sparkle to the calming Breathe inspired by Apple devices. The fantastic thing about this library is that it can greatly shorten development time of your garden-variety blinkables – hook up your WS2812s, pick your effect, and you’re done.
[Harm]’s gone and done the hard yards, porting this to a bevy of platforms – testing it on the Arduino Nano, Uno, Micro and ESP8266. As a proof of concept, they’ve also put together a great demonstration of the software – building some cute and stylish Christmas decorations from wood, aluminium, and hacked up Christmas light housings. Combining it with an ESP8266 & an app, the effects can be controlled from a smartphone over WiFi.
ESP8266/WS2812 LED Star
http://www.kitesurfer1404.de/tech/led-star/en
WS2812 FX Library for Arduino and ESP8266
https://github.com/kitesurfer1404/WS2812FX#ws2812fx—more-blinken-for-your-leds
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth Turns 5
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/12/bluetooth-turns-5/
Last week, the latest and greatest member of the Bluetooth family of wireless specifications was announced to the world: Bluetooth 5! What main changes are in store? Read the FAQ (PDF), or dig into the full spec (bigger PDF) at 2,800 pages.
https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/adopted-specifications
https://www.bluetooth.com/~/media/files/specification/bluetooth-5-faq.ashx?la=en
https://www.bluetooth.org/DocMan/handlers/DownloadDoc.ashx?doc_id=421043
Tomi Engdahl says:
IR-blaster with CEC
Yet another IR-blaster, but this time with CEC (and WIFI)
https://hackaday.io/project/18911-ir-blaster-with-cec
As part of my home automation, I wanted to build a IR-blaster that would talk to homeassistant.io.
https://home-assistant.io/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Highly-wearable Heart Rate Monitor
https://hackaday.io/project/15050-highly-wearable-heart-rate-monitor
A low-cost, low-power and highly-wearable heart-rate monitoring device connected to a smartphone in Bluetooth LE.
This project is about creating a prototype of an affordable and highly wearable heart rate monitor. Ideally the form factor of the heart rate sensor would allow to wear it as a ring or wristwatch, which is convenient when practicing sports. In order to reach these objectives, the idea is to use an electronic module (the sensor) connected in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to a smartphone (the user interface). This way the module will remain simple, small and could be used with any BLE heart-rate application.
The sensor will be based on the classical infrared reflection method (photoplethysmography or PPG).
It embeds the Nordic nRF52832 which is an ARM Cortex-M4 + BLE connectivity.
The sensing part is composed of the TCRT1000 reflective optical sensor, a bipolar transistor to drive the LED and some resistors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft’s Windows 10 Creators Update will bring Cortana support to IoT devices with screens in 2017
Microsoft to bring Cortana to IoT devices with screens in 2017
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-bring-cortana-to-iot-devices-with-screens-in-2017/
Microsoft’s Windows 10 Creators Update, coming next year, will include the ability for Cortana to work from across the room with certain IoT devices — but only those with screens.
That’s according to information Microsoft officials provided to the company’s OEM partners at WinHEC 2016 in Shenzhen last week, in a session titled “Cortana and the Speech Platform,”
Microsoft Principal Program Manager May Ji outlined the ways that Microsoft wants its PC and device partners to make use of new “Wake on Voice from Modern Standby” and “Far-field Voice” support that’s being added to Windows 10 with the Creators Update that’s due out in the Spring of 2017.
Wake on Voice from Modern Standby is a feature that allows Cortana to turn on PCs from off to a full-powered state on devices with Windows 10 “Modern Standby” power-management support. Far-field voice is what will allow Cortana to work in rooms with ambient noise at a distance of up to 13 feet/4 meters away.
The Cortana on Windows 10 IoT Core rollout, which could lag by a few months the rollout of Windows 10 Creators Update for PCs and phones (if history is any indication) will begin with Cortana in English for the US and UK markets