Intel Edison IoT board

Intel has been active in Internet of Things product releases. As part of  IDF 2014 keynote, Intel has announced that their Edison development platform is now shipping. First announced back at CES, Edison is a development platform for Intel’s burgeoning Internet of Things development initiative. Intel is upping their bid for a place at the efficient-yet-powerful device table. Intel is pushing to break into both wearable devices and household devices, as it sees both as huge opportunities for growth. The plan seems to be that Edison Leads Intel into Wearables. Having largely missed the smartphone opportunity, Intel is clearly stepping on the gas to get ahead of the game in IoT.

Edison is very tiny x86 board. Phone chip (22nm Merrifield smartphone processor) powers consumer IoT drive: Edison is just over a postage stamp in size (35.5mm x 25.0mm) and containing a dual-core Atom CPU (500 MHz) and a Quark CPU (100 MHz). The 500 MHz Silvermont-class Atom is the main processor. Quark CPU (Lakemont-class core) acts as a sensor hub, scrubbing noise from accelerometers and other sensors. There is also 1 GB LPDDR3, 4 GB EMMC, and dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth® Low Energy on a module the size of a postage stamp.

With it Intel is hoping to jump-start development of tiny internet-connected x86 devices by providing a complete platform for developers to use in their devices. Originally envisioned to be an x86 computer stuffed into an SD card form factor, this tiny platform for wearables, consumer electronic designers, and the Internet of Things has apparently been redesigned a few times over the last few months. The current Edison is an upgrade from the initial concept announced a few months earlier.

For input and output connections Edison has a 70-pin connector to break out 40 pins for add-on hardware. In real life applications, Edison module would be pretty  useless by itself, you also need a base board of some kind to have sensible access to signals. Additional development boards to expand its functionality and access its I/O. Intel is demonstrating both a simple USB board and a more complex development boards for this task. There is a board that offers Arduino compatibility ($99) by providing Arduino R3 headers on there and software support to program with Arduino programming language. That’s interesting, and makes a fair bit of sense: there are thousands of Arduino-compatible shields out there. In this way developers take advantage of the current Arduino development ecosystem.

There will also be other boards and projects. Sparkfun Electronics has developed 14 stackable boards for Edison (the use a somewhat obscure Hirose 3mm connector may hold up their commercial availability for some time). So far, Intel has spawned about 40 Edison projects (check project gallery).

The price of the Edison is said to be 49$USD and it is shipping now (Intel gave IDF2014 attendees with the $50 module and a development board for free).  Wireless connectivity looks pretty nice  with WiFi and Bluetooth out of the box (Broadcom 11n Wi-Fi chip with dual antennas). Intel has the Product Brief for some more details. Read also Hands On with the Intel Edison article from Hack A Day.

The Intel Edison module now supports Linux. Intel ships Edison with a version of its Yocto distribution (It’s not quite a distribution but instead an Embedded Linux build system). The Intel Edison module will initially support development with Arduino* and C/C++, followed by Node.JS, Python, RTOS, and Visual Programming support in the near future.

Edison provides good connectivity for many current mainstream IoT uses: OEMs often turn to WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy links for IoT applications first, given their relatively high bandwidth and low power consumption. What if you want to add mobile connectivity to to your tiny IoT device (mobility, reliability, and security)? Intel has also solution to it in mind. Intel announced a 3G cellular modem XMM 6255 with an integrated power amplifier that fits into a 300 mm2 footprint, claiming it is the smallest such chip (proves 3G and 2G connections). Intel targets the XMM 6255 at Internet of Things uses in areas such as healthcare monitors and advertising. The modem is currently shipping in modules from U-blox AG. For LTE you can use XMM 7260 modem (used in Samsung Galaxy Alpha).

 

 

How this board would compare to some other Embedded platforms?

The combination of Edison and Arduino inteface board could be compared to Intel’s “Galileo” board, which is based on Quark (at 400MHz) and is Arduino compatible, but there are differences. Edison has a substantially punchier CPU; but no PCIe, wired ethernet, and includes wifi and BT. The teeny little one has relatively high powered CPU for a small device; but not the high speed expansion bus or wired networking.

Edison board is almost SD card sized IoT board. When the Intel Edison was first announced, speculation ran rampant that is would take on the form factor of an SD card (like Electric Imp). The end result was was 35.5mm x 25.0 mm for factor that is just barely larger than an SD card. Electonic Imp packs an ARM microcontroller and a WiFi adapter into an SD cardThe Electric Imp card itself will sell for about $25, but there are also dev kits to turn the Imp into an Arduino-compatible board. Electonic Imp is cheaper and has much less powerful CPU and less IO pins.

Edison is based on mobile chip like Raspberry Pi. Most probably Edison has more raw CPU power than Raspberry Pi and is considerably smaller. What Edison is lacking are wire Ethernet and display connections.

As Hands On with the Intel Edison article says: This isn’t a Raspi killer, a Beaglebone killer, a TI CC3200 killer, or an ESP8266 killer. It’s an x86 board, with WiFi, Bluetooth and Linux that can toggle a few pins. It’s something different than existing platforms, which is a good thing.

 

30 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Unboxing Intel Edison
    http://makezine.com/2014/09/10/unboxing-intel-edison/

    The board itself is small, a little larger than a postage stamp and has some nice specs

    Accessing those teeny tiny GPIO pins would be a challenge without the help breakout boards. Intel is providing one that has Arduino pin compatibility and another that’s much smaller for more advanced hardware developers.

    You can see the Edison, its Arduino breakout, and compare it in size to Raspberry Pi’s equivalent product, the Compute Module.

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    One of the major themes of the entire Intel IDF 2014 event has been the maker community and its outputs. Galileo development platforms in addition to Intel this year is bringing to the market the Edison called development platform, which is designed to allow extremely rapid development path from prototype to finished product.

    Individual IoT products, the market may not be huge in size, such as a smart baby rompers are only interested in parents of young children as much as a smartphone want it all. Edison was born, when Intel was wondering how small technology services companies to help, and make intelligent and networked devices development easier.

    Edison itself is about the size of a postage stamp squeezed into a package that is hidden inside the Atom processor, microcontroller, memory, as well as WiFi and Bluetooth radios. There are of two types of sales packages:

    One contains Edison and also a small circuit board that allows all of Edison’s 40 I / O bus becomes available (you need to solder wires to it)

    The larger package is compatible with the Arduino Uno larger printed circuit board, which can be connected directly to the Arduino add-on cards. Edison is also at the software level almost fully Arduino-compatible, so existing Arduino encoded programs should work on the problems.

    On the software side of Edison’s Atom-half drive yocto-Linux. Applications can develop the Arduino environment, C / C ++ -, Python and Node.js languages. Microcontroller side dev tools are under development.

    Edison’s architecture is completely open, and external developers are already turning, inter alia, Ubuntu and RobotOS operating system for it.

    The main difference between Edison, and the Arduino is Edison found on the Atom processor. Arduino just having a signal input pin and one to send something forward of the other. Data processing remains one of the more robust third party for treatment. Edison, in turn, raises the Atom, if necessary, their own half to perform the data analysis.

    Plain Edison alone is not exciting, but it enables a whole new range of ways to combine things together.

    Is not expensive

    The first Edison will arrive in Europe in stores in early October. Edison only a guide price is $ 50 (approx. EUR 38). The smaller the interface unit containing the package is priced around $ 60 (about 46 euros), and a larger, Arduino add-on cards to accept the version of the price of $ 85 (about 66 euros).

    Edison roadmap has already been a number of new versions

    Source: http://www.tivi.fi/blogit/uutiskommentti/pelle+pelottomat+tassa+teille+edison/a1011085

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Running Golang on the Intel Edison
    http://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/running-golang-on-the-intel-edison/

    While most embedded development is still done in C and/or assembly, some people are working with more modern languages. The team over at Gobot has successfully managed to get Go running on the Intel Edison.

    Run Golang On The Intel Edison With Gobot
    http://gobot.io/blog/2014/09/24/run-golang-on-the-intel-edison-with-gobot/

    We had previously tried running Golang code on the Intel Galileo when we first got our Gen1 board a few months ago, but were unable to run anything compiled in Golang on it at all, due to the Galileo not supporting the MMX instruction set.

    Once we got ahold of the Edison, we immediately retired to a corner of the conference, and set to work putting the new board through its paces. The results were successful! The Edison is able to run Go code.

    Of course, for us running Golang was just the beginning. We wanted to use the Edison’s many bult-in GPIO & i2c pins, so we can communicate with many devices.

    a short video using Gobot to control the Edison’s GPIO for reading analog input, and then using PWM output to turn on the LED

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Enginursday: Developing on the Edison
    http://freeio.org/2014/10/enginursday-developing-on-the-edison/

    Arduino – Training Wheels, Rapid Prototyping

    The Edison comes with nearly full Arduino support, as everything seems to require it these days. You’ll have to download the Edison version of Arduino, but, beyond that, things should begin to look familiar.

    All of the function calls, and the rest of the API is just like what you’re used to with standard Arduinos. Plus, if you use an Arduino Breakout Board, the pin-out is even shield-compatible. I see that familiarity coming in handy for two main markets: educators and rapid prototypers. Educators have the field-proven simplicity of the Arduino interface. Seasoned tinkerers, many of whom just need to get something working as a proof of concept, have a wealth of example sketches and libraries to depend on. Regardless of how ugly it may be under the hood, Arduino can get stuff done quickly. Speaking from experience, I used Edison’s Arduino interface – with a few modifications to the core code’s pin multiplexing – to prove out the OLED Block, so we can quickly move it along to production.

    Of course, what’s going on behind the single-window IDE is wholly different from the Arduino we’re used to. The libraries – everything from digitalWrite to WiFi – have all been re-written to work within the Edison’s Linux kernel. To load code onto your Edison, the Arduino IDE compiles it locally, then uses lsz to transfer the executable over to the Edison. The “Arduino sketch” is actually just one of many processes being managed by the operating system.

    The familiarity you might have with Arduino makes it great, but as a development environment – especially on the Edison – it can become very limiting, very quickly.

    If you know your way around gcc, g++, linkers, makefiles, and the like, you may want to jump off the Arduino boat and dive into a more general C/C++ development environment. The Edison’s default Yocto Linux install includes both gcc and g++ for all of your compiling needs.

    Since the Edison has built-in WiFi, you can connect it to the same network as your development box, then use SSH to upload new files to it.

    An even better approach, which I think we’ll see become the most popular one, is using a personal computer to cross-compile all of the Edison’s code. Then, after your computer quickly compiles, just transfer the executable over to the Edison (via SSH or USB) and execute. Intel offers an SDK on their downloads page, which has just about everything you’ll need to cross-compile.

    Edison includes support for both Python and node.js. These tools are great because they already have tons of support and examples behind them – and in a lot of cases they’re platform agnostic. Want to post to Twitter? There’s undoubtedly a Python script for that. Need to check the score of the baseball game? There’s a node.js package for that. One of the Edison’s main targets is IoT applications, and Python/node.js have become very popular in that realm.

    Building on that, if you’re really interested in IoT and node, check out the Intel XDK IoT Edition. A lot of the XDK seems like it’s centered around smartphone app development, but there is a section geared around “Internet of Things with Node.js Projects.”

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Edison is not a Raspberry Pi
    http://edn.com/electronics-blogs/hackwire/4435483/The-Edison-is-not-a-Raspberry-Pi

    Let’s do a little A:B comparison, shall we?

    I’ve been watching lots of comment channels regarding the Edison, and I see a lot of people slamming the Edison as compared to the Raspberry Pi over a few of the lines above:

    lack of USB (“Where am I going to plug in my keyboard and mouse?”)
    lack of video
    processor speed
    cost
    the I/O connector is impossible to use without an extra board

    All five of those points would be valid criticisms if the Edison were a single board computer like the Raspberry Pi.

    The Edison, on the other hand, is meant to be a deeply embedded IoT computing module.

    As for cost, yes, the Edison loses big time, until you add the cost of an SD card, a Wi-Fi dongle, and a Bluetooth dongle. That brings the prices much closer to parity, although still definitely not equal.

    Finally, the last point: that connector makes a lot more sense when you stop thinking of this as a competitor to the Raspberry Pi and start thinking of it as a competitor to, say, a bare ARM A9 or A11 SoC. The production requirements for any high-end SoC are pretty brutal: micro BGA packages are pretty unforgiving. Integrating the Edison into a product is much easier, and has the benefit of giving you Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (with and FCC ID!) to boot!

    The operating voltage of the Edison is perfect for single-cell LiPo operation; it even has a built-in battery charge controller. The Raspberry Pi, on the other hand, requires 5V, so you’ll need some kind of boost circuit or bulky battery pack to power it.

    Last but not least, consider the presence of the Quark onboard the Edison. While not supported currently, future software releases from Intel will enable this core, allowing real-time processes to run independently from the Linux core, which can be very important in embedded systems with a high cost of failure. It also ensures that stringent real-time applications can be handled without requiring a real-time Linux kernel.

    A much more reasonable comparison might be to stack up the Edison against the Raspberry Pi Compute Module; I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel Edison IoT Development Platform video introduction
    http://fi.mouser.com/new/Intel/intel-edison/

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel Edison IoT Development Platform
    http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/mouser/intel-edison-iot-development-platform

    The Intel Edison Internet of Things (IoT) development platform is series of low cost, general-purpose platforms featuring dual core Atom CPU and single core Quark MCU. The product supports more than 30 industry-standard I/O interfaces operating at input voltages of 3.3 V to 4.5 V.

    Features

    Edison SoC:
    – Dual Core Atom CPU at 500 MHz
    – Single Core Quark MCU at 100 MHz
    RAM: 1 GB LPDDR3 POP Memory (2 channel 32 bits at 800 MT/s)
    Flash Storage: 4 GB eMMC (v4.51 spec)
    WiFi: Broadcom 43340 802.11 a/b/g/n; Dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz); On board antenna or external antenna (see various configurations)
    Bluetooth: BT 4.0 + 2.1 EDR
    Support for more than 30 industry-standard I/O interfaces via a 70-pin connector
    Support for Yocto Linux, Arduino, Python, Node.js and Wolfram

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel IoT Analytics Dashboard
    http://www.instructables.com/id/Intel-IoT-Analytics-Dashboard/

    Intel operates a cloud service called IoT Analytics for users of the Developer Kit. Intel Galileo and Edison device developers can collect, store, and analyze data without having to invest in large-scale storage and processing capacity.

    This Instructable provides information on how to how to set up an Intel Analytics Dashboard account, connect a device to the cloud, control a device through the cloud, and run Arduino programs that communicate with the cloud.

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel unveils button-sized Curie module to power future wearables
    http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-01/07/intel-curie-quark-chip

    Intel has today unveiled Curie, a low-powered module no bigger than a button, as part of its vision to lead in the wearables field. Company CEO Brian Krzanich announced the module, which will be built on a tiny new chip called the Quark SE, during his keynote at CES in Las Vegas — a year on from announcing the Intel Edison platform.

    The module incorporates the low-power 32-bit Quark microcontroller, 384kB of flash memory, motion sensors, Bluetooth LE and battery-charging capabilities in order to power the very smallest of devices. Intel is hoping Curie will prove the flexible solution designers need to create wearables such as rings, pendants, bracelets, bags, fitness trackers and even buttons. It has been created with always-on applications in mind, so will be suitable for devices that relay notifications or constantly track a wearer’s activity.

    “You could think of it maybe as Edison for wearables.”

    Intel believes that predictions there will be 50 billion wearable devices by 2020 will not happen without platforms like Curie. “That’s not going to happen unless its approachable for people to build those devices,” says Bell.

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Running Doom On The Intel Edison
    http://hackaday.com/2015/01/10/running-doom-on-the-intel-edison/

    A few months ago, the Intel Edison launched with the promise of putting a complete x86 system on a board the size of an SD card. This inevitably led to comparisons of other, ARM-based single board computers and the fact that the Edison doesn’t have a video output, Ethernet, or GPIO pins on a 0.100″ grid. Ethernet and easy breakout is another matter entirely but [Lutz] did manage to give the Edison a proper display, allowing him to run Doom at about the same speed as a 486 did back in the day.

    2L DIGITAL Edidoom : Intel Edison based video game console playing Doom
    http://2ld.de/edidoom/

    The Intel Edison is a tiny system-on-a-chip (SOC), with a 500 MHz dual-core CPU, 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of permanent storage. It provides plenty of computation power to run older video games, like Doom from 1993. However what the Edison does not have built-in is any display, audio, or game input hardware. So this project was about adding those peripherals with sufficient performance to run a video game.

    :: Hardware

    Intel Edison compute module: core CPU, memory, storage
    Intel Edison kit for Arduino: easy connections for power and input/output pins for prototyping
    Adafruit 2.8″ TFT display: display with 8-bit data bus interface
    Speaker (8 Ohm, 0.5 W), 2N2222A transistor, capacitor, resistor: sound output from a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal
    Playstation 4 Bluetooth controller: input controller
    Prototyping breadboard, wires, 1 magic resistor (more on that later)

    The basis for the code is the original Doom source code, which is a port for Linux using X11 as video interface.

    Writing a driver for the display proved to be the largest effort, as no existing software provided fast enough solutions for hooking up this TFT display to the Edison.

    The resulting performance ended up at 64ms/frame for updating 320×200 pixels, with about 68ms/frame for the whole game tick, so about 15 frames per second.

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    EddiePlus, the Edison based balancing robot
    http://hackaday.com/2015/02/24/eddieplus-the-edison-based-balancing-robot/

    [Renee] dropped a tip to let us know about EddiePlus, her balancing robot creation. As its name might imply, EddiePlus is controlled by an Intel Edison processor. More specifically, [Renee] is using several of Sparkfun’s Edison Blocks to create Eddie’s brain. EddiePlus’ body is 3D printed, while his movement comes from two Pololu DC motors with wheels and encoders. The full build instructions are available as a PDF from [Renee’s] Google drive.

    http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:694969

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Connecting to Intel® Edison from Android* with Bluetooth* LE (BLE)
    https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/connecting-to-intel-edison-from-android-with-bluetooth-le-ble/?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Syndication&utm_content=outbrain&utm_campaign=AllZones_ASMO_March2015_TopTrendingContentBlog
    Bluetooth* LE (BLE) communication use is exploding both in commercial products and hobby applications, mainly due to its low-cost and low-power requirements. This makes it an excellent choice when you want to communicate from your Android* phone or tablet to your Intel® Edison or Intel® Galileo projects.

    The goal of this document is to show you how to write code and connect the hardware to establish BLE communication between an Intel Edison and a Bluetooth 4.0-equipped Android device, using free software tools and low-cost, off-the-shelf hardware.

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A Stack Of Boards For An Edison Breadboard Adapter
    http://hackaday.com/2015/04/01/a-stack-of-boards-for-an-edison-breadboard-adapter/

    The Intel Edison is a neat piece of hardware, but the connector for the Edison is extremely intimidating and the Mini breakout board is incompatible with breadboards. What’s [Federico], a builder of Internet of Things to do? Etch their own breakout board.

    The Mini Breakout board for the Intel Edison is the official ‘minimal’ offering for getting the Edison up and running with a mess of jumper wires and LEDs.
    it is terrible for prototyping

    [Federico] handled this problem with a copper clad board and a little bit of ferric chloride. He jumped into Eagle and created a breakout board to turn the 4×14 pin grid into a more sensible breadboard-friendly layout.

    Plug your Intel Edison in a breadboard
    http://www.instructables.com/id/Plug-your-Intel-Edison-in-a-breadboard/?ALLSTEPS

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel Edison: USB Storage Sled
    https://hackaday.io/project/4571-intel-edison-usb-storage-sled

    Prototype design of a USB Storage Sled for use with the Intel Edison IoT module. Implements SATA & PATA.

    A custom Shield project for my Intel Edison module. The PCB design incorporates the Intel Edison connector to interface with a 4port USB hub. Attached to that hub are the following ASICs:
    • USB-SATA => mPCIe socket => Intel SSD
    • USB-PATA => Microdrive Flex IDE

    The goals of the project is to enable expanded storage thru the SSD and temporary Swap space for the Linux and WindowsXP OSes on the Intel Edison.

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Gesture-controlled spiderbots understand and interpret motion
    http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/tech-edge/4439911/Gesture-controlled-spiderbots-understand-and-interpret-motion?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20150717&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20150717&elq=18c4fa3fc63745dd8b235beb981a92c5&elqCampaignId=23997&elqaid=27096&elqat=1&elqTrackId=d39b55f0ed8c4c81ac3851992e450c36

    At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Shenzhen, China, April 8 and 9, company CEO Brian Krzanich demonstrated continued improvements in Curie, a button-sized microcomputer based on the Intel 32-bit Quark SE system on a chip for wearable devices. Krzanich wore a Curie-powered wristband and controlled four machine spiders using a series of hand gestures that caused them to rise and stand on their legs, lift a limb, and go to sleep. He was even able to change the colors of LEDs on the robots.

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nyx: Edison – FPGA Devboard
    https://hackaday.io/project/7500-nyx-edison-fpga-devboard

    A development board with:

    Spartan 6 LX25
    Intel Edison
    Arduino Compatible headers (3.3V)
    8 x PMOD connectors
    4 x SATA connectors (used for 8 differential signal connections)
    Select-able voltage for the differential and lower 4 PMODs 1.2V, 1.8V, 2.5V and 3.3V

    Dionysus is a Spartan 6 LX9 Development board with 8MB of 100MHz SDRAM and a fast USB – FIFO interface between the host computer and the FPGA. It has served me well, I’ve developed a camera and LCD demo (Video below) as well as exercised most of the Nysa tool

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    EdiPlane
    An Intel Edison based RC plane flight controller
    https://hackaday.io/project/7516-ediplane

    I wanted to make a fully autonomous RC plane controller which can fly without any pilot input doing things like 3D mapping and other robotic related stuff. So I designed a simple board which can take use the intel edison as a simple flight controller!

    This board is a simple Intel Edison control board which uses an Intel Edison along with an ATMEL chip to enable autonomous flight with a high speed computer on board the plane itself. Essentially, a serial communication system is uses between the Intel Edison and the ATMEL chip which the ATMEL chip uses to obtain commands to create the corresponding PWM signals to the servos or the motor.

    The Intel Edison has onboard WiFi and Bluetooth which makes close range communication easy but long range communication hard which I hope to solve in the next version with a integrated 2.4 GHz data transmission line.

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Audio Effects on the Intel Edison
    http://hackaday.com/2015/12/02/audio-effects-on-the-intel-edison/

    With the ability to run a full Linux operating system, the Intel Edison board has more than enough computing power for real-time digital audio processing. [Navin] used the Atom based module to build Effecter: a digital effects processor.

    Effecter is written in C, and makes use of two libraries. The MRAA library from Intel provides an API for accessing the I/O ports on the Edison module. PortAudio is the library used for capturing and playing back audio samples.

    To allow for audio input and output, a sound card is needed. A cheap USB sound card takes care of this, since the Edison does not have built-in hardware for audio. The Edison itself is mounted on the Edison Arduino Breakout Board, and combined with a Grove shield from Seeed. Using the Grove system, a button, potentiometer, and LCD were added for control.

    Effects processor on Intel Edison
    https://navinbhaskar.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/effects-processor-on-intel-edison/

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Puzzle Alarm Clock Gets Couple Up In The Morning
    http://hackaday.com/2016/02/13/puzzle-alarm-clock-gets-couple-up-in-the-morning/

    the most prominent number should be the next alarm.

    To set the alarm, however, one must manually move the magnetized segments to the time you’d like to get up. Processing wise, for a clock, it’s carrying some heat. It runs on an Intel Edison, which it uses to synthesize a voice for the time, news, weather, and, presumably, tweets

    Puzzle Alarm Clock
    http://www.instructables.com/id/Puzzle-Alarm-Clock/

    In this instructable I am going to show how to build an alarm clock that allows you to set the wake-up time by arranging the digits.

    You can make the box out any material you like, as long the magnets are able to activate the reed switches through it.

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Smart HuD – A Smart AR Helmet
    A smart Helmet to keep you safe with luxury
    https://hackaday.io/project/9679-smart-hud-a-smart-ar-helmet

    With all the talk going around about everything turning smart, from your television, refrigerators to even wristbands, I thought I’d add something more to that list. Have you ever thought of having your ride to be smart? I would like to introduce a smart helmet that does more than just protect you while riding your bike.

    Some of you might be thinking about Skully or a seer helmet, but they are way too expensive because of the investment made in several years of product research. Besides, their technology is also proprietary so it is not possible for developers to hack it or reanimate the device.

    What is Smart HuD

    Most accidents happen in the city due to the distraction caused by phone calls while riding. Here’s a solution to solve that problem, the Smart HuD. It is a device that helps in delivering message notifications and it also navigates you straight through your helmet, causing less distractions thereby making it a safe ride.

    As a bicycle rider, I find it really hard to use Google Maps for navigation while riding my bike. I’m forced to rely on the voice navigation, which is not audible in noisy traffic. The Smart HuD helmet helps me reach my destinations with ease by navigating me through my helmet.

    Fitted with a GPS and accelerometer, both connected to the cloud, the geographical data collected helps in providing better terrain details for that the rider’s geographical location.

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel Ups The Dev Board Ante With The Quark D2000
    http://hackaday.com/2016/03/31/intel-ups-the-dev-board-ante-with-the-quark-d2000/

    Intel have a developer board that is new to the market, based on their Quark (formerly “Mint Valley”) D2000 low-power x86 microcontroller. This is a micropower 32-bit processor running at 32MHz, and with 32kB of Flash and 8kB of RAM. It’s roughly equivalent to a Pentium-class processor without the x87 FPU, and it has the usual impressive array of built-in microcontroller peripherals and I/O choices.

    The board has an Arduino-compatible shield footprint, an FTDI chip for USB connectivity, a compass, acceleration, and temperature sensor chip, and a coin cell holder with micropower switching regulator. Intel provide their own System Studio For Microcontrollers dev environment, based around the familiar Eclipse IDE.

    Best of all is the price, under $15 from an assortment of the usual large electronics wholesalers.

    This board joins a throng of others in the low-cost microcontroller development board space, each of which will have attributes that its manufacturers will hope make it stand out.

    Intel® Quark™ Microcontroller D2000
    http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/products/quark/mcu/d2000/overview.html

    Formerly Mint Valley

    The Intel® Quark™ microcontroller D2000, is a low power, battery-operated, 32-bit microcontroller with a more robust instruction set than other entry-level microcontrollers. The first x86-based Intel® Quark™ microcontroller, Intel® Quark™ microcontroller D2000 also increases input/output options over other entry-level microcontrollers. Within its small footprint, the Intel® Quark™ microcontroller D2000 includes an Intel® Quark™ ultra-low-power core running at 32 MHz, with 32 KB integrated flash and 8 KB SRAM.

    Intel® System Studio for Microcontrollers
    https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-system-studio-microcontrollers

    Development Environment for Intel® Quark™ Microcontroller Software Developers

    Intel® System Studio for Microcontrollers, an Eclipse*-integrated software suite, is designed specifically to empower Intel® Quark™ microcontroller developers to create fast, intelligent things.

    The Internet of Things (IoT) is the big growth wave in tech—from smart cities, homes, and classrooms to energy management, wearable devices, and much more. The Intel Quark microcontroller family extends intelligent computing to a new spectrum of devices requiring low power consumption for sensor input and data actuation applications.

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  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel takes aim at Arduino with US$15 breadboard
    Internet of Things We’re Gonna Crush Next?
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/14/intel_takes_aim_at_arduino_with_us15_breadboard/

    Having nominated the Internet of Things as key to its future strategies, Intel has added a super-cheap development board to its Quark lineup.

    At US$15, the Quark D2000 microcontroller development kit is Chipzilla’s latest attempt to plant a flag in the cheap-as-chips breadboarding market.

    It features a 32 MHz low-power core, 32 KB of integrated flash, a six-axis combination compass and accelerometer, temperature sensor, USB port, and a shield interface compatible with the Arduino-Uno.

    For software development, there’s the Eclipse-based Intel System Studio for microcontrollers, including the GNU compiler collection (GCC), Intel Integrated Performance Primitives for microcontrollers, Intel QMSI (a support package for the microcontroller’s software interface), and a bunch of sample applications.

    Intel’s clearly hoping the board will be an ARM-killer in maker/IoT developmen

    http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/embedded/products/quark/overview.html

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  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Home Automation and Monitoring with Edison
    http://hackaday.com/2016/04/15/home-automation-and-monitoring-with-edison/

    [Tyler S.] has built a home automation and monitoring system dubbed ED-E, or Eddie. The name is an amalgam of its two main components, the Edison board from Intel, and some ESP8266 modules.

    ED-E’s first job is to monitor the house for extraordinary situations. It does this with a small suite of sensors. It can detect flame, sound, gas, air quality, temperature, and humidity. With this array, it’s probably possible to capture every critical failure a house could experience, from burglars to water pipe leaks. It uploads all this data to Intel’s Analytics Cloud where we assume something magical happens to it.

    Lastly, ED-E, can turn things in the house on and off. This is accomplished in 100% Hackaday-approved (if not UL-approved) style with a device that appears to be a lamp cable fed into a spray painted Altoids tin.

    ED-E: Home Automation and Monitoring System
    Home Automation and Monitoring System with many sensors and actuators to keep your home safe
    https://hackaday.io/project/8011-ed-e-home-automation-and-monitoring-system

    ED-E (EDison-Esp8266, pronounced Eddie) is a 3D printable home automation and monitoring system using the Intel Edison board and esp8266. The system consists of three parts: the base unit, sensor units, and actuator units. The base unit is built with the Intel Edison and six grove sensors from Seeed Studio. The Edison logs data from the sensors in a MySQL database and sends it to the Intel Analytics cloud. If any of the sensors detect abnormal activity, a buzzer will sound and a email alert will be sent out notifying the user of the danger.

    Esp8266 sensor units consist of a esp8266, a sensor/detection circuit, and a lithium ion battery.When the detection circuit is triggered the esp8266 sends data to the base where it can be stored and analyzed.

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  24. Geremy says:

    Here is a great guide how to build Yocto image from sources and add 3G dongles support to Intel Edison http://bovs.org/post/168/Building-Yocto-linux-for-Intel-Edison-with-3G-USB-modems-support

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  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel Takes Another Step into Arduino World
    http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=28&doc_id=1330136&

    I’ve designed a fair number of PC boards with an Arduino-compatible heart, but I want more power, which sent me to the Edison.

    The Arduino began life as a simple and inexpensive 8-bit microcontroller teaching tool. In the intervening decade plus, it’s grown into a diverse platform that has revolutionized the microcontroller education and hobby worlds. Recent, more powerful additions to the Arduino family have added 16 and 32 bit processors and have brought the Arduino into commercial development as a rapid prototyping platform.

    One of the latest entrants to the world of high-performance Arduino compatibility is the Edison, from Intel. The Edison has a dual-core 500 MHZ Intel Atom processor, with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It comes with 1GB of RAM, 4GB of eMMC internal storage, and a USB 2.0 OTG controller (but not the connector).

    The Edison is set up to be Arduino software compatible. It also runs a pre-loaded Linux distribution. You can load Arduino code into it through the Arduino IDE, or you can load code through the Linux side, just like you would with any other embedded Linux distribution. When combined with the right add-on cards, this flexibility makes for a real quick initial bring-up, as well as the capability to do some real work.

    I recently purchased an Edison module with the intent of designing something around it. I also purchased a Sparkfun “Base block” daughter board, with USB connectors for the console and USB OTG.

    Intel takes another step into the Arduino world
    http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/benson-s-blocks/4442365/Intel-takes-another-step-into-the-Arduino-world

    Unfortunately, one of the first things I did with the Edison was break the board to board connector on the base block. I wouldn’t recommend doing the same thing.

    It’s too small for me to do anything with, but fortunately, the folks I work with at Screaming Circuits, my day job, can easily replace it for me. 0.4mm pitch high density connectors are really getting beyond the hand soldering capabilities of all but the most masochistic folks.

    Sparkfun made their Edison boards open source, and put the design files on the product pages of their website for download. Github, where most people place their design files, is nice, but I like having a direct download of the files in the same place I buy the board. Their EagleCAD files gave me a point of departure, with the board sized to match those at Sparkfun, and the high density connectors already placed and routed out. From there, I added the microSD socket, line level converters, and two connectors for I2C.

    I’m using a Texas Instruments TBX0108, 8-bit converter for the microSD card, and a pair of PCA9306 open drain 2-bit converters, also from Ti, for the 5 volt and 3.3 volt I2C interfaces. I

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  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How to Make a Basic Webserver on the Intel® Edison Using Node.js
    October 19, 2016
    https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/how-to-make-a-basic-webserver-on-the-intel-edison-using-nodejs?utm_campaign=IHI-IoT-Broad-Q4_16&utm_medium=Syndication&utm_source=Taboola&utm_content=&utm_term=&&utm_term=cbsinteractive-zdnet&utm_content=How+to+Create+a+Basic+Web+Server+on+Intel%28r%29+Edison+%5BVIDEO%5D

    This video is a step-by-step guide that shows you how to make a basic web server on the Intel® Edison using node.js to display the light levels in a room. See the written tutorial at https://software.intel.com/en-us/xdk-sample-creating-a-web-server.

    Reply
  27. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Intel Discontinues Joule, Galileo, And Edison Product Lines
    http://hackaday.com/2017/06/19/intel-discontinues-joule-galileo-and-edison-product-lines/

    Sometimes the end of a product’s production run is surrounded by publicity, a mix of a party atmosphere celebrating its impact either good or bad, and perhaps a tinge of regret at its passing.

    Then again, there are the products that die with a whimper, their passing marked only by a barely visible press release in an obscure corner of the Internet. Such as this week’s discontinuances from Intel, in a series of PDFs lodged on a document management server announcing the end of their Galileo (PDF), Joule (PDF), and Edison (PDF) lines. The documents in turn set out a timetable for each of the boards, for now they are still available but the last will have shipped by the end of 2017.

    It’s important to remember that this does not mark the end of the semiconductor giant’s forray into the world of IoT development boards, there is no announcement of the demise of their Curie chip, as found in the Arduino 101. But it does mark an ignominious end to their efforts over the past few years in bringing the full power of their x86 platforms to this particular market, the Curie is an extremely limited device in comparison to those being discontinued.

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