It’s undeniable: 2014 was the year when the electronics industry decidedly and collectively moved forward to push the Internet of Things (IoT). In year 2015 IoT markets will continue to grow. I think we’re going to see some critical mass on corralling the IoT in 2015. IoT is a young market – no one seems to be clearly leading. Communications are the key here. Over the last 10 years the world has done a remarkably good job of connecting the global wireless world. The last decade has radically changed the way we live. The smartphone and its cousin, the tablet, was the final link to ubiquitous wireless coverage, globally. The fantasy of the IoT is quite grand: everything on the planet can be smart and communicate. The idea is both powerful and impractical.
IoT is entering peak of inflated expectations: The Internet of Things is at that stage when the efforts of various companies involved in it, along with research, are proving to have a lot of promise. At this stage, the Internet of Things should not have too many difficulties attracting developers and researchers into the fold. As we turn to 2015 and beyond, however, wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity. Tie the common threads of IoT and wearables together, and an unstoppable market movement emerges. There seems to be a lack of public appreciation of the extent to which the Internet of Things is going to fundamentally change how people interact with the world around them.
On the other hand, the Internet of Things is getting poised to enter the trough of disillusionment, which means that there is more room for failure now. There are issues of security, privacy, and sharing of information across vertical implementations that still need to be worked out. Until they are, the IoT will not be able to fulfill all its promises.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting inert devices to the internet. The ‘Internet of Things’ Will Be The World’s Most Massive Device Market And Save Companies Billions Of Dollars in few years. BI Intelligence expects that the IoT will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019. This includes hardware, software, installation costs, management services, and economic value added from realized IoT efficiencies. The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs: increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace. The enterprise sector will lead the IoT, accounting for 46% of device shipments this year, but that share will decline as the government and home sectors gain momentum. I expect that home, government, and enterprise sectors use the IoT differently.
The IoT is only enabled because of two things: the ability of networks to reach countless nodes, and the availability of cost-effective embedded processors to attach to a multitude of devices. The prices for components and devices continues to decline while the skyrocketing global demand for 24/7 Internet access grows exponentially. The Internet of Things growth will benefit mostly from the autonomous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity that will make up the bulk of the objects of the IoT. This is the main driver for double-digit growth across verticals in the electronics, and especially the semiconductor industry well into the next decade. The IoT will connect places, such as manufacturing platforms, energy grids, health-care facilities, transportation systems, retail outlets, sports and music venues, and countless other entities to the Internet.
Internet of Things can become Engineering for Everyone. The emergence of open-source development platforms, developed and maintained by dedicated volunteers, has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms. The availability of open-source software and, more recently, hardware targeting embedded applications means that access to high-quality engineering resources has never been greater. This has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms to turn their own abstract concepts into real products. With the potential to launch a successful commercial venture off the back of tinkering with some low-cost hardware in your spare time, it’s no wonder that open-source hardware is fuelling an entirely new movement. A new generation of manufacturer is embracing the open-source ethos and actually allowing customers to modify the product post-sale.
Exact size predictions for IoT market next few years vary greatly, but all of the firms making these predictions agree on one thing—it’s going to be very big.
In year 2014 very many chip vendors and sensor algorithm companies also jumped on the IoT bandwagon, in hopes of laying the groundwork for more useful and cost-effective IoT devices. Sensors, MCUs, and wireless connectivity are three obvious building blocks for IoT end-node devices. Wireless connectivity and software (algorithms) are the two most sought-after technologies. Brimming with excitement, and with Europe already ahead of the pack, a maturing semiconductor industry looks expectantly to the Internet of Things (IoT) for yet another facelift. The IC sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $57.7 billion in 2015.
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner as automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. By 2018, the market value of IoT subsystems in equipment and Internet-connected things is projected to reach $103.6 billion worldwide, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0 percent from $39.8 billion in 2013.
BI Intelligence expects that by 2019 IoT market will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined. A new report by Yole Developpement pegs the market size in the $70 billion range by 2018, with the next five years presenting a golden opportunity for device makers as the IoT enters the growth stage. Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%.
Number of connected devices is expected to to reach 36 billion units by 2020, cautions that “all of this new market opportunity is under threat.” Other estimate according to market research firm Radiant Insights of San Francisco is that the number of Internet connections will grow from 9 billion devices in 2014 to 100 billion by 2020 (twice as many as the estimate from Cisco Systems Inc). IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020. Currently fragmented market, the number of cellular M2M connections could rise from 478 million today to 639 million in 2020.
By 2024, the report predicts that overall market value for components will exceed of $400 billion, of which more than 10% will come from hardware alone. Revenue from hardware sales will be only $50 billion or 8% of the total revenue from IoT-specific efforts, as software makers and infrastructure companies will earn the lion’s share. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large.
The growth of the IoT will present some very interesting issues in a variety of areas. You will see some very fast activity because unless it gets resolved there will be no IoT as it is envisioned.
General consensus is that the interconnect protocol of the IoT will be IP (Internet Protocol). As it stands today, the deployment of the billions of IoT objects can’t happen, simply because there just aren’t enough IP addresses with IPv4. While there is still some discussion about how to connect the IoT, most are in agreement that the IoT protocol will be IPv6. The first step will be to convert all proprietary networks to an IP-base. Then, the implementation of IPv6 can begin. Because direct interoperability between IPv4 and iPv6 protocols is not possible, this will add some some complications to the development, resulting in a bit of obfuscation to the transition for IPv6.
Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in the Emerging Internet of Things? I don’t see that possible. IoT will be in serious protocol war in 2015. There is a wide selection of protocols, but no clear set of winners at the moment. The real IoT standardization is just starting – There are currently few standards (or regulations) for what is needed to run an IoT device. There is no single standard for connecting devices on the Internet of Thing, instead are a handful of competing standards run by different coalitions of companies: The Thread Group (Qualcomm, The Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Panasonic), The Industrial Internet Consortium (Intel, Cisco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft), Open Interconnect Consortium (Samsung, Intel, Dell), Physical Web (Google), AllSeen Alliance (Samsung, Intel, Dell) and huge number of smaller non-standardized protocols in use. Each of the standards vary how they do things.
Anyone who tries to build a physical layer and drive a software stack based on it all the way up to the application layer is a fool. But many companies try to do it this year. Today Zigbee is the most cost effective, but tomorrow WiFi will figure it out. On networking field in every few years there’s a new management protocol – what will happen in IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs.
Currently the IoT lacks a common set of standards and technologies that would allow for compatibility and ease-of-use. The IoT needs a set of open APIs and protocols that work with a variety of physical-layer networks. The IP and network layer should have nothing to do with the media. The fundamental issue here is that at the moment the Internet of Things will not have a standard set of open APIs for consumers. IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs. I suspect that at some point, after the first wave of the Internet of Things, open APIs and root access will become a selling point.
It is not just technical protocol details that are problem: One problem with IoT is that it is a vague definition. Do we simply mean ‘connected devices? Or something else? One of the main issues, which will only get worse as the IoT evolves, is how are we going to categorize all the different objects.
Early in 2015, the Industrial Internet Consortium plans to wrap up work on a broad reference architecture for the Internet of Things, ramp up three test beds, and start identifying gaps where new standards may be needed. The group, formed by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Intel, now has about 115 members and aims to make it easier to build commercial IoT systems. The IIC hopes to finish a first draft of its reference architecture by the end of January and have it ratified by March. It will define functional areas and the technologies and standards for them, from sensors to data analytics and business applications. The framework includes versions for vertical markets including aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, smart cities, and transportation. A breakout section on security also is in the works. Hopefully the reference architecture could be used to help people construct industrial IoT systems quickly and easily.
With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attention. Smart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Even though the technology has been on the evolutionary fast track, integration has been slow. For car manufacturers, it is a little tricky to accept driverless cars because it disrupts their fundamental business model: Private resources will evolve to shared resources, centrally controlled, since autonomous vehicles can be controlled remotely.
Over the next few years, we’ll see a torrent of new devices emerge that are connected to the Internet and each other through a wide range of different wireless networking protocols. As a result, there’s a race on, not just to get those devices connected, but also to provide the network infrastructure necessary to managing all of them at scale. WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks are nowadays widely used, nut new alternatives are coming to solve applications were those technologies are not most suitable. There are different plans for wide area wireless networks that use licensed or unlicensed wireless bandwidth to transmit small amounts of data from various connected device – this could create its own connection to them in a cost effective manner without relying on existing cellular or WiFi networks.
Recently we have developed a pressing need, or desire to put our refrigerators, and everything we have access to while mobile, on the net, morphing the brave new world of the Internet of Things, into the Internet of Everything (IoE). And that will make that last 100 meters—that final frontier of interconnect—a reality. Today, only about 10% of the last 100 meter devices that will make up the IoT are connected. As the IoT evolves, other small cells such as businesses, city centers, malls, theaters, stadiums, event centers, and the like, will connect much of what they have on premise (soda or popcorn machines, vending machines, restaurants, parking garages, ticket kiosks, seat assignments, and a very long list of others). And, there are a very large number of devices that are short-range in all of these various cells. What was once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters.
Plenty of people and companies in the technology world tend to come at the Internet of Things by dwelling on the “Internet.” But what if, instead, we started with the “Things?” Knowing intimately what “things” are supposed to do and how they think and behave will be the key to solving one of the IoT’s most pressing issues: application layers. Over the past 18 months, the industry has launched numerous consortia, from Qualcomm’s AllSeen and Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium to Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Thread. Every entity says it’s targeting the “interoperability” of things at home, but each is obviously concentrating primarily on its own interests, and making their “layer” specifications slightly different from those pursued by others.
It seems that no industry consortium is particularly interested in defining — in gory detail — the specific functions of, say, what a door lock is supposed to do. The library of commands for each function already exists, but someone, or some group, has to translate those already determined commands into an IP-friendly format. One of the standards organizations will take up the challenge in 2015. This will be the first step to “knock barriers down for IoT” in 2015.
Missing today in the IoT are reliability and robustness. Consumers expect their light switched and other gadgets to be infinitely reliable. In many today’s products we seem to be far from reliable and robust operation. Today’s routers can relay traffic between networks, but they have no idea how to translate what functions each device attached to them wants to do, and how to communicate that to other devices. The network needs to be able to discover who else is on the network. Devices connected to network need to be able to discover what resources are available and what new devices are being added. The network needs to be extensible.
Despite the oft-mocked naming scheme, the Internet of Things (IoT) has an incredibly practical goal: connecting classically “dumb” objects—toasters, doorknobs, light switches—to the Internet, thereby unlocking a world of potential. Imagine what it means to interact with your home the same way you would a website, accessing it without geographic restriction. But there is one missing piece of the smart home revolution: smart home operating system. So what will be the system that capitalizes on the smart home in the same way, the enabler of all the applications and actions we want our homes to run and do? There are no ready answers for that yet. And there might not be a singular, cohesive operating system for your home, that this stuff isn’t one-size-fits-all. It might be that the real potential for home automation lies not in local software running on a home device but in the cloud. I think that the cloud is going to be more important over time, but there will always be also need for some local functionality in case the connection to cloud is lost. Right now the Internet of Things is rather disjointed compared to Internet and computers.
When everything will be connected, how about security? In the path to IoT, the issue of data and device security looms large. Security for the ‘Internet of Things’ will be talked about very much in 2015 for a good reason. As Internet of Thigs becomes more and more used, it will be more hacked. Thus security of Internet of Things will be more and more talked about. Virtually anything connected to the Internet has the potential of being hacked, no matter how unlikely. Internet of Things devices often lack systematic protections against viruses or spam. Nowadays most security breaches are software-based, when an application can be compromised. Counter-measures for such attacks range from basic antivirus scanning software, to embedded hypervisors to hardware-bound secure applications tying their execution to uniquely identifiable hardware. There is emerging customer demand for silicon authentication. But the threats extend way beyond software and some hackers will put a lot of effort into compromising a system’s security at silicon-level. Individual devices can get hacked, but all systems should have some way of self-checking and redundancy. Those IoT systems can be very complex at device and system level. The problem with complexity is that you create more attack points and make it easier for hackers to find flaws.
Experts recommend far more layers of cyberprotection than manufacturers have thought necessary. Because many of the devices will often be practically inaccessible, the “patch and pray” strategy used for many desktop software packages is unlikely to be an effective strategy for many forms of IoT devices. Right now, there are hundreds of companies churning out “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices as fast as they can, without thinking too much on the security issues they can cause in the future. The imperative is clear: Do your homework on the specific security features of any IoT device you might consider bringing into the home. What steps are IoT companies taking to keep us safe from others online, and what constitutes a truly “safe” smart appliance?
What we’re opening up is a whole new subject not just of security but of safety. That safety depends on devices to be constantly connected to the Internet the same way they’re connected to the power grid. That’s a whole new area that deserves its own consideration. Keep in mind that IoT is one field where cyber security flaws can kill in the worst case. Connecting unrelated devices in the IoT means many more pieces now affect reliability and security. More devices are now considered critical, such as a connected baby monitor or a smart smoke detector, because wrong information can injure or kill people. The Internet of Things is coming no matter what happens. The people in charge of keeping the public safe and the industry healthy need to be ready.
The European Police Office (Europol) said governments are ill-equipped to counter the menace of “injury and possible deaths” spurred by hacking attacks on critical safety equipment. There are many potential dangers are in transportation: many new cars are Internet connected and potentially vulnerable, SCADA Systems in Railways Vulnerable to Attack and Airline bosses ignore cyber security concerns at their peril. With industrial control systems becoming network-connected, security risks rise and will need a long-term solution. In light of the trend toward the Industrial Internet of Things, development teams must start thinking hard about network security and planning for its long-term viability.
You have to accept the fact that at each point in the IoT there are vulnerabilities to malicious attacks and interception of vital information. Soon, almost every network will soon have some IoT-hacking in it. IDC predicts that in two years from 90 per cent of the global IT networks have met IoT data theft. In a report, cybersecurity firm Fortinet expects greater threats from “denial of service attacks on assembly line, factory, industrial control systems, and healthcare and building management…resulting in revenue losses and reputation damages for organizations globally.” This opens new doors of risks in the areas of corporate extortion, altering of corporate business operations, and the extension of cyberattacks to include physical threats of harm to civilians.
There are lessons to be learned to keep the cyber security in control in the IoT era. There will be lessons to be learned for all the parties of the IoT ecosystem. The companies that figure out how to make security available on multi-stakeholder platforms will be the most successful ones. Figuring out a secure platform is important, but having different levels of security is still important. Different uses have different bars. Security is a self-regulating system to some extent because it is supply and demand. That is the Holy Grail for technology right now, which is how to build systems with enough security—not 100% protection right now—from a unified platform point of view for multiple applications.
The data generated by the Internet of Things has the potential to reveal far more about users than any technology in history: These devices can make our lives much easier … The Internet of Things however, can also reveal intimate details about the doings and goings of their owners through the sensors they contain. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large. There is a lot of effort is going today at the government level. They’re not thinking about whether the Internet goes down. They’re worried about what happens if the Internet gets compromised.
When we have devices on the field, there is question how to analyze the data coming from them. This is easily a “big data” problem because of the huge amount of data that comes from very large number of sensors. Being able to monitor and use the data that comes from the Internet of Things is a huge potential challenge with different providers using different architectures and approaches, and different chip and equipment vendors teaming up in a range of different ways. Many large and smaller companies are active on the field: Intel, IBM, Lantronix+Google, Microchip+Amazon, Freescale+Oracle, Xively, Jasper, Keen.io, Eurotech, and many other.
The huge increase of data is coming. Radiant predicts that wireless sensor networks will be used to monitor and control very many domestic, urban, and industrial systems. This promises to produce an explosion of data, much of which will be discarded as users are overwhelmed by the volume. As a result, analysis of the data within the wireless sensor network will become necessary so that alerts and meaningful information are generated at the leaf nodes. This year has seen the software at the very highest point in the Internet of Things stack — analytics — becoming tightly coupled with the embedded devices at the edge of the network, leading to many different approaches and providers.
Integrating data from one IoT cloud to another will have it’s challenges. Automation services make big steps by cutting corners. Sites like IFTTT, Zapier, bip.io, CloudWork, and elastic.io allow users to connect applications with links that go beyond a simple synch. Check what is happening with integration and related services like IFTTT, ItDuzzit, Amazon Lambda. For example IFTTT is quietly becoming a smart home powerhouse.
Most important sources of information for this article:
With $16M In Funding, Helium Wants To Provide The Connective Tissue For The Internet Of Things
IFTTT, other automation services make big steps by cutting corners
Internet of Things: Engineering for Everyone
IoT in Protocol War, Says Startup – Zigbee fortunes dim in building control
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – Corralling the Internet of Things
What’s Holding Back The IoT – Device market opportunities will explode, but only after some fundamental changes
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – IoT, robots, 4K to dominate CES
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
Tech More: Mobile Internet of Things BI Intelligence Consumer Electronics – Most Massive Device Market
Wearables make hardware the new software
Zigbee Opens Umbrella 3.0 Spec
IoT Will Give ‘Embedded’ a Shot in the Arm - Connected cities to be largest IoT market
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Short-Range, Low-Power Sensors – once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters
The one problem the Internet of Things hasn’t solved
Plan Long Term for Industrial Internet Security
To Foil Cyberattacks, Connected Cars Need Overlapping Shields
IoT cybersecurity: is EDA ready to deliver?
More Things Are Critical Systems
Silicon, Security, and the Internet of Things
The missing piece of the smart home revolution
Hackers will soon be targeting your refrigerator
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Consumer Design Center > How To Article
Secure commissioning for ZigBee home automation using NFC
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4438456/Secure-commissioning-for-ZigBee-home-automation-using-NFC
Wireless sensor networks such as ZigBee can provide many benefits when installed in buildings, including improved comfort, cost, and convenience.
The low power wireless network ensures that devices can be deployed quickly and easily without the need for many meters of extra cabling which is costly to install whether in new build or refurbishment.
By deploying more sensors, thermostats for example, it is easier to regulate the temperature across the building on a room by room basis, leading to improved comfort. At the same time, cost can be reduced by managing the use of energy more efficiently.
All of these functions can be handled by a network such as ZigBee, but one of the issues of installation is the time taken to securely join all of these devices to the network and to establish the control relationships. This paper describes the implementation of a home temperature control system using ZigBee Home Automation. In particular, it describes techniques for secure installation and commissioning of devices using low cost NFC tags that are connected to the ZigBee wireless microcontroller, enabling exchange of information about the network such as security keys and device bindings.
The ZigBee Home Automation profile is constructed using the ZigBee PRO mesh networking stack. This ensures that dozens or hundreds of devices can connect together reliably using the ZigBee mesh networking stack that has been described extensively elsewhere. The Home Automation profile provides the functionality that allows everyday home devices to be connected and controlled or monitored. This functionality can be broken down into three basic areas; securely commissioning devices into the network, providing data connectivity between devices, and providing a common language for communication between different devices. In this paper, we focus on the issues involved in commissioning.
Security within the ZigBee network is handled by encrypting the data using the AES algorithm, seeded by a network security key. The network key itself is chosen randomly by the coordinator of the network and is therefore unique for every installation, protecting against casual interception of data or malicious attempts to control the network. New devices joining the network are not aware of the key, so need a secure mechanism to acquire it.
There is a default commissioning key defined within the ZigBee specification which can be used to encrypt the chosen network key as it is transferred to the joining device. This is very similar to the push button commissioning method used to add WiFi devices to a router in that the key could in principle be detected by a determined listener monitoring the network at the exact time of commissioning. However, for most domestic applications, this is a perfectly acceptable balance between risk and ease of use.
To avoid the potential for the security of the network becoming compromised, a fully protected method is required to transfer security information between devices and the network. This could take one of several forms.
What is needed is a robust and secure method of transferring information between a new device and the network itself, such as the use of NFC.
The simplest option is to use a purely passive NFC tag that can be programmed with a unique commissioning key. During manufacture, the single chip ZigBee device would be given a unique key to be used for the exchange of commissioning information. This unique key would then be copied into the tag, together with the MAC address
The end user would read the unique key in the tag using the built in NFC reader in their mobile phone. The phone is connected by WiFi to the gateway of the ZigBee network, so the key can be transferred securely.
This unique key is then used by the ZigBee coordinator to encrypt the network key which can be sent to the MAC address of the new device.
The full value of NFC can be realised when the tag is electrically connected to the ZigBee device. Effectively, the tag then behaves as a dual port memory. One port is connected to the NFC interface and the other to an I2C port. In this case, data can be transferred from the phone into the tag memory. The I2C port can then be used to transfer that information into the wireless microcontroller that manages the ZigBee network.
This capability opens up many possibilities for the commissioning of devices into a ZigBee network.
As the demand for home automation functionality grows, the need for secure systems becomes more important.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Make: Projects
Calling Out Around the World: Low-cost Global Satellite Signaling with Iridium
http://makezine.com/projects/make-37/iridiumsatellite/
you may be surprised to hear that the Iridium network is still up and running. You may be even more surprised to hear that plans are underway to launch a second-generation Iridium constellation, starting in 2015, called Iridium NEXT. And whatever the fate of that venture may be, the original satellites are expected to remain in service until the 2020s.
Though the U.S. Department of Defense remains a major user of the Iridium network, the big fizzle of the company’s original world-spanning private satphone service has resulted in a surplus of unused bandwidth spinning, quite literally, right over our heads. It’s a buyer’s market, and the tech to access it is now trickling down to hobbyists and entrepreneurs.
The RockBlock Naked Iridium modem costs about $250 (plus small monthly access and data charges) and lets you communicate with your project, through the web, anywhere on the surface of the planet you can get 100mA at 5V DC.
British developer Rock Seven Mobile, for instance, recently introduced an Arduino-compatible Iridium satellite transceiver called RockBlock (above). It can’t make real-time voice phone calls, but it can send “text messages” using Iridium’s short burst data (SBD) service. Outgoing messages of up to 340 bytes can be directed to an email address or a web server as an HTTP post. Incoming messages are limited to 270 bytes and can be received through the same channels.
RockBlock modems are being installed in high-altitude balloons, free-drifting ocean buoys, autonomous boats, and fixed-wing drone gliders, just to name a few. Connected to a low-cost GPS module, an AVR microcontroller, and a power source, the RockBlock becomes a global tracking device.
Don’t forget that the RockBlock can both send and receive messages, opening up a world of possibilities beyond basic tracking and monitoring apps
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Landscape Needs Mapping
Two sides and a middle
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325421&
In the first of a series of blogs on the Internet of Things, Larry Mittag outlines the landscape of concerns around constrained resources, network alternatives and security.
I must admit to a bit of amusement at the attention that IoT is drawing these days.
Now we come to the new frontier of the Internet of Things. From one point of view this is just a simple extension of the Internet and, of course, it will be using the same protocols as the rest of the network. Granted, the sheer number of devices will require the use of IPv6 protocols instead of IPv4, but this conversion is already well underway. (By the way, has anybody noticed this? Both my cell phone and home ISP now have IPv6 available. No muss, no fuss, it just works. I was watching for it and I am not sure when it happened, but it did.). From this point of view the IoT expansion is simply a matter of scaling up the infrastructure to handle the explosion of devices.
The other side of the argument is that there are fundamental limitations to the devices that are being enabled on the network that make this impractical. The sheer size and complexity of a TCP/IP stack are too much of a burden for a simple sensor, and the wireless communications will require too much power. What we need are special stripped-down networking protocols, adapted to the embedded environment. Many in this camp are also very skeptical about the whole idea of an IoT expansion that encompasses such a large universe of devices. Why do we need that, anyway?
Whenever there are two such polar points of view the reality is usually somewhere in the middle.
So if we concede that this whole IoT thing is worth doing we need to decide how it needs to be done. There are certainly challenges involved, not the least of which is who is going to pay for it. The cellular carriers are certainly willing to carry the traffic, as long as each device has an appropriate service plan with a meter attached to it. Many companies have proprietary radios and network stacks they pitch as the best solution. Anytime a new road into the wilderness is being built one of the first things that go up are the toll gates. This may be appropriate if the tolls pay for roads that lead to useful destinations, but we must be suspicious when the toll-takers guide the route.
A number of key decisions need to be made in IoT. One is how different the edge nodes will be from what we can build today.
Another question revolves around the network architecture that best supports a free-floating sea of sensors. The traditional tree structure of TCP/IP is one option, but there are also some very interesting MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork) architectures that are much more adaptable. Some of these propose mailbox delivery of data, challenging the connection-oriented nature of many of the TCP/IP protocols.
Finally, there is a huge elephant in the IoT room — an appropriate security model. The Internet pretty much dropped the ball on this issue in the design several basic protocols. We can cut them some slack since at the time there was very little understanding of just how big a problem this would become, but these days the issues are all too apparent. We need to analyze threats and security requirements of all devices to minimize similar problems in the future without putting too much load on the devices or overly limiting their usefulness.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lockitron Announces The $99 Bolt, A Deadbolt You Can Unlock With Your Phone
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/27/lockitron-announces-the-99-bolt-a-deadbolt-you-can-unlock-with-your-phone/
Y Combinator alum Lockitron is today launching the Bolt, a $99 follow-up to its troubled crowdfunded keyless-entry gadget.
The team also decided to go back to their original design of replacing the deadbolt altogether (while still letting you use your old keys as a backup) rather than trying to build a universal gadget that could fit over most deadbolts. As it turns out, there’s an absolutely huge variety of locks out there, and while their solution was in fact a “slot-in” solution for many, others found that the 20-minute setup time the company promised was really something like an hour.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printering: Remote control of 3D printers
http://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/3d-printering-remote-control-of-3d-printers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Misfit turns $50 Flash fitness band into smart home remote, too
http://www.cnet.com/news/misfit-turns-50-flash-fitness-band-into-smart-home-remote-too/
The Flash’s click-button will integrate across several services as Misfit aims to turn its wearable fitness gadgets into connected lifestyle remotes.
Misfit announced it’ll soon work as a sort of smart-home-operating remote, too, via a set of partnerships detailed in a press release today.
That one button on the Flash will now be connected to things like IFTTT, a connect-the-apps app service that already allows lots of devices and apps to trigger each other in pre-programmed sequences. Lots of wearables and fitness apps already work with IFTTT, including Jawbone Up, Fitbit, Android Wear and Withings.
Misfit also has more in store, targeted for a spring timeframe. The Flash will work with the Logitech Harmony API for home media and light controls. It will work with the August Smart Lock to unlock your door, if you so wish. or work with Nest thermostats to begin adjusting your home’s temperature as you wake up (coming in March, according to Misfit).
Tomi Engdahl says:
RS-485 COMMUNICATIONS MICRO PLC CARD
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/maxim/rs-485-communications-micro-plc-card
Maxim Integrated employs some of its high performance RF design products into a single system board, creating the MAXREFDES62#. This reference design is very suitable for industrial control and automation, where high system efficiency is a must. The board has a space-saver advantage and can be considered a small-solution footprint.
Industry 4.0 marks the fourth industrial revolution, characterized by distributed, intelligent control systems. Breaking from a past with large, centralized programmable-logic controllers, Industry 4.0 allows for highly configurable, highly modular factories that accept an ever-increasing number of sensor inputs and operate at a higher output than before. The ultra-small PLC, or Micro PLC, lies at the heart of the Industry 4.0 factory, providing high performance with ultra-low power consumption, in an ultra-small package. The MAXREFDES62# is Maxim’s micro PLC RS-485 communications card.
The entire system typically operates at less than 500mW and fits into a space roughly the size of a credit card.
System Board 5984
MAXREFDES62#: RS-485 Communications Micro PLC Card
http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/reference-design-center/system-board/5984.html?utm_source=EEWeb&utm_medium=TechCommunity&utm_term=2014&utm_content=Content&utm_campaign=Maxim
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sleepy Ofcom glances at Internet of Things, rolls over, takes nap
UK watchdog prepares 37 pages of nothing
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/28/sleepy_ofcom_welcomes_internet_of_things_takes_nap/
UK regulator Ofcom has published a report [PDF] into the so-called internet of things (IoT) in which it promises to do something at some point in the future.
In contrast to its US equivalent, the Federal Trade Commission – which also published a report on the internet of things today, complete with policy recommendations on security, ‘data minimization,’ and possible future legislation – Ofcom’s effort reads like a hastily written school paper.
“We note that traditional approaches to data privacy may have some limitations in the context of the IoT,” the report notes before making plain that it hasn’t done any actual work on the issue, promising only to “work with relevant organizations… to identify and explore solutions.”
A similar lack of drive is exhibited with regard to ongoing global policy discussions. As the sleepy civil servants note: “On an international level, we propose to contribute to IoT-related work streams within relevant European agencies.”
As to the actual changes required to bring in what the tech industry says will a key future driver of the digital economy, Ofcom recognizes the need to increase wireless spectrum but notes repeatedly that things look fine in the “short to medium term.”
It also takes a dozy approach to the move from IPv4 to IPv6 addressing. “An additional factor is whether there is a need for access to the wider internet, which may suggest that the use of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) addressing in the longer term is necessary,” the report yawns.
This peculiar slow-lane approach to IPv6 stands in contrast to most other countries’ regulators and government agencies that are actively promoting the upgrade.
Promoting investment and
innovation in the Internet of Things
Summary of responses and next steps
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/iot/statement/IoTStatement.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
FTC to Internet of Stuff: Security, motherf****r, do you speak it?
No new laws yet – emphasis on the word yet
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/27/ftc_internet_of_things/
US regulator the FTC says now is not the time for new laws on the “Internet of Things” – but security needs to be improved as we enter the era of always-on, always-connected gadgets, sensors and machines embedded in homes, streets and pockets.
In a report [PDF] published today, the commission’s staff make a number of policy recommendations for the wave of new devices that collect and transmit data on our everyday lives.
From the camera that posts pictures online with a click, to automated home lighting and heating, to FitBits and Apple Watches, the Internet of Things (IoT) was the focus of this year’s Consumer Electronic Show, as well as a speech by FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez.
There will be 25 billion devices connected to the internet by the end of the year, doubling to 50 billion by 2020, according to Cisco’s estimates. The problem is that many of the companies churning out these gizmos are not properly considering the risks associated with gathering masses of personal sensitive data, we’re told.
Security, and ultimately the safeguarding of privacy, is the biggest problem, says the FTC. And it needs to be built “into devices at the outset rather than as an afterthought.”
Additional measures such as good network defenses to prevent unauthorized users from getting access to data, and keeping an eye on security holes and providing security patches on time, should also be key considerations.
Given that, for example, home router makers are so slow to patch security vulnerabilities in firmware, what luck does anyone have fixing critical flaws in their IoT light switches, boilers and shoes?
As well as security, companies jumping on the IoT bandwagon should also think about “data minimization”, meaning limit the amount of information that is gathered and only retain it for a certain period of time.
In a related point, the FTC recommends that businesses adopt a “notice and choice” approach to data, ie: customers are informed what records the company gathers and are given the choice to opt out of its collection.
In order to prevent people from being overwhelmed with approval requests, the commission recommends that this “notice and choice” approach is adopted for any uses that would be “unexpected”, ie: not immediately obvious to the consumer.
Obviously, this is something for lawyers to have fun with: sadly, is a photo-sharing app monitoring your movements really “unexpected” in this day and age?
Privacy & Security in a Connected World
http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/federal-trade-commission-staff-report-november-2013-workshop-entitled-internet-things-privacy/150127iotrpt.pdf
As to risks, participants noted that the IoT presents a variety of potential security risks that could be exploited to harm consumers by:
(1) enabling unauthorized access and misuse of personal information;
(2) facilitating attacks on other systems; and
(3) creating risks to personal safety.
Participants also noted that privacy risks may flow from the collection of personal information, habits, locations, and physical conditions over time.
In particular, some panelists noted that companies might use this data to make credit, insurance, and employment decisions.
Others noted that perceived risks to privacy and security, even if not realized, could undermine the consumer confidence necessary for the technologies to meet their full potential, and may result in less widespread adoption.
In addition, workshop participants debated how the long – standing Fair Information Practice Principles (“FIPPs”), which include such principles as notice, choice, access, accuracy, data minimization, security, and accountability, should apply to the IoT space. The main discussions at the workshop focused on four FIPPs in particular: security, data minimization,
notice, and choice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things is not yet online
Internet of Things has been a hot topic this year. For many, it brings to mind was connected refrigerators and toasters, which has its own IP address.
The truth is, however, a little less. In today’s Internet of Things refers to the sensors, which measure information is read in Bluetooth and ZigBee such as wireless interfaces. The actual Internet connection they do not and it is not coming any time soon.
For some sensor manufacturers connection to the Internet is up to the competition factor (data in locked proprietary format). Strategy is short-sighted, but it provides a momentarily effective supplier lock.
In today’s Internet of Things is thus actually quite a boring subject. The sensors are interesting only when they produce a standardized measurement data to the cloud. The data in the cloud and services form an interesting portion of the Web of Things.
Source: http://summa.talentum.fi/article/tv/1-2015/124829
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino openHAB Garage Door Control
Make a smart garage door opener using an Arduino and OpenHAB
http://hackaday.io/project/4027-arduino-openhab-garage-door-control
openHAB is a great platform for interfacing with Internet of Things stuff. This project explores using openHAB and an Arduino Yun to activate a garage door opener, monitor the door’s open/closed status and measure temperature.
Let’s build a garage door controller that can make intelligent decisions. And actually open the door when I want it to.
With an Arduino and openHAB, we can build a system that will allow for monitoring and control of the door from a webpage or mobile device. The main elements look like this:
openHAB
http://www.openhab.org/
Welcome to openHAB – a vendor and technology agnostic open source automation software for your home.
Build your smart home in no time!
What is openHAB?
openHAB is a software for integrating different home automation systems and technologies into one single solution that allows over-arching automation rules and that offers uniform user interfaces.
This means openHAB
is designed to be absolutely vendor-neutral as well as hardware/protocol-agnostic
can run on any device that is capable of running a JVM (Linux, Mac, Windows)
lets you integrate an abundance of different home automation technologies into one
has a powerful rule engine to fulfill all your automation needs
comes with different web-based UIs as well as native UIs for iOS and Android
is fully open source
is maintained by a passionate and growing community
is easily extensible to integrate with new systems and devices
provides APIs for being integrated in other systems
openHAB does not try to replace existing solutions, but rather wants to enhance them – it can thus be considered as a system of systems.
The openHAB comes with a demo package which have all the configuration to play with a model of a house with some rooms, lights, heating and all the stuff.
Every technology or device, social network or cloud platform integrated into openHAB is supported by a specific bundle. Those bundles are optional and pluggable, they can be added to your openHAB as soon as you need them.
Bindings provide integration with different home automation technologies and devices while there are quite a lot of other bundles providing integration and communication with social networks, instant messaging, cloud IoT platfroms and much more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Powering the Internet of Stuff – by sucking electricity from TREES
Where are my generating wellies?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/29/energy_harvesting_the_power_of_touch_internet_of_things/
Despite regular headlines about self-powered gadgets and a deluge of stories claiming that any day now we should expect our smart phones to start gathering power from the environment around us, the promise of harvested energy always seems just out of reach. Or is it?
We may not be charging our gadgets in our Wellington boots any time soon, but thousands of sensors and switches are already casting off their batteries and going it alone.
Every year, Orange, the UK mobile operator, used to announce a new technology with which to charge mobile telephones.
The problem with energy harvesting is that there really isn’t very much energy to harvest. Researchers trying to create enough power for mobile gadgets, even wearable technologies, struggle to collect energy from our movement or the air around us. Prototypes are easy, and headline-grabbing, but commercial products turn out to be ineffective, encumbering, or both.
Yet there are places where energy harvesting is much, much, easier, and more useful too.
Take Awesense, the Canadian company which makes a living scattering sensors around electrical grids to see where power is being stolen from. The sensors are hung off high-voltage supply lines, and report back over a wireless mesh, so can be fitted without interrupting the supply, while Awesense takes a cut of the value of any thefts its kit detects.
The limiting factor, on the sensors, is the life of the battery which has to constantly transmit the measured current to a receiver up to a kilometre away. Awesense is, therefore, about to announce a new sensor which can induce voltage from the monitored line, harvesting energy from the very thing being monitored.
The ability to do more computing, with less energy, is probably as important as the developments in harvesting technology, in making the technique practical
Awesense is quite unique in having such a rich source of power so close by
The Sun has got his (old) hat on
By harvesting standards, Solar energy is old hat.
In the Internet of Things solar power is less interesting, as shade can pop up from anywhere and the intermittent supply from light means that harvesting has to charge a battery (or capacitor) to provide a consistent supply.
The other traditional form of renewable energy, wind, is equally useless, as it doesn’t scale well
The alternative to alternative energy
First up is piezoelectricity: a flow of electrons generated by squeezing a crystal, turning vibration or other mechanical energy into electricity. The most popular use of piezoelectricity is in sensors
Piezoelectricity is also used by the latest generation of light switches, which use power generated from the pressure applied to send a radio signal to the computerised lighting system. Systems such as the Philips Hue lights – multicoloured bulbs controlled from a central hub – can now be wirelessly connected to an energy-harvesting switch.
If the switch fails to work, the correct behaviour is to push it again – slightly slower and with more pressure – but that is a learnt behaviour and far from intuitive.
Advanced Cerametrics makes wireless sensors with magnets on the back. The magnets are used to hold the sensor in place – slap them onto a big machine and they’ll start transmitting performance information powered entirely by piezoelectricity, generated from the vibrations of the machine. That vibration is also the information transmitted
Perpetuum’s Rail Solutions do much the same thing with rolling stock
The devices being made by Advanced Cerametrics, and its competitors, are a perfect example of how the Internet of Things is so much more than wrist watches and smart glasses, and energy harvesting is a key element in making it work. Batteries would probably be cheaper, and certainly provide more power, but having to replace them can be prohibitive when the working environment is the underside of a train, or an industrial generator.
Sensors powered by wasted energy – in this case the vibrations of the equipment – can run indefinitely without worrying about their operational life, so owners can build up a knowledge of what constitutes “normal” behaviour which makes spotting anomalies so much easier.
Any temperature difference can be harnessed to create electricity, based on the Seebeck effect which utilises two metals placed side by side with conductors above and below.
So attractive is the Seebeck effect that it’s even available for in-home use, thanks to Micropelt: maker of the wireless radiator valve which turns boring old (manual) valves into intelligent Things powered by the heat of the water running past them. The “intelligent Thermostatic Radiator Valve” uses EnOcean’s highly-efficient (but proprietary) radio protocol to integrate with other kit from EnOcean, providing truly-wireless home automation.
The standards (ZigBee Green, Dust Networks, Weightless, etc.) are catching up, but when the power is being squeezed out of the trees then every smidgen has to be utilised to achieve something worthwhile.
A nail driven into the tree a few feet from the ground, with another in the ground nearby and a circuit between them to collect the voltage, was demonstrated by researchers at MIT in 2009.
The power, apparently, comes from the pH difference between the inside of the tree and the ground.
Voltree’s technology, and the company is still struggling to turn what is has into a sustainable business as
Tomi Engdahl says:
Detecting Power Theft by Sensors and the Cloud: Awesense Smart System for the Grid
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-grundvig/detecting-power-theft-by-_b_3078082.html
A couple of realities have hit the electrical industry hard.
First, the megastorm Hurricane Sandy hammered coastal towns and cities, such as New York and Boston, exposing the vulnerabilities of their aging infrastructure, from passive, dumb grid and fragile power lines, to transformers and power stations.
The second issue, one that deals with the transformation of how power is generated and distributed has reduced energy cost to a point that it has finally put pressure on the low margin industry.
The falling prices of distributed generation are impacting an industry that “directly threatens its centralized utility model.”
An industry that’s regulated only to supply juice to its customers and regions–not to upgrade its aging systems–is facing a crisis. That’s what happens when the utilities have deferred maintenance for decades, squeezing the last watts of power out of each soon-to-fail grid system. If those were the utilities only problems the power producers might find its way through the ROI and new technology squeeze.
But add to those serious threats the “silent crime” of power theft, an annual multi-billion write-off to the utilities, and the challenges become that much more acute and symptomatic of an industry not adapting to changing times.
“Our mission is to help utility companies with energy loss in their grid and distribution of the grid, while improve the most inefficient systems for customers of all sizes. We have developed both the sensors to detect energy loss, as well as mobile-cloud software.”
So the company designed an oversize clothespin-like device called the “SenseNET Monitor”
that clips onto a power line from the ground. With a portable device and two minutes, Awesense can identify gaps in and problems with power distribution. “We do it by cordoning off sections of the grid. And then figuring what are the devices used to send power and what are they billing? The difference between the two tells the story of power theft or loss,” Steiner-Jovic said.
“How big is the problem of power theft?” I asked.
“Sixteen billion a year in the United States and over $200 billion worldwide annually. In the U.S., the loss is a range between 8-12 percent. That tells us we know there’s a problem. In Brazil it’s 30 percent, which is a significant problem,”
With security being of paramount concern for its customers and covertness to secretly identify the “silent crime” perpetrators, the clamp-sensor name SenseNET Monitor was a good fit and ties in nicely with the company’s SenseNET end-to-end solution.
“Awesense’s system is used several days after a major storm for energy analysis.”
In telling the Awesense story, Mischa Steiner-Jovic sees the competition as stiff for the manufacturing of grid-line sensors and heavy enough for cloud software to analyze the field data of power distribution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tips & Trends: Change (aka unscrambling IT, OT and IoT)
http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4438465/Tips—Trends–Change–aka-unscrambling-IT–OT-and-IoT-?elq=8b67645dc5ef4b4987c5da2404f8219e&elqCampaignId=21380
A couple years ago I gave quite a few talks around the theme of what happens when Moore and Metcalf collide. The answer, some would say, is the “Internet of Things.” Maybe, but that’s wrapping it all up just a bit too conveniently and misses some important points.
While the operations world was busy getting machines to talk to each other, the IT world was making some astounding progress. Networking standards were developed and adopted. In short order a crimp tool and knowledge of IP addresses could do some amazing things for you if you were connecting computers. Growth of those networks exploded, cost points fell to amazingly low levels. We all started to benefit from the power of Metcalf’s law.
But, the operations people cast off Ethernet like a smelly gym sock. Hundreds of people told me “we’ll never use Ethernet on the plant floor” – it was too flimsy, lacked determinism, not reliable…blah, blah, blah.
Some of that was true. Some of it, however, was sheer protectionism. Vendors of automation equipment were scared to death that the IT world would take over, so they dug in hard, arming themselves with hugely expensive, proprietary standards designed explicitly to keep both IT vendors and IT personnel out of the operations department. It was neither a noble nor productive battle.
It took awhile, but eventually Moore and Metcalf won. If you’re trying to unscramble what all this “Internet of Things” hype is all about, more than anything it’s about the beginning of the end of that great wall of division between IT and OT (operational technology). That’s going to have a profound impact on everyone, and we’re just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg.
In short, we got busy designing the new B&B to recognize the end of the Wild West of M2M, and the emergence of IT/OT integration into the industrial IoT:
We stopped talking to our customer base via catalogs.
We started working with distribution partners.
We began developing “intelligence at the edge” technologies, integrating features that reduce system costs and speed up deployment.
We hired software engineers. (We used to average about 1 or 2 software engineers for every hardware engineer. Today that’s more like 6 or 8 to 1.)
We recognized that IT/OT convergence is much more of a community effort than M2M, and established partnerships with key players ranging from SeeControl to IBM – partners that provide software platforms and tools to enable large scale converged solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Experience the Internet of You: Introducing the Jawbone Marketplace
https://jawbone.com/blog/experience-internet-introducing-jawbone-marketplace/
“At Jawbone, we embrace the promise of the Internet of Things. We can only put all this together if we work with others… This notion of an open ecosystem is critical to making the Internet of Things a success.” – Hosain Rahman, CEO & Founder. Earlier this month, our CEO Hosain Rahman shared his perspective on the huge potential of connected devices to deliver on the promise of not just the “Internet of Things”, but the “Internet of You”.
Hosain argued that products like our UP fitness trackers can empower the highly personalized experiences we want to deliver, and allow our connected devices to be “truly smart”— all in service of a great experience for the customer. Members of the UP community are currently able to connect their UP accounts to dozens of devices and partner apps that enhance their UP experience. Today, we’re excited to take that offering to the next level by launching our very own online Marketplace.
To put it simply, we’re bringing the best of the Internet of You to our customers, in a very real and tangible way.
The new Jawbone Marketplace lets you unlock the best of UP with a curated selection of devices and apps
The physical goods and digital software subscriptions found in the Jawbone Marketplace are currently available to our customers in the US, and we hope to expand to other regions soon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Secure commissioning for ZigBee home automation using NFC
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4438456/Secure-commissioning-for-ZigBee-home-automation-using-NFC
Wireless sensor networks such as ZigBee can provide many benefits when installed in buildings, including improved comfort, cost, and convenience.
All of these functions can be handled by a network such as ZigBee, but one of the issues of installation is the time taken to securely join all of these devices to the network and to establish the control relationships. This paper describes the implementation of a home temperature control system using ZigBee Home Automation. In particular, it describes techniques for secure installation and commissioning of devices using low cost NFC tags that are connected to the ZigBee wireless microcontroller, enabling exchange of information about the network such as security keys and device bindings.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ultra-low power medical sensing devkit & IC/IP
http://www.edn.com/design/design-tools/development-kits/4438505/Ultra-low-power-medical-sensing-devkit—IC-IP?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150129&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150129&elq=7015abf414304c9e8e407f99dceb8ba5&elqCampaignId=21392
The Holst Centre and imec have announced a devkit for ultra-low-power medical sensing applications. It builds upon their multi-sensor data acquisition chip (MUSEIC), which is also available as licensable IP.
According to Holst,”The development kit consists of a customizable sensor layer (including 3-lead ECG, bio-impedance, accelerometer, and microphone), the MUSEIC chip, SD card storage, a Bluetooth (4.0) and Bluetooth low-energy compliant radio, and a separate ARM Cortex M4 processor.”
the kit consumes only 10mW
Imec and Holst Centre announce Multi-sensor Data Acquisition IC and Open Hardware Development Kit for Personal Health Monitoring
http://www2.imec.be/be_en/press/imec-news/imec-Holst-Centre-ECG-chip-Museic-development-kit.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for: The latest evolution in electronics hand gesturing
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4438470/These-aren-t-the-droids-you-re-looking-for–The-latest-evolution-in-electronics-hand-gesturing-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150129&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150129&elq=61227c51cb2842198647f445f6d18682&elqCampaignId=21409
Well, the advancement of hand gesturing in 2015 has not reached that mind-controlling level by the “Force”, but it has advanced to using an E-field force, a design unique to Microchip, with simplified user-interface options focused on gesture detection for such things as volume control, light dimming and page-turning in e-readers.
I am a big fan of using natural human prompts as control for the Smart Home and other Internet of Things control. Voice and hand gestures just come naturally to control our amazing new electronic design advancements. Using a Smart Phone or tablet is OK, but nothing surpasses the good old human analog control tools like voice sound and hand/body movement in my humble opinion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM Internet of Things
http://ibminternetofthingsfi.tumblr.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taiwan’s Andes Adds Peripherals IP for IoT, Wearables
http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/4523/taiwan-s-andes-adds-peripherals-ip-for-iot-wearables
Andes Technology Corp. (Hsinchu, Taiwan), a licensor of 32-bit processor cores, has shifted gears to address the peripherals and peripheral fabric that is also key to producing low-power systems.
The AndeShape AE210P is a configurable platform of peripheral IP cores based on AHB and APB on-chip buses that is intended to provide a low-power subsystem for Internet of Things and wearable device markets.
Typical applications include: smart sensor devices, medical devices, intelligent appliances, touch panels, wireless charging and power management ICs, Andes indicated in a statement.
Andes, founded in 2005, has been seeking to gain design wins for its processor IP with those companies who chose not to afford to license ARM or MIPS cores. It’s IP includes a series of 32-bit processor implementations labelled N7, N8, N9, N10 and N13.
The combination of the AE210P platform with Andes cores is supported by the AndeSight integrated development environment and board support package. Andes has also worked to demonstrate real-time operating system support with FreeRTOS, ThreadX, and uc/OS-II.
“Our ThreadX RTOS is an ideal match for the power-conscious AE210P, with our small memory footprint and highly efficient code,”
New Low-Power Platform IP for IoT, Wearable Devices and other Power-Sensitive Applications
http://en.ctimes.com.tw/DispProduct.asp?O=HJY92ARBQY2SAA00PZ
“Power efficiency is critical for many emerging applications,” commented Rich Wawrzyniak, Senior Market Analyst with Semico Research. “More and more SOCs are being designed with subsystems that solve a larger part of the design challenge. By introducing a lower-power solution, Andes is servicing an increasingly important market need.”
“32-bit MCU products are penetrating the consumer market at a frantic pace,”
“The AE210P provides a pre-verified and pre-integrated platform IP that contains common functions required for many MCU applications – with reduced power. Using the standard TSMC 90nm LP library, the AE210P can deliver frequencies up to 200 MHz for high-performance applications, while power consumption can be as little as 98uW (82uA) for low power mode.”
“This makes it an ideal platform for IoT and wearable devices that demand ultra-low-power consumption for long battery life.”
“Our ThreadX RTOS is an ideal match for the power-conscious AE210P, with our small memory footprint and highly efficient code,”
“ThreadX is used in over 2 billion electronic products in the areas of consumer electronics, medical devices, and industrial control equipment. ThreadX supports IoT development for wearable and portable devices based on the AE210P, that require efficient, high-performance, and easy-to-use operation.”
Press Release
Andes Technology Unveils New Low-Power Platform IP Ideal for Internet-of-Things, Wearable Devices and other Power-Sensitive Applications
http://www.andestech.com/en/news-events/press-release/2014/20140901.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
he world now presents a fast pace of new solutions for intelligent lighting, so it is good that, according to will also Finnish. The Espoo Casambi Technologies platform is clearly faster than competing.
Casambin technology base for Nordic Semiconductor nRF51822 system circuit. The Norwegian company says its Smart Bluetooth radio to allow mesh-type light control manages up to five times faster than competing solutions.
Nordic Semiconductor radio Casambin is at the heart of the control unit. Smart phones are connected to the control unit with bluetooth, but when you need to transfer data between the elements of lighting, communication takes place in their own Nordic 2.4 GHz radio technology. In the data transfer of up to two megabits per second rate, which is significantly faster than other solutions.
Casambin light of all the network devices can be, in principle, to update over the radio path. This is a feature that can be a lot of use in the future IoT solutions.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2351:suomalainen-alyvalaistus-on-huippunopea&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
FTC Urges Safeguards for ‘Internet of Things’
http://www.securityweek.com/ftc-urges-safeguards-internet-things
Washington – A US government consumer watchdog agency called Tuesday for better privacy and security to be built into the myriad of connected devices, for fitness, smart homes or other uses.
The “Internet of Things” guidelines released by the US Federal Trade Commission stop short of a new regulatory effort but nonetheless provoked critics who said the agency is overstepping its authority.
“Not only is deeply personal information at stake but as you have more and more devices it means there is more potential for exposure,” Ramirez told the “State of the Net” conference.
“If you want these new technologies to flourish, you want to make sure consumers understand what is happening, understand what is being collected, with whom that information is being shared, how this information is being used.”
The FTC last year studied 12 mobile fitness apps and found they shared data with 76 separate entities.
The agency urged companies to “build security into their devices at the outset, rather than as an afterthought” and to conduct a privacy or security risk assessment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Drove CES 2015 Innovation? IP and IP Subsystems
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325454&
How do we manage all those blocks in an age of exploding block usage?
If you want to see what electronic design innovation is all about these days, come to the Consumer Electronics Show.
the array of technology development showcased here the first week of 2015 was breathtaking. The Sands was packed with almost countless wearables vendors, IOT systems houses, and 3-D printers
But for these guys — from a market standpoint — there’s a shakeout ahead: There are too many vendors in the wearables and IOT space making too-similar products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino openHAB Garage Door Control
Make a smart garage door opener using an Arduino and OpenHAB
http://hackaday.io/project/4027-arduino-openhab-garage-door-control
openHAB is a great platform for interfacing with Internet of Things stuff. This project explores using openHAB and an Arduino Yun to activate a garage door opener, monitor the door’s open/closed status and measure temperature.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom Flips on Future Set Tops
Chip vendor courts cable, over-the-air boxes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325481&
Broadcom is nestled in a sweet spot between traditional cable companies and newer over the top (OTT) content providers, which are both battling and enabling each other in a fight for viewers and dollars.
Once those set-top boxes are wirelessly connected, they could serve as a hub for a smart home. Broadcom partnered with Smartenit to integrate home automation technology with its home gateway SoC
One analyst from Gartner, however, wasn’t sure about the set top as the center of a home ecosystem. The home Internet of Things is only being adopted in a very low percentage of high-earning households because the price is too high and the usefulness isn’t clear.
“Right now it’s a gimmick and the interest level is just not there,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is there an Internet of Things (IoT) bubble and will it burst?
No bubble no burst: IoT is hype
Small bubble that fizzles: consumers already bored
Over-inflated bubble to burst like a dot.com in 2001; expect casualties
IoT here to stay but slow measured progress
Rock solid: IoT to float all boats
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Thermoelectric devices will be a separate market over 1 billion dollars in 2025 including automotive,” Harrop told us.
Until now there have been very few themoelectric sucess successs stories except for novelty items. EnOcean Alliance, for instance, uses thermoelectric devices attached to radiators to generate tiny UHF pulses to operate wireless building controls and Schneider Electric uses them to power wireless sensors that trigger responses to heat overloads on copper busbars.
Source: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325485&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensor-Integrated Daylighting Manager
http://www.eeweb.com/news/sensor-integrated-daylighting-manager
ams announced the release of its revolutionary AS721x Autonomous Daylighting Manager, the industry’s first integrated chip-scale Internet of Things (IoT)-connected smart lighting manager. This new class of sensor-integrated smart lighting manager solutions delivers cost-effective, IoT-connected, integrated control capabilities to luminaire, light engine and replacement lamp manufacturers.
Photopic sensors built with nano-optic filters integrated into the AS721x series are designed to help lighting manufacturers address the growing challenges of energy-saving lighting mandates, including daylighting controls. These challenges are more cost-effectively met by bringing the controls, connectivity, such as Bluetooth, and high-granularity sensing into the luminaires themselves.
Competitive offerings in the space are essentially “build your own” devices requiring discrete components, including sensors, processors, memory, and I/O chips, that require design, integration and time-consuming programming of control and communications algorithms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Device Authentication Thwarts Counterfeiting
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/maxim/device-authentication-thwarts-counterfeiting
Competition is one of the major reasons behind the new inventions that are out in the market every now and then.
This application note will tackle about device authentication against counterfeiting.
A primary method of providing electronic security is through the use of a secure authentication scheme in hardware. Device authentication is used to protect end users and OEMs from counterfeit peripherals, sensors, consumables, or other devices. It is a method that verifies to the host system that an attached device is genuine and can be trusted.
An embedded secure authenticator protects end-users and OEMs from counterfeit devices. Secure authentication verifies to a host system that an attached device is genuine and can be trusted.
The Problem of Counterfeit Devices
Let us start by agreeing on what “counterfeit” means in our discussion. A counterfeit device could simply be a cheap clone of the original. Consider, for instance, a medical sensor that plugs into a control module. It is carefully manufactured to look and act the same, but the device’s quality and the accuracy of its data will be questionable, possibly leading to a misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment. Clearly with a cloned counterfeit instrument like this, device authentication would protect patients from faulty equipment and healthcare providers from the liability of flawed professional care.
Authentication Methods
Electronic security today encompasses a range of security methods including cryptographic algorithms and authentication protocols, some stronger than others depending on the application.
A simple authentication method works much like an ID. As long as the host “master” system receives the correct ID data from a peripheral “slave” device, that slave is assumed to be authentic. The problem with this method is that the ID data itself is exposed during communication from slave to host, and is then accessible to a hacker. This scheme is easily bypassed by recording or replaying the ID data and then acting as an authentic device.
Another method shown to be very robust is the use of a one-way hash function that is easy to generate, but nearly impossible for a hacker to invert to discover the input elements. SHA-256 is a well-tested and proven hash function. Using a challenge-and-response protocol, SHA-256 functions calculate a message authentication code (MAC) based on multiple public and private data elements.
SHA-256 algorithms can be implemented in software on both host and peripheral devices, but software implementations can be tricky to implement.
A DeepCover secure authenticator6 provides the benefits of a one-way hash function and the security of hardware-based cryptography. For SHA-256 implementations, the coprocessor stores data elements, such as the host-side secret, securely in protected memory that can be used as an input to the algorithm, but not read out. The coprocessor also performs the SHA-256 computations for the host side. To perform this verification, the MCU sends a random challenge to the coprocessor and authenticator, and the MCU collects the MAC responses from the coprocessor and authenticator for comparison.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The PC supply chain ultimately thought about components for $500-1000 boxes to go on your desk – the smartphone supply chain thinks about much smaller boxes that average $200 and go down to $30 or $40 and run on batteries. So you get smaller, cheaper, low power components
This is normally the way consumer tech works – people have a vision a long time before the technology is really there to implement it (remember the Newton, or the Nokia 7560).
Today it sometimes seems like things are the other way around. Want to make a connected door lock? Camera collar for your dog? Intelligent scale? Eye tracker? The electronic components all there, more or less off the shelf. The challenge is in the vision for what the product should be, what people would do with it and how you would take it to market. That is, hardware has lapped software, so to speak.
The challenges, I think, come from where the intelligence and the software will actually sit, and how much there needs to be. If much of the hardware tech is a commodity, then so is the hardware itself, unless you can find a way to create an addition layer of value with software and service and experience (and design, as with Ringly). It’s the intelligence and the software that makes the difference between a commodity widget and something that has some real value for an entrepreneur (from outside or inside China). Not all device types really have network effects, and not all devices can be the hub of your connected home, at least not all at once. Some categories are going to be commodity widgets.
One way to get at this problem is to work out what the SKU might look like at retail, and who will sell it. Is it the Apple Store, Home Depot, Best Buy or your alarm company? Is it a point solution, or an add-on for an industry-standard platform, or an accessory for your Nest or iPhone, or Apple Television? Different channels will produce different results.
Nest found a clear, easy-to-communicate use case with lots of scope to avoid commoditization through software, and also scope to be used as a hub – a trojan horse – to sell other things. Now your car will tell your Nest to turn on the heating when you’re almost home. Conversely things like Apple’s HomeKit and Quirky’s Wink (Quirky is an a16z investment) aim for a flatter structure – your phone itself is the hub, and you can buy whatever point solution you want.
Source: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/1/11/home-and-the-mobile-supply-chain
Tomi Engdahl says:
World could ‘run out of storage capacity’ within two years warns Seagate
Blame the Data Capacity Gap
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/data-centre/world-could-run-out-of-storage-capacity-within-2-years-warns-seagate-vp-1278040/1
Mark Whitby, SVP of branded products at Seagate, walks us through the fascinating world of storage, warning us of the dangers of not producing enough data and introducing us to the concept of the Zettabyte.
TRP: Why should people care about storage?
MW: Data has never been more important. As valuable as oil and just as difficult to mine, model and manage, data is swiftly becoming a vital asset to businesses the world over.
Companies large and small are taking their first steps in data analytics, keen to gain an insight into how their customers behave and so better position themselves in the market place. Although still in its infancy, analytics holds the potential to one day allow them to find solutions, sell more products and develop customer trust.
Data centres today are not equipped to be able to handle the anticipated influx generated by the Internet of Things, nor geared towards feeding it smoothly across to the analytics platforms where it can prove its worth. There is little chance that the billions of whirring silicon-based hard drives around the world will be able to keep up with the flood of data driven by the 26 billion connected devices (not including some 7.3 billion smartphones, tablets and PCs) that Gartner predicts will be in use by 2020.
TRP: What do you think will be the main challenge facing the storage industry over the next 5 years?
MW: Three words: data capacity gap.
We are entering a world where everything is connecting to everything else and the resulting big data is anticipated to solve virtually all our problems. However, by 2016, the hard drives housed in all those connected devices, whirring away in countless data centres, will start to reach their limits.
The total amount of digital data generated in 2013 was about 3.5 zettabytes (that’s 35 with 20 zeros following). By 2020, we’ll be producing, even at a conservative estimate, 44 zettabytes of data annually.
At this current rate of production, by 2016 the world will be producing more digital information than it can easily store. By 2020, we can predict a minimum capacity gap of over six zettabytes – nearly double all the data that was produced in 2013.
TRP: If the world is running out of storage, why can we not simply increase production of hard drives and build more data centres?
MW: Unfortunately, the imminent breach between storage demand and production is not a problem that can so easily be solved. The fact of the matter is that it’s far harder to manufacture capacity than it is to generate data.
One of the latest big data storage methods is a tiered model using existing technologies. This model utilises a more efficient capacity-tier based on pure object storage at the drive level. Above this sits a combination of high performance HDD (hard disk drives), SSHD (solid state hybrid) and SSD (solid state drives).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jens Hack / Reuters:
Intel buys former Infineon ‘Internet of Things’ chip unit Lantiq
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/02/us-lantiq-m-a-intel-idUSKBN0L60QB20150202
(Reuters) – Intel has agreed to buy German network chipmaker Lantiq for an undisclosed amount to expand its range of chips used in Internet-connected gadgets, the companies said on Monday.
Adding Internet connections to devices ranging from soccer balls to household and industrial machines, a trend dubbed the Internet of Things or M2M, has become a new battleground for Intel, Qualcomm and other technology companies.
The number of wireless gadgets will more than double by the end of the decade, with most of the growth coming from smart devices other than PCs and smartphones, according to market research firm ABI Research.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kevin Dallas / Building Apps for Windows:
Windows 10 coming to Raspberry Pi 2, developers can use it for free
Windows 10 Coming to Raspberry Pi 2
http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/02/02/windows-10-coming-to-raspberry-pi-2/
Today the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the retail availability of their new board, the Raspberry Pi 2. We’re excited to join the Foundation in also announcing that Windows 10 will support Raspberry Pi 2, which will be free for the Maker community through the Windows Developer Program for IoT later this year.
We are excited about our work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and to share that Windows 10 will support Raspberry Pi 2. We will be sharing more details about our Windows 10 plans for IoT in the coming months. I encourage you to register for our developer program on the Windows Developer Program for IoT site to get the latest information on our Maker efforts.
About the Windows Developer Program for IoT
http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/Windows-Developer-Program-for-IoT
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interesting Internet controlled backpack stereo project:
SnoTunes Lets You Rock Out in the Winter
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/03/snotunes-lets-you-rock-out-in-the-winter/
It’s a whopping 160 watt stereo, has 7-8 hours of battery life, is somewhat water resistant, and can be controlled wirelessly. Its brain is a Raspberry Pi B+ running Kodi (which was formerly XBMC).
It fetches and downloads YouTube music videos and can create a playlist that can be manipulated by text message. You can share YouTube links to have it download and queue the songs, you can skip the songs (but only if four people make the request), and it even automatically parses the music video titles to extract the song name and band.
SnoTunes
http://mattbilsky.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=SnoTunes
One of my jobs for USCSA (United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association) is to bring music to the start of our races. Every day I would get request for racers to play specific songs when they were getting ready to start. This was a real pain. So I though wouldn’t it be nice if listeners can text message in their song requests?
The Raspberry Pi itself is running the RaspBMC distribution and uses the Kodi (formerly XBMC) for media playback.
I purchased a USB wireless microphone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel to Buy Lantiq, Get Ready for Smart Gateways
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325519&
Intel Corp. announced a definitive agreement to buy Lantiq, a Munich, Germany-based supplier of broadband access and home networking technologies. Intel did not disclose the terms of acquisition.
By leveraging Lantiq — armed with extensive DSL solutions and a strong patent portfolio related to broadband communications, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based CPU giant hopes to put itself on the map for global broadband gateway business. Intel plans to expand the company’s current cable residential gateway business to others, including “DSL, Fiber, LTE, retail and IoT smart routers,” according to Intel.
Lantiq’s presence in the broadband customer premises equipment (CPE) is believes to be particularly attractive to Intel, who wants to be in the market for next-generation gateways that connect a variety of devices and services at home.
Beyond DSL, Lantiq offers carriers a variety of solutions including the pre-integrated LTE module combined with the Lantiq platform
In January 2011, Infineon’s wireless solutions business unit was sold to Intel, now operating as Intel Mobile Communications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Invades the Kitchen
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325527&
A session on “Cooking with IoT” at the Embedded Systems Conference in Santa Clara in July will bring together a handful of IoT startups invading the kitchen.
A handful of startups are putting a new spin on the old stereotype of the Internet refrigerator that sends you a text when you need to buy milk. This time around the goals are more diverse, useful and tasty.
“I’m sick of discussions dominated by the Internet refrigerator,” said Jim Reich, a CTO of Palate Home Inc., a San Francisco startup making a connected precision grill for consumers. “Kitchen devices can have higher value than that because this is an area where you can make a big difference in people’s lives,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s That Sound? It’s the Amazon Echo Teardown … teardown … teardown
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=276514&dfpPParams=ind_183,industry_consumer,kw_24,aid_276514&dfpLayout=blog
Amazon Echo: World’s smartest speaker, or world’s tallest Siri? Tech specs include:
2.5-inch woofer, with a reflex port to drop a little extra bass
2.0-inch tweeter
7-microphone array
Light ring volume adjustment
Remote control
Tomi Engdahl says:
Learning to Use Big Data
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=276519&
Just because you have tons of data pouring out of the manufacturing process doesn’t mean efficiency will follow. The trick is to determine what data is critical and what data can simply be ignored.
The amount of data is limitless, so you have to look at what’s really relevant. You have to ask yourself, how can we use it?”
Too much data can be as inefficient as not enough.
Using the data from a sensor on a motor, Sanders explains the effective use of data. “If you can read the temperature of a motor that runs 225 degrees, 24 hours a day, and it’s not fluctuating, there’s no need to have the data every second,” he said. “All you need to know is when it exceeds your threshold. That’s what you’re really looking at.”
Yet triggering an alarm when the motor exceed its temperature limit is not enough. The ability to process data means you can go back to find out what went wrong with the motor.
Using big data in product design
One of the most valuable forms of data is the data you can obtain from those using your products out in the field. Sanders noted that feedback can come in many forms, for sensors on the product that gather data from the product in use, to Facebook and other social media where users discuss their experience with the product. “You want feedback after you produce the product. We get feedback while people are consuming it,” said Sanders. “You want data that can tell you how the customer is using the equipment. If you get the data that shows you how the customer is using the product, you can design the product specifically for that use.”
Gathering data from the field also provides insight into product failure. As with the manufacturing scenario, the continual flow of data lets you see the moments before actual failure. “You can see what happens to the product just before it fails,” said Sanders. “You build the device’s response to things into the device itself. Then, if you know what happens before it fails, over time you can build the solution into the product.”
The use of big data in product development is much more important with digital products than with mechanical products. “With mechanical elements, there are only so many things you can test for. With software you can test for more things,” said Sanders. “Products that weren’t smart before are becoming smart because the computing power is so cheap. And you can use that intelligence in all of the testing in all of your products.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Christina Farr / Reuters:
Fourteen of 23 top US hospitals have rolled out a pilot program of Apple’s HealthKit service — Exclusive: Apple’s health tech takes early lead among top hospitals — (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) healthcare technology is spreading quickly among major U.S. hospitals …
Exclusive: Apple’s health tech takes early lead among top hospitals
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/us-apple-hospitals-exclusive-idUSKBN0L90G920150205
Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) healthcare technology is spreading quickly among major U.S. hospitals, showing early promise as a way for doctors to monitor patients remotely and lower costs.
Fourteen of 23 top hospitals contacted by Reuters said they have rolled out a pilot program of Apple’s HealthKit service – which acts as a repository for patient-generated health information like blood pressure, weight or heart rate – or are in talks to do so.
The pilots aim to help physicians monitor patients with such chronic conditions as diabetes and hypertension. Apple rivals Google Inc (GOOGL.O) and Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), which have released similar services, are only just starting to reach out to hospitals and other medical partners.
Apple’s HealthKit works by gathering data from sources such as glucose measurement tools, food and exercise-tracking apps and Wi-fi connected scales. The company’s Apple Watch, due for release in April, promises to add to the range of possible data
“If we had more data, like daily weights, we could give the patient a call before they need to be hospitalized,” said Chief Clinical Transformation Officer Dr. Richard Milani.
Sumit Rana, chief technology officer at Epic Systems, said the timing was right for mobile health tech to take off.
“We didn’t have smartphones ten years ago; or an explosion of new sensors and devices,” Rana said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
With the recent explosion in IoT popularity, ‘IoT capable’ devices are popping up everywhere. But what does it really mean to be ‘IoT capable’? And what are the major design requirements for IoT devices?
The three major design requirements for IoT devices: cost, power and security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
GE’s Open-Source Smart Refrigerator
USB ports inside opens accessory market for add-ons
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325539&
Smart refrigerators are not entirely new but General Electric’s (GE’s) ChillHub is the first to open-up its smarts with built-in USB ports for third-party smart accessories that let you use an app at the grocery store to tell you how much milk, soda, beer, eggs or even separate vegetables are left in the ChillHub. Plus, in collaboration with 3-D printer maker MakerBot Industries, LLC (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and rapid-manufacturer FirstBuild (a collaboration of GE and Local Motors in Louisville, Kentucky), the companies ran a contest to see which ideas from users could be made into serviceable, manufacturable accessories. The winners were announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2015, Jan. 6-9, Las Vegas).
According to Jenny Lawton, CEO of MakerBot (a subsidiary of Stratasys Ltd. in Eden Prairie, Minn.) the ChillHub is the first major home appliance that offers consumers the ability to imagine and prototype their own smart refrigerator accessories. Using the MakerBot Replicator 3D Printer enables consumers, engineers and traditional product designers to rapidly prototype their ideas. And Natarajan (Venkat) Venkatakrishnan, director of FirstBuild, promises to rapidly manufacturer successful designs in its “microfactory” for worldwide marketing in a fraction of the time it ordinarily takes.
To prove-the-concept, the companies came up with the Icebox Challenge, in collaboration with Thingiverse which resulted in almost 200 entries.
Open system
The key to opening up the ChillHub to third-party accessories is its eight USB ports capable of delivering up to 2 amps of power each to accessories that can tie into the Internet via built-in WiFi. Called a community-generated product by GE, the ChillHub’s architecture is based on an open-source iOS app that provides easy access to the accessories plugged into the USB ports.
The design was conceived by FirstBuild community members Brian Wagner and Nicolas Grenie, who had 3-D printers in mind as the means of quickly prototyping possible accessories. The first accessory, the Milky Weigh that tells you how much milk is left on the app while you are at the grocery store
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing Advanced Sensors to Consumer, Embedded and Industrial Applications
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/rohm/bringing-advanced-sensors-to-consumer-embedded-and-industrial-applicat
The modernization of electronics is played vitally by the sensors. The electronic device is more functional when sensors are made more responsive to their surroundings. An innovation known as Sensor Fusion Technology allows the combination of different sensors to develop advanced features of the electronics. Some applications need not only a single sensor, but a number of sensors to gather better information for a more intelligent reaction.
Sensors are popping up everywhere. A wide range of consumer electronics devices make extensive use of sensors, including smartphones, tablets, and gaming equipment.
The benefits of embedding sensors are apparent, but designing in sensors presents multiple challenges to OEMs. Some sensors must be continuously monitored, putting a load on the system’s main applications processor. Data processing algorithms are often compute-intensive as well. Developers must minimize device size and power consumption. Finally, sensor design and algorithm development requires expertise an OEM may not have readily available in-house.
For many applications, a dedicated sensor hub provides a compact way to integrate sensor monitoring and analysis capabilities in a cost-effective manner that minimizes power consumption. As its name states, a sensor hub has the ability to accept inputs from multiple sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, and pressure sensors.
It also has an integrated MCU to handle real-time algorithm processing.
When the device isn’t being actively used, it is valuable to power down the applications processor for intervals to save power. However, in order to detect use or measure movement (e.g. when someone picks up the device from a table or during use as a pedometer), the accelerometer needs to be continuously monitored. Here the sensor hub can manage the sensor data at an optimized low power rate while letting the main applications processor sleep.
One of the primary benefits of using a sensor hub is the ability to perform what is known as sensor fusion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Labs Deploys M&A to Crack IoT
Acquistion of Bluegiga, a wireless module co.
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325563&
Silicon Labs (Austin, Texas) has acquired a privately-held Finnish wireless module vendor Bluegiga Technologies at $61.5 million in an all-cash deal.
With the acquisition of Bluegiga, Silicon Labs is picking up the last missing link for its Internet of Things (IoT) play. Silicon Labs’ other IoT-related mergers include the acquisition of low-power microcontroller startup Energy Micro AS (Oslo, Norway) in 2013, and Ember, Boston-based wireless mesh networking technology firm in 2012.
Although Silicon Labs had no prior business relationship with the Espoo, Finland company, Tuttle revealed, “They were looking at our [Bluetooth] chip” for its potential use in their modules.
According to Tuttle, Silicon Labs “intends to continue offering” Bluegiga’s modules, in which third-party chips will be maintained. Although Bluegiga hasn’t disclosed the third-party chips they are using, they reportedly range from STMicroelectronics to CSR and Texas Instruments.
“Modules are essential to address broader markets,” said Tuttle. He sees the trend continuing for at least the next few years. He quickly added, “It’s almost ironic, because [as a chip guy] I’ve spent my whole life replacing modules [with chips].”
Silicon Labs is also on the record revealing its efforts toward a general-purpose multi-band, multi-protocol IoT SoC that can run multiple wireless protocols at low cost with very low power. The timeline for such a product remains unknown.
Tomi Engdahl says:
News & Analysis
Pitfalls in Internet of Things for 2015 & Beyond
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325079
Ever since Cisco started to issue whopping predictions — like “50 billion IoT devices by 2020″ — the electronics industry has danced to the music. Companies have rushed to the market, developing and acquiring technologies that they think will help them call the IoT tune. In 2014 many IoT discussions broke out, industry consortia popped up, and new products rolled out, many of them actually getting connected to the Internet.
“On a high level, 2014 was a year when we’ve begun feeling the universe [of Internet of Things] will happen,”
“we started to feel that IoT need to come together and it will eventually take off.”
In fact, “50 billion IoT devices by 2020” is beginning to look not as crazy as it seemed at first.
But wait. Is this all too good to be true?
The IoT bubble could still burst, if not in 2015, then in the next several years.
Skip Ashton, vice president of software at Silicon Labs, pointed out that it’s time for the industry to start talking about IoT not by dwelling on the “Internet,” but instead on the “Things.”
Ashton explained that knowing intimately what “things” are supposed to do and how they think and behave will be the key to solving one of the IoT’s most pressing issues: application layers. Beyond IoT’s applications layers, there are unsolved issues that range from privacy, to sensor fusion, to security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Evolution of the IoT
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/embedded_developer/the-evolution-of-the-iot
The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly evolving. In order to accommodate the expected 50 billion connected devices in 2020, there is a need to understand the fundamental challenges in obtaining horizontal and vertical application balance.
As a trusted expert, he employs his system solutions approach to business and consumer cases worldwide. It is that methodology that has him creating solutions at Texas Instruments (TI) for the IoT and helping customers connect their products.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is generally thought of as connecting things to the Internet and using that connection to provide some kind of useful remote monitoring and control. This definition of IoT is limited, and references only part of the IoT evolution. It is basically a rebranding of the existing Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market of today.
The Internet of Things is best defined as:
An intelligent, invisible network fabric that can be sensed, controlled, and programmed. IoT-enabled products employ embedded technology that allows them to communicate, directly or indirectly, with each other or the Internet.
In the 1990s, Internet connectivity began to proliferate in enterprise and consumer markets, but was still limited in its use because of the low performance of the network interconnect. In the 2000s, Internet connectivity became the norm for many applications and today is expected as part of many enterprise, industrial, and consumer products to provide access to information. However, these devices are still primarily things on the Internet that require more human interaction and monitoring through apps and interfaces. The true promise of the IoT is just starting to be realized—when invisible technology operates behind the scenes dynamically responding to how we want “things” to act.
To date, the world has deployed about 5 billion “smart” connected things. Predictions say there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020 and in our lifetime we will interact in a trillion-node network. Those are really big numbers. How things are fundamentally deployed today is a barrier to realizing those numbers. The industry will only achieve the reality of 50 billion connected devices by simplifying how things connect and communicate today.
The IoT of Tomorrow: A Scenario
The hotel where I have a reservation knows the approximate time of my arrival because I have allowed Apple and Google to track my location. It also knows that I am hot and sweaty from my trip because of the temperature and moisture sensors that are part of my smartwatch. The hotel room I will stay in is currently dormant—no lights, drapes closed, and the temperature is at optimized dormant levels. The valet knows it is me upon my arrival. He opens my door and the car adjusts the seat because it detects the valet. My preference is to carry my own bag, so I am not accosted by the bell captain. Once in proximity of the hotel lobby, a secure key app is available on my smartphone. By the time I reach the elevator, the room temp has adjusted to coincide with my smartwatch sensors. The light level, music, and privacy settings are to my requirements. As I approach my room, the secure key app unlocks the room door. Once settled for the night, the room detects the lights are turned out, and it changes the temperature setting to my sleep preferences.
In this scenario, I am wearing multiple sensors and actuators, like a watch vibration for alerts. Every room in this particular hotel chain also has multiple sensors and actuators as well as the rental. I am not interacting with my smartphone touchscreen constantly to direct these connected things to take actions even though it is one gateway for my activity. There will be millions of people doing this every day. We will be living in the data.
This vision of IoT will not happen right away.
Full article:
http://issuu.com/eeweb/docs/01-2015_embedded_developer_2_pages/5?e=7607911/11184384
Tomi Engdahl says:
Half a billion wearables… and guess whose kit has to support all that data, asks Cisco
Smart fridges won’t stock themsel… oh. OK then
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/06/half_a_billion_wearables_and_guess_who_has_all_the_iot_kit_thats_right_big_daddy_cisco/
Analysis Video will continue to be the primary engine of mobile data growth over the next five years, but will be reinforced by an explosion in M2M (machine-to-machine) applications and particularly wearables as a subset of that, given they are more data-intensive.
The number of wearable devices globally will grow five times, reaching 578 million by 2019 from 109 million in 2014, with North America and Asia Pacific accounting for a large proportion of that growth. This in turn is expected to drive an 18-fold growth in mobile traffic from wearable devices between 2014 and 2019, mostly channelled through smartphones as tethering devices.
The expanding M2M sector is now adding further fuel to the flames of smart data growth.
We tend to forget that 2G is still the most prevalent cellular technology, but Cisco predicts that this will be overtaken by 3G some time in 2016. By 2019, 44 per cent of global mobile connections are expected to be 3G, with 4G rising fast at 26 per cent.
Beneath these headline findings lay some interesting nuggets, one concerning the emerging battle for mobile data supremacy between 4G and Wi-Fi.
The other significant driver of mobile data is the M2M sector, which somewhat confusingly includes wearables, generating large amounts of data, alongside embedded monitoring devices that may produce very little. Cisco is most interested in wearables because of their impact on mobile data, although large numbers of small data transmissions can affect network performance more than the raw bandwidth consumed would suggest. Cisco predicts that the number of wearable devices globally will grow five times to reach 578 million by 2019 from 109 million in 2014.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SoCs being developed for the fast growth Internet-of-Things market will sell for and operate on a small fraction of the power of mobile devices’ chips.
More importantly, IoT SoCs will be far more vulnerable to hacker attacks than the much better protected chips in portable devices.
As a result, designers developing SoCs targeting IoT applications face a set of challenges that require computing capability unique to this class of devices:
(1) extensive power management functionality,
(2) sensor data and network protocol stack processing,
(3) detecting and thwarting security attacks,
(4) and enabling all these functions in a silicon footprint no larger than an 8-bit alternative
The 8-bit processors first used in IoT applications have a simple CPU architecture and instruction set, developed in the early 1970s, suited to control applications 30 to 40 years ago. With the rise of the smart phone, the computing requirements changed dramatically and demanded a 32-bit architecture, that were designed in the late 1980s, able to run on rechargeable batteries. Both these processors are being applied to the new Internet-of-Things devices now coming on the market, but neither provides the adequate computing architecture and instruction set required by this next generation of products.
The 32-bit embedded processor of which there are a number of alternatives provides the compute power, but suffer the problem of being designed for applications that were the major market drivers of their day: the PC, set-top box, and the mobile phone, tablet, and variety of consumer devices-cameras, audio recorders, and so on. The functionality in these 32-bit processors has yet to deliver a hit end-IoT product, comparable to the smart phone.
What the Internet-of-Things requires is a 32-bit processor with an architecture that serves the demand for high performance, while providing the power savings needed to last long periods between recharge or to run on harvested power.
Source: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4394994630856678657?utm_source=Webinar+Campaign+2015%2F02%2F09&utm_campaign=Webinar+Campaign&utm_medium=email
Tomi Engdahl says:
Belden joins AVnu Alliance’s new industrial market segment
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2015/02/belden-avnu-industrial.html
Belden recently joined a new industrial market group through its membership with AVnu Alliance, the industry consortium driving open standards deterministic networking through certification.
AVnu Alliance’s industrial market segment will develop the foundational elements needed for industrial applications based on the common elements of audio video bridging (AVB) and time sensitive networking (TSN), working to enhance real-time capabilities that meet the needs and embrace the future promise of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A personal intro to the IoT
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-23/issue-1/departments/editorial/a-personal-intro-to-the-iot.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Palantir Buys Fancy That To Add Retail, Shopping Data To Its Analytics Platform
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/06/palantir-fancy-that/
Palantir is known for its data analytics platform that is used extensively in areas like law enforcement, financial and insurance research and healthcare. Now you can add retail and shopping data to the mix. It has acquired Fancy That, a startup that has built a platform to help retailers with their omnichannel strategies across physical stores, online, mobile and other platforms where they sell goods and communicate with customers.
Among its features, Fancy That optimizes store operations, including clearing inventories, managing discounts, and understanding customers’ retail habits. Tapping into the different kinds of technology that are used in retail environments today, the company incorporates elements of machine learning, mobile, and sensor technologies into its services. It works on both software and hardware technologies.
Initially aiming its services at apparel sellers, Fancy That’s longer term goal seems to be to target others in the retail industry, too.