According to Intel IoT is expected to be a multi-trillion-dollar market, with 50 billion devices creating 44 zettabytes (or 44 trillion gigabytes) of data annually by 2020. But that widely cited 50 billion IoT devices in 2020 number is clearly not correct! Forecast of 50 Billion Devices by 2020 Is Outdated. In 2017 we should be talking about about some sensible numbers. The current count is somewhere between Gartner’s estimate of 6.4 billion (which doesn’t include smartphones, tablets, and computers), International Data Corporation’s estimate of 9 billion (which also excludes those devices), and IHS’s estimate of 17.6 billion (with all such devices included). Both Ericsson and Evans have lowered their expectations from 50 billion for 2020: Evans, who is now CTO of Stringify, says he expects to see 30 billion connected devices by then, while Ericsson figures on 28 billion by 2021.
Connectivity and security will be key features for Internet of Things processors in 2017. Microcontroller (MCU) makers will continue to target their products at the Internet of Things (IoT) in 2017 by giving more focus on battery life, more connectivity of various types, and greater security. The new architectures are almost sure to spawn a multitude of IoT MCUs in 2017 from manufacturers who adopt ARM’s core designs.
ARM will be big. Last year, ARM’s partners shipped 15 billion chips based on its architectures. The trend toward IoT processors will go well beyond ARM licensees. Intel rolled out the Intel Atom E3900 Series for IoT applications. And do not forget MIPS an RISC-V.
FPGA manufacturers are pushing their products to IoT market. They promise that FPGAs solve challenges at the core of IoT implementation: making IoT devices power efficient, handling incompatible interfaces, and providing a processing growth path to handle the inevitable increase in device performance requirement.
Energy harvesting field will become interesting in 2017 as it is more broadly adopted. Energy harvesting is becoming the way forward to help supplement battery power or lose the need for it altogether. Generally researchers are eyeing energy-harvesting to power ultra-low-power devices, wearable technology, and other things that don’t need a lot of power or don’t come in a battery-friendly form factor.
Low power wide area networks (LPWA) networks (also known as NarrowBand IoT) will be hot in 2017. There is hope that f LPWA nets will act as a catalyst, changing the nature of the embedded and machine-to-machine markets as NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low cost, long battery life, and enabling a large number of connected devices. The markets will become a kind of do-it-yourselfers paradise of modules and services, blurring the lines between vendors, users and partners. At the same time for years to come, the market for low power wide area networks (LPWA) will be as fragmented and is already in a race to the bottom (Sigfox, said to be promising costs approaching $1 per node per year). Competing technologies include Sigfox, LoRa Alliance, LTE Cat 1, LTE Cat M1 (eMTC), LTE Cat NB1 (NB-IoT) and other sub-gigahertz options almost too numerous to enumerate.
We are starting to see a battle between different IoT technologies, and in few years to come we will see which are winners and which technologies will be lost in the fight. Sigfox and Lora are currently starting well, but telecom operators with mobile networks NB-IoT will try hit the race heavily in 2017. Vendors prep Cat M1, NB1 for 2017: The Cat M1 standard delivers up to 380 Kbits/second over a 1.4 MHz channel. NB-1 handles up to 40 Kbits/s over 200 kHz channels. Vendors hope the 7-billion-unit installed base of cellular M2M modules expands. It’s too early to tell which technologies will be mainstream and which niche. It could be that cellular NB-IOT was too late, it will fail in the short term, it can win in the long term, and the industry will struggle to make any money from it. At $2 a year, 20 billion devices will contribute around 4% of current global mobile subscription revenues.
New versions of communication standards will be taken into use in 2017. For example Bluetooth 5 that adds more speed and IoT functionality. In 2017, we will see an increase in the number of devices with the new Bluetooth 5 standard.
Industrial IoT to gain traction in 2017. Industrial applications ultimately have the greater transformative potential than consumer products, offering users real returns on investment (ROI) rather than just enhanced convenience or “cool factor”. But the industrial sector is conservative and has been slow to embrace an industrial IoT (IIoT), but is seems that they are getting interested now. During the past year there has been considerable progress in removing many of the barriers to IIoT adoption. A global wide implementation of an IIoT is many years away, of course. The issues of standards and interoperability will most likely remain unresolved for several years to come, but progress is being made. The Industrial Internet Consortium released a framework to support development of standards and best practices for IIoT security.
The IIoT market is certainly poised to grow. A Genpact research study, for instance, indicates that more than 80% of large companies believe that the IIoT will be essential to their future success. In a recent market analysis by Industry ARC, for instance, the projected value of the IIoT market will reach more than $120 billion by 2021. Research firm Markets and Markets is even more optimistic, pegging IIoT growth at a CAGR of 8% to more than $150 billion by 2020. And the benefits will follow. By GE’s estimate, the IIoT will stimulate an increase in the global GDP of $10 to $15 trillion over the next 20 years.
Systems integrators are seeking a quick way to enter the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market. So expect to see many plug and play IoT sensor systems unveiled. There were many releses in 2016, and expect to see more in 2017. Expect to see device, connectivity and cloud service to be marketed as one packet.
IoT analytics will be talked a lot in 2017. Many companies will promise to turn Big Data insights into bigger solutions. For industrial customers Big Data analytics is promised to drive operational efficiencies, cut costs, boosting production, and improving worker productivity. There are many IIoT analytic solution and platform suppliers already on the market and a growing number of companies are now addressing industrial analytics use.
In 2016 it was all bout getting the IoT devices connected to cloud. In 2017 we will see increased talk about fog computing. Fog computing is new IoT trend pushed by Cisco and many other companies. As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, decentralized, distributed-intelligence concepts such as “fog computing” are taking hold to address the need for lower latencies, improved security, lower power consumption, and higher reliability. The basic premise of fog computing is classic decentralization whereby some processing and storage functions are better performed locally instead of sending data all the way from the sensor, to the cloud, and back again to an actuator. This demands smarter sensors and new wireless sensor network architectures. Groups such as the Open Fog Consortium have formed to define how it should best be done. You might start to want to be able to run the same code in cloud and your IoT device.
The situation in IoT security in 2016 was already Hacking the IoT: As Bad As I Feared It’d Be and there is nothing that would indicate that the situation will not get any better in 2017. A veritable army of Internet-connected equipment has been circumvented of late, due to vulnerabilities in its hardware, software or both … “smart” TVs, set-top boxes and PVRs, along with IP cameras, routers, DSL, fiber and cable modems, printers and standalone print servers, NASs, cellular hot spots, and probably plenty of other gear. IoT world at the moment is full of vulnerable devices, and it will take years to get then replaces with more secure devices. Those vulnerable devices can be used to make huge DDoS attacks against Internet services. The 2016 October 21 cyberattacks on Dyn brought to light how easily many IoT devices can be compromised. I expect that kind of incidents will happen more in 2017 as DDoS botnets are pretty easy to build with tools available on-line. There’s no question that everyone in the chain – manufacturers, retailers and consumers – have to do a better job securing connected devices.When it comes to IoT, more security is needed.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Briggs and Stratton 8,000 Watt Elite Series Portable Generator with StatStation Wireless
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/briggs-and-stratton-8000-watt-elite-series-portable-generator-statstation-wireless
new Briggs & Stratton 8,000 Watt Elite Series Portable Generator with StatStation Wireless, featuring Bluetooth technology.
The accompanying StatStation app for Android and iOS, with support from Bluetooth connectivity, provides valuable remote visibility into key metrics, such as fuel level and remaining runtime, runtime meter, percent of available Watt consumption, maintenance reminders, dealer locator, reference guides and how-to videos.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Trick Your Electrical Meter By Saving Power
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/04/how-to-trick-your-electrical-meter-by-saving-power/
A group of Dutch scientists have been testing out some of today’s “smart” electrical meters to check their accuracy, among other things. Not ones to disappoint, the scientists have found consistently false readings that in some cases are 582% higher than actual energy consumption.
Their results? Well, “results varied wildly, with some meters reporting errors way above their disclosed range, going from -32% to +582%. Tests with uncommon results were repeated several times
Millions of Smart Meters May Over-Inflate Readings by up to 600%
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/millions-of-smart-meters-may-over-inflate-readings-by-up-to-600-percent/
Lab tests carried out by Dutch scientists have shown that some of today’s “smart” electrical meters may give out false readings that in some cases can be 582% higher than actual energy consumption.
The study involved several tests conducted on nine different brands of “smart” meters, also referred to in the industry as “static energy meters.” Researchers also used one electromechanical meter for reference.
Using a simple test rig, portrayed above, researchers connected the smart meters to various power-consuming appliances found in regular homes, such as energy saving light bulbs, heaters, LED bulbs, and dimmers.
Problems blamed on smart meter designs
Researchers blamed all the issues on the design of some smart meters, and, ironically, electrical devices with energy-saving features.
The latter devices, researchers say, introduced a large amount of noise in electrical current waveforms, which disrupt the smart meter sensors tasked with recording power consumption.
“The reason for faulty readings appears to be the current sensor,
and the associated circuitry,”
Since the research only covered smart meters commonly installed in Dutch homes, researchers say that around 750,000 smart meters deployed around the Netherlands may be giving out false readings.
Worldwide, the numbers of possibly faulty smart meters could be in the millions, especially after some governments, especially in the EU, have pushed for smart meters to replace classic electromechanical (rotating disk) meters.
UPDATE [March 27, 2017]: ESMIG, which describes itself as |the European voice of the providers of smart energy solutions” has published research that disputes the findings of the Dutch researchers. Here are their main conclusions :
The electromagnetic interference phenomena created in the tests of the University of Twente grossly exceed emissions limits allowable under EU regulation for equipment typically used in households.
These conditions would not be found in any imaginable normal household scenario.
There is no reason to question smart metering technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
GM Hooking 30,000 Robots to Internet to Keep Factories Humming
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/gm-hooking-30-000-robots-to-internet-to-keep-factories-humming
General Motors Co. has connected about a quarter of its 30,000 factory robots to the internet, and the largest U.S. automaker already is reaping the benefits of less down time.
In the last two years, GM has avoided 100 potential failures of vehicle-assembling robots by analyzing data they sent to external servers in the cloud
“If we can avoid a disruption in our manufacturing, we can save ourselves a significant amount of money,”
Auto companies were pioneers adopting automation and continue to be the robotics industry’s largest customer. In 2016, automotive factories installed 17,600 robots compared with 5,100 for electronics manufacturers and 1,900 for metal producers, according to the federation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IOT Startup Bricks Customers Garage Door Intentionally
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/05/iot-startup-bricks-customers-garage-door-intentionally/
Internet of Things startup Garadget remotely bricked an unhappy customer’s WiFi garage door for giving a bad Amazon review and being rude to company reps. Garadget device owner [Robert Martin] found out the hard way how quickly the device can turn a door into a wall. After leaving a negative Amazon review, and starting a thread on Garadget’s support forum complaining the device didn’t work with his iPhone, Martin was banned from the forum until December 27, 2019 for his choice of words and was told his comments and bad Amazon review had convinced Garadget staff to ban his device from their servers.
This whole debacle brings us to the conclusion that the IoT boom has a lot of issues ahead that need straightened out especially when it comes to ethics and security. It’s bad enough to have to deal with the vagaries of IoT Security and companies who shut down their products because they’re just not making enough money. Now we have to worry about using “cloud” services because the people who own the little fluffy computers could just be jerks.
Startup remotely ‘bricks’ grumpy bloke’s IoT car garage door – then hits reverse gear
Confesses retaliation after poor review was ‘bad PR move’
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/04/iot_garage_door_startup_bad_pr/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Growing Ubuntu for cloud and IoT, rather than phone and convergence
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/
I’d like to emphasise our ongoing passion for, investment in, and commitment to, the Ubuntu desktop that millions rely on. We will continue to produce the most usable open source desktop in the world, to maintain the existing LTS releases, to work with our commercial partners to distribute that desktop, to support our corporate customers who rely on it, and to delight the millions of IoT and cloud developers who innovate on top of it.
We care that Ubuntu is widely useful to people who use Linux every day, for personal or commercial projects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon debuts a dashboard for Alexa Skills, letting developers track unique customers, and an API for requesting specific location data — Amazon this morning rolled out new tools for developers of Alexa apps, aka “Skills,” which aim to give them more insight into their app’s users …
Amazon Alexa developers can now ask for customer’s location, track their skills’ performance
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/05/amazon-alexa-developers-can-now-ask-for-customers-location-track-their-skills-performance/
Amazon this morning rolled out new tools for developers of Alexa apps, aka “Skills,” which aim to give them more insight into their app’s users, as well as allow them to build location-based skills. The first is a new metrics dashboard – similar to those used by developers of mobile applications, but designed for these voice apps – which lets Alexa developers track things like unique customers, sessions, utterances (spoken words) and intents.
The other is a device address API which allows developers to request specific location data from their customers, including street address, city, state, zip, and country.
The dashboard is being made available in the developer portal, and presents a high-level view of the app’s metrics in the overview tab – like total customers, sessions, utterances, etc. A separate sessions tab will let developers drill down into this data further, to see things like the number of successful end session types, average number of sessions per customer, average number of utterances by customer, and more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Malware Intentionally Bricks IoT Devices
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-malware-intentionally-bricks-iot-devices/
A new malware strain called BrickerBot is bricking Internet of Things (IoT) devices around the world by corrupting their storage capability and reconfiguring kernel parameters.
Detected via honeypot servers maintained by cyber-security firm Radware, the first attacks started on March 20 and continued ever since, targeting only Linux BusyBox-based IoT devices.
Right from the get-go, two different versions of BrickerBot were detected: BrickerBot.1 and BrickerBot.2.
BrickerBot spreads to devices with open Telnet ports
In the first stages of the attacks, both strains work in a similar way, by attempting a dictionary brute-force attack on devices with Telnet ports left open on the Internet.
Just like Mirai, Hajime, LuaBot, and other IoT malware, BrickerBot uses a list of known default credentials used for various IoT devices.
If device owners failed to change their default credentials, BrickerBot logs in and performs a series of Linux commands.
The end result is a bricked IoT device that will stop working within seconds of getting infected. Experts call these attack PDoS (Permanent Denial of Service), but they are also known as “phlashing.”
According to telemetry data, just one of Radware’s honeypots has seen 1,895 PDoS attempts in the span of four days.
BrickerBot the work of a vigilante?
All in all, BrickerBot isn’t like anything we’ve seen before in the landscape of IoT malware. Most IoT malware strains try to hoard devices in massive botnets that are then used as proxies to relay malicious traffic or to launch DDoS attacks. Both of these are lucrative businesses for any cyber-criminal talented enough to hijack large numbers of IoT equipment.
BrickerBot’s destructive capabilities are something new, which don’t benefit anyone. Not BrickerBot’s author, and certainly not the device owner, who’ll have to reinstall firmware, or even worse, buy a new device.
BrickerBot could also be the work of an Internet vigilante that wants to destroy insecure IoT devices. A similar malware strain first appeared in October 2015.
Called Linux.Wifatch, this IoT malware strain took over insecure routers and then executed commands that improved the device’s security. The creators of this malware open-sourced the code on GitLab, also explaining the reasons why they created the malware to begin with, claiming they had no bad intentions.
“Wow. That’s pretty nasty,” said Cybereason security researcher Amit Serper after Bleeping Computer showed him Radware’s security alert. “They’re just bricking it for the sake of bricking it. [They're] deliberately destroying the device.”
“It’s someone who wanted the clean up the mess in a harsh way,”
BrickerBot’s approach is definitely illegal and dangerous, as Gevers points out. The researcher also doesn’t agree with the attackers’ approach.
“These attacks are very easy to execute, and I think this just the beginning,” the expert told Bleeping Computer. “I don’t want to label this work as dark, but I think there are less destructive ways to achieve the same goal.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Needs Embedded Cryptography
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331566&
Security is a top concern for the Internet of Things, as essential as low power consumption, affordability, and wireless connectivity.
Because IoT devices are optimized for low power consumption and affordability, many have less than optimal computing resources. The good news is there are several options for using cryptography to make it more difficult for hackers to highjack your living room webcam, video doorbell or car.
The denial-of-service attack last October showed how cheap IoT devices that had no security–in many cases not even proper password protections–could be hacked to flood Web sites with traffic, shutting them down. In an increasingly connected future, consequences could include having water or electricity shut off, security systems disabled, or even loss of life for attacks on medical devices.
For the IoT, authentication ensures that devices are interacting with authorized gateways and cloud services and they in turn verify they are working with authentic IoT nodes. The sender will use a hashing algorithm and shared secret keys to generate a tag known as a message authentication code (MAC). The receiver performs the same hashing algorithm to decode the MAC and compare it with one stored locally.
The strength of the MAC depends on the strength of the hashing algorithm, the length of the key used and whether the key is shared secretly and stored securely. The current state-of-the-art hashing algorithm for cryptographic purposes is SHA-256 with 256-bit keys.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded Systems Designers Are Creating the Internet of Dangerous Things
A study from the Barr Group gives low marks to safety and security practices used by embedded systems engineers.
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/embedded-systems-designers-are-creating-internet-dangerous-things/119133372156572?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170406
Embedded systems experts at the Barr Group have uncovered alarming information about the state of embedded systems design. The group’s recent study, 2017 Embedded Systems Safety & Security Survey , reveals that a significant percentage of embedded systems designers are failing to place emphasis on the security and safety of their designs.
A sizeable 28 percent of the 1,700+ qualified respondents indicated that the products they are designing are capable of causing injury or death in the event of a malfunction.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security: Losses Outpace Gains
http://semiengineering.com/state-of-security-declining/
Complexity, new and highly connected technology, and more valuable data are making it harder to keep out hackers.
SE: Where are we with security? It seems that rather than getting better, things have actually gotten worse over the past year. Where are the problems and how do we close up some of these holes?
Kocher: At a high level, if you want to run some complex set of applications, run huge amounts of software and keep it from being compromised from adversaries, this is an area where we’re losing ground. And it’s one where we’ve been losing ground for a long time. It’s hard to get a sense of where things are going because the press is missing both the positive and negative information. Nobody writes an article announcing which system is not hacked this week. On the other side, most attacks don’t get detected, which is the number one objective if you’re an adversary. If you’ve recognized you’ve been breached, the attacker already messed up. The ones that get detected are the ones that either have business models that necessitate detection, like financial fraud, or they’re amateurish and unlucky or working on such a scale that they’ve can’t hide. If you look at what gets caught, there’s an awful lot that clearly is not being reported on.
SE: But this is more than just a reporting issue, right?
Kocher: Yes, but there aren’t good metrics.
SE: So where are you seeing progress?
Kocher: People are finally realizing that security solutions are not cost-prohibitive for transistors
SE: A lot of that has been regulated from the outside down, whereas, the chip industry for the most part has never had to deal with this.
Kocher: It may take regulation or other market forces to change behavior. It certainly is true that if you look at industries like aviation, pharmaceuticals, and to a certain degree medicine, change has occurred and regulators have played a role in that. It’s still a little early in the security space to really apply a lot of regulation because we don’t exactly know what the best solutions to a problem are.
SE: What could regulators do?
Kocher: They could regulate what your expectations should be for a product if it claims to be secure, because right now most products sold have security bugs in them that make them not secure. Trying to figure out what information should be delivered to customers about what was done probably could help. It would certainly make the security easier if and when it becomes highly regulated.
SE: So what’s next?
Kocher: There are some pretty good proposals that are currently on the table that are being studied, and there will be standardization process for those.
SE: The security picture comprises lots of smaller pieces. AI is one component. The Mirai botnet was another piece, where little things you don’t expect to be important add up to something big, like the first massive IoT attack. You also have the standard stuff that has been going on for a while, hacking into a server to get financial data. Can they be addressed on a macro level, considering everything is now connected, or does everything have to be addressed separately?
Kocher: There’s a point where you’ve got a specific vulnerability in a specific product, and those things end up being treated like a specific gunshot wound that might be treated in an ER. A patient comes in and people do the best to deal with whatever you got there, minimizing the consequences. There are a lot of things that are common root causes to different problems that are often many steps before the actual product was shipped to a customer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How an IIoT-enabled maintenance maturity model works
Six actions that set the stage for better asset management.
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/how-an-iiot-enabled-maintenance-maturity-model-works/f02ab248942ac5297b33b816ee30bc0f.html
To gauge IIoT impact on maintenance-related activities, it helps to revisit higher-level concepts related to maintenance maturity and associated definitions. ARC’s recent review of current maturity models uncovered many different versions of it as well as many internal inconsistencies. The industry lacks a true standard to build upon. This lack of clarity makes it difficult to compare solutions, leading to confusion among potential users and delaying the application of solutions.
Several type maturity models
Reactive maintenance: Reactive, or run-to-failure, maintenance is the most common approach for equipment, since most assets have a very low probability of failure and are non-critical. This approach helps control maintenance costs, but is only appropriate for non-critical assets.
Preventive maintenance: Here, maintenance is performed based on either time (analogous to replacing the batteries in your household smoke detectors once a year), or usage (changing your car’s oil every 5,000 miles). Preventive maintenance applies to assets with an age-related failure-pattern, where the frequency of failure for the asset increases with age, run-time, or number of cycles.
Condition-based maintenance: CBM involves monitoring a specific asset parameter. The focus tends to be the amplitude of the value, with vibration monitoring being the most common. CBM typically applies to production (rotating equipment) and automation (instruments and the control system) equipment. For stationary plant equipment, such as steam boilers, piping and heat exchangers, periodic inspections and condition evaluations are often used.
Predictive maintenance: PdM uses engineered algorithms and machine learning with multiple input parameters to provide higher accuracy (fewer false positives or missed issues) and more advanced warning before failure. It combines “small data” from a device or system with algorithms that model that type of equipment (sometimes called virtual equipment or a “digital twin”) to monitor-condition and raise an alert when appropriate. This provides the more advanced notice needed to schedule and execute the maintenance during planned shutdowns.
Prescriptive maintenance: builds on PdM with alerts that provide diagnostics and guidance for repair. Information for determining the timing and impact of failure is also included to help assess priority and urgency.
Potential benefits
Increasing maturity typically involves more engineering investment.
Users have reported that moving from preventive maintenance to predictive or prescriptive approaches provides 50% savings in maintenance labor and MRO materials. With predictive and prescriptive maintenance, near zero-unplanned downtime for critical equipment can be achieved. This level of equipment reliability ripples into other significant business benefits, including improvements in on-time shipments, revenue, customer satisfaction, quality/yield, safety, and work-in-process inventory.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IIoT assembly line: Getting a head start
Improving maintenance, operations among the most visible benefits.
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/the-iiot-assembly-line-getting-a-head-start/00ab46c36b97806878320602b6c6089a.html
The Internet of Things (IoT) movement has quickly connected our everyday devices, from our phones to cars and even our refrigerators. There’s no doubt that the IoT is growing and expanding into new territories, especially within the world of machinery. The manufacturing industry is on the cusp of a revolution with the help of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Embracing the future of the IIoT will result in a working environment connected by sensors gathering useful data regarding equipment status, temperature conditions and current work progress, helping to improve the efficiency, safety and productivity of operations.
Why now? Manufacturers around the world are gaining more confidence in technology’s abilities and believe it’s time to invest. Smart manufacturing will allow for the monitoring of thousands of machines, equipment and more, both inside and outside of factories. The IIoT provides a new platform to integrate and store technology data, making it a big change and an even bigger value.
The transition to IIoT presents manufacturers with many benefits, including:
Visibility: The IIoT can bring real-time visibility into location and status of fixed and moving assets such as critical inventory, parts, equipment and goods in transit. For example, if a plastic injection molding company houses its polyethylene in a silo, sensors can be added to monitor inventory levels. The connected system can sense when it is running low and send an alert to the supplier to schedule a fill, limiting downtime. Data from multiple sites is aggregated on a common platform for centralized management and analysis.
Predictive maintenance: From cooling systems to production machinery, manufacturing equipment often requires regular maintenance. IIoT technology can be utilized to remotely monitor and alert to changes indicative of impending trouble. If a motor’s temperature increases beyond a normal range or the vibration of a pump has changed, the trend will show in the data and the issue can be addressed before it becomes a disaster, avoiding expensive downtime. The IIoT makes maintenance service proactive, not reactive. Applying analytics to the machine data opens the ability to adopt a use-based maintenance methodology, saving time and money.
Improved operations: The ability to predict potential equipment failures and repairs minimizes the number of service calls necessary. Manufacturers utilizing IoT solutions in 2014 saw an average 28.5% increase in revenues between 2013 and 2014, according to a Tata Consultancy Services survey.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Predictive analytics enable open connectivity, collaboration
For software developer System Insights, open connectivity and collaboration with Rexroth helped create a solution for a manufacturing facility.
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/predictive-analytics-enable-open-connectivity-collaboration/65ba0706abc422678719588fd1f5f5cc.html
Harmonizing the data
For the integration of System Insights VIMANA with the IndraMotion MTX controller, the key factor was open connectivity, specifically OPC DA. Because OPC is an interface that doesn’t require dynamic link library (DLL) implementations, Rexroth didn’t have to give System Insights a specific code or have it integrate a code. OPC is a nice open interface. In the end, integration with a partner like System Insights with OPC as a platform was fairly easy.
The project marked the first formal business collaboration between System Insights and Bosch Rexroth. “VIMANA is providing this customer a platform for manufacturing intelligence, integrating with Bosch Rexroth drive and control technology to connect assets and analyze, monitor, and optimize the factory floor for improved operational performance,”
Blueprint for Industrie 4.0
Figure 3: Typical icons representing Industrie 4.0. Courtesy: Bosch RexrothThe experience of working on a project that involved such a high level of standards-based connectivity and collaboration could serve as a blueprint for niche companies such as System Insights moving toward Industrie 4.0 (see Figure 3). Dr. Vijayaraghavan doesn’t think Industrie 4.0. will be a one-size-fits-all solution.
“For Industrie 4.0 programs to be successful, we need to have collaboration,” said Vijayaraghavan. “That’s why standards are important. And, you can’t have only one standard. You have to have multiple standards and be able to interoperate between them. This makes it possible for the end user to bring in a collection of experts to solve different aspects of a problem. Ultimately, it’s a means to an end where you’re looking at better profitability, better productivity, and faster turnaround. So, for those objectives to be maximized, you need to have much tighter interoperability across these Industrie 4.0. systems.” This project was a good example of that actually happening.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Miniature Antenna Nourishes Body Area Networks
http://mwrf.com/systems/miniature-antenna-nourishes-body-area-networks?NL=MWRF-001&Issue=MWRF-001_20170406_MWRF-001_874&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=10506&utm_medium=email&elq2=af5b24c660f545a7a057326636053af7
A student design competition resulted in an award-winning health-monitoring BAN using Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) communications.
The HRM, temperature sensor, and fall detector use a low-frequency data link at 5.5 kHz to communicate with the microcontroller, which in turn makes the collected data available to a smartphone or other monitoring device by means of 2.4-GHz Bluetooth low energy (BLE) communications. The choice of low-frequency 5.5 kHz data link results in less signal attenuation through and around the body of the wearer, using an inter-integrated-circuit (I2C) bus to the microcontroller as the HRM interface (HRMI).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Things Developer Preview 3
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/04/android-things-developer-preview-3.html?m=1
Android developers can quickly build smart devices using Android APIs and Google services, while staying secure with updates directly from Google. The System-on-Module (SoM) architecture supports prototyping with development boards, and then scaling them to large production runs while using the same Board Support Package (BSP) from Google.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers uncover BrickerBot-powered botnet attacks that are designed to brick poorly secured Linux-based routers and other IoT devices
Rash of in-the-wild attacks permanently destroys poorly secured IoT devices
Ongoing “BrickerBot” attacks might be trying to kill devices before they can join a botnet.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/04/rash-of-in-the-wild-attacks-permanently-destroys-poorly-secured-iot-devices/
Researchers have uncovered a rash of ongoing attacks designed to damage routers and other Internet-connected appliances so badly that they become effectively inoperable.
PDoS attack bots (short for “permanent denial-of-service”) scan the Internet for Linux-based routers, bridges, or similar Internet-connected devices that require only factory-default passwords to grant remote administrator access. Once the bots find a vulnerable target, they run a series of highly debilitating commands that wipe all the files stored on the device, corrupt the device’s storage, and sever its Internet connection. Given the cost and time required to repair the damage, the device is effectively destroyed, or bricked, from the perspective of the typical consumer.
Over a four-day span last month, researchers from security firm Radware detected roughly 2,250 PDoS attempts on devices they made available in a specially constructed honeypot. The attacks came from two separate botnets—dubbed BrickerBot.1 and BrickerBot.2—with nodes for the first located all around the world. BrickerBot.1 eventually went silent, but even now the more destructive BrickerBot.2 attempts a log-on to one of the Radware-operated honeypot devices roughly once every two hours. The bots brick real-world devices that have the telnet protocol enabled and are protected by default passwords, with no clear sign to the owner of what happened or why.
The attacks are a variation on those mounted by Mirai, a botnet made up of network cameras, digital video recorders, and other so-called Internet-of-things devices. The point of Mirai is to build an army of devices that cripple prominent websites with record-setting distributed DoS attacks. The motivation for the PDoS attacks remains unclear, in part because BrickerBot.2 attacked a much wider variety of storage devices—including those used by servers—rather than storage used only by more limited IoT devices.
The common thread linking all the devices—whether targeted by BrickerBot.1 or BrickerBot.2—is that they are so poorly secured that they are easy prey for Mirai and other highly destructive botnets. That leaves open the possibility that the rash of PDoS attacks is being carried out by one or more vigilantes who want to take out these devices before they can be conscripted into a powerful DoS army that poses a serious threat to the Internet as we know it. IoT users who don’t want to change default passwords and close or limit access to telnet and SSH out of concern they’ll be used in crippling attacks against others now have a much more self-interested reason for locking down their devices—preventing them from being bricked.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Israel-based Otonomo raises $25M Series B for its cloud software that helps automakers monetize data generated by connected cars
Otonomo raises $25M to help automakers make money from connected cars
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/07/otonomo-raises-25m-to-help-automakers-make-money-from-connected-cars/
It’s no secret that data is the hot new revenue source for automakers, who are seeing additional profit opportunities bloom as vehicles become more connected and they can retrieve a ton of useful data that’s incredibly valuable when deployed correctly. Israeli startup otonomo has been on top of that trend since its founding in 2015, with nine automakers worldwide using its platform to feed a marketplace that connects car makers and drivers with service providers, optimizing the monetization of that data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the IoT: connectivity and security
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442411/Building-the-IoT—connectivity-and-security
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: Fitness band hardware
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4458165/Teardown–Fitness-band-hardware-
Wearables, specifically fitness-focused smart watches, activity-tracking bands, and the like, are one of the “hotter” consumer product categories in technology of late. So when back in August 2015 I noticed that Groupon was advertising a “Mystery Box Deal featuring Jawbone, Skechers, Bowflex, And Garmin” at $39.99
Did I end up with at least one brand-name item? Ahhh … no. Today’s teardown victim is the Skechers GOwalk Activity Monitor, sold (at least briefly) by a company mostly known as a shoe supplier; the fitness band is no longer mentioned on Sketcher’s main website
As such, I expected to find three primary functions represented inside:
an accelerometer to detect movement
a Bluetooth transceiver to transfer data to a wirelessly tethered smartphone or other device, and
a microcontroller to run things, along with memory (either volatile or nonvolatile … what happens when the battery fails?) to temporarily store logged data prior to transf
The large IC on the right side has a black glop-top epoxy-obscured identity, unfortunately; I’m guessing it’s the aforementioned microcontroller-plus-memory. The one on the left is a Nordic Semiconductor nRF8001 Bluetooth Low Energy transceiver
Reading through the Amazon reviews of the product, I come to a conclusion that I unfortunately frequently encounter … the hardware seemed solid, but the software was the product’s Achilles Heel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BrickerBot Damages IoT Device Firmware
http://www.securityweek.com/brickerbot-damages-iot-device-firmware
Security researchers have identified a new type of cyber attack causes damage to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, rather than ensnaring them into a botnet.
Dubbed Permanent Denial-of-Service (PDoS), the attacks can be highly damaging, resulting in the need to replace or reinstall hardware, researchers explain: security flaws are abused to destroy the firmware and/or basic functions of system.
One of the tools used to launch such attacks is called BrickerBot, and Radware researchers observed two variants starting March 20, 2017. One of them, however, had a short life and remains inactive, while the other continues to operate. Both, however, have had the same purpose: to compromise IoT devices and corrupt their storage.
To compromise devices, BrickerBot uses Telnet brute force, a method previously associated with the Mirai botnet, which abused infected devices to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
“BrickerBot” Results In Permanent Denial-of-Service
https://security.radware.com/ddos-threats-attacks/brickerbot-pdos-permanent-denial-of-service/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Needs Embedded Cryptography
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331566&
Security is a top concern for the Internet of Things, as essential as low power consumption, affordability, and wireless connectivity.
Because IoT devices are optimized for low power consumption and affordability, many have less than optimal computing resources. The good news is there are several options for using cryptography to make it more difficult for hackers to highjack your living room webcam, video doorbell or car.
For the IoT, authentication ensures that devices are interacting with authorized gateways and cloud services and they in turn verify they are working with authentic IoT nodes. The sender will use a hashing algorithm and shared secret keys to generate a tag known as a message authentication code (MAC). The receiver performs the same hashing algorithm to decode the MAC and compare it with one stored locally.
The strength of the MAC depends on the strength of the hashing algorithm, the length of the key used and whether the key is shared secretly and stored securely. The current state-of-the-art hashing algorithm for cryptographic purposes is SHA-256 with 256-bit keys.
For sharing keys securely, either a secure channel can be used or a Diffie–Hellman key exchange over an insecure channel.
Today AES is the accepted standard to encrypt and decrypt our messages using digital keys. Symmetric key cryptography uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt the message, making it critical to keep the key secret. Asymmetric cryptography uses a shared, public key and a private key which is kept secret.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security expert Peter Neumann discussed the government project he works on that aims to pave a road to provably secure systems. He is a principal investigator for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on CRASH (Clean-Slate Design of Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts), a program that aims to build self-healing systems resistant to cyber attacks.
Such systems are sorely needed. Even today’s devices using a hardware root-of-trust such as ARM’s TrustZone are liable to side-channel attacks or fault injections based on monitoring a system’s power use or sending disrupting energy pulses.
“The IoT cannot possibly survive in the long run if there is no security… There’s no hope if we continue on the path we’re on of putting more and more things online that can be compromised either directly or through the network they are on,” he said, calling companies that advertise they can secure the IoT “a fantastic fraud” and “all smoke and mirrors.”
The CRASH program has developed a formal spec for a 64-bit MIPS system that uses special instructions so “if you don’t have right credentials, you can’t get at an associated object, which might be an entire database or app,”
Even if it’s successful it’s not bulletproof. “You still face key management issues, denial-of-service attacks and insider misuse like a Snowden attack, which is one of worst problems of all,” he said.
Source: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331567&page_number=2
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers uncover BrickerBot-powered botnet attacks that are designed to brick poorly secured Linux-based routers and other IoT devices
Rash of in-the-wild attacks permanently destroys poorly secured IoT devices
Ongoing “BrickerBot” attacks might be trying to kill devices before they can join a botnet.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/04/rash-of-in-the-wild-attacks-permanently-destroys-poorly-secured-iot-devices/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: WiFi In Wall Switches
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/07/hackaday-prize-entry-wifi-in-wall-switches/
The Internet of Things and Home Automation are the next big thing, even though we’ve had X10 switches and controllers for forty years. Why the sudden interest in home automation? Cheap microcontrollers with WiFi, ZigBee, and Z-wave, apparently. For this Hackaday Prize entry, [Knudt] is building a WiFi switch, meant to be retrofitted into any Euro wall switch.
The top layer is the switch itself and a small OLED display.
The second layer of this contraption is basically an ESP8266, providing all the logic for this wall switch. The bottom layer is a bit more interesting, housing the 110-230V input, with a Triac or relay.
Modular WiFi-Switch
Modular ESP8266 Wi-Fi switch to the installation in switch boxes.
https://hackaday.io/project/20035-modular-wifi-switch
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting a Measure on Particulates in Stuttgart
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/08/getting-a-measure-on-particulates-in-stuttgart/
There’s a big to-do going on right now in Germany over particulate-matter air pollution. Stuttgart, Germany’s “motor city” and one of Dante’s seven circles of Hell during rush hour, had the nation’s first-ever air pollution alert last year.
But how big is the issue? And where is it localized? Or is particulate pollution localized at all? These questions would benefit from a distributed network of particulate sensors, and the OK Lab in Stuttgart has put together a simple project(translated here) to get a lot of networked sensors out into the wild, on the cheap.
The basic build is an ESP8266 with an SDS011 particulate sensor attached, with a temperature and humidity sensor if you’re feeling fancy. The suggested housing is very clever: two 90° PVC pipe segments to keep the rain out but let the dust in through a small pipe.
This effort reminds us of Blitzortung, this radiation-monitoring network, or of the 2014 Hackaday-Prize-Winning SATNOGS.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://luftdaten.info/feinstaubsensor-bauen/&edit-text=&act=url
Tomi Engdahl says:
BrickerBot Takes Down your IoT Devices Permanently
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/08/brickerbot-takes-down-your-iot-devices-permanently/
There is a new class of virii in town, specifically targeting Internet of Things (IoT) devices. BrickerBot and its variants do exactly as their name says, turning your smart devices into bricks. Someone out there has gotten tired of all the IoT security flaws and has undertaken extreme (and illegal) measures to fix the problem. Some of the early reports have come in from a security company called Radware, who isolated two variants of the virii in their honeypots.
In a nutshell, BrickerBot gains access to insecure Linux-based systems by using brute force. It tries to telnet in using common default root username/password pairs. Once inside it uses shell commands (often provided by BusyBox) to write random data to any mounted drives.
“BrickerBot” Results In Permanent Denial-of-Service
https://security.radware.com/ddos-threats-attacks/brickerbot-pdos-permanent-denial-of-service/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Generator Monitor Gives the Phone Company the Boot
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/09/generator-monitor-gives-the-phone-company-the-boot/
Part of the problem with having an alarm system is its reliance on land line telephone service.
Like these antiquated systems, [jgyates] was having a similar problem with the generator at his home which could only be monitored with a link to a cell network. Now that there’s a Raspberry Pi in every house, however, [jgyates] has a generator monitor that isn’t beholden to the phone company.
The hardware setup is little more than connecting the communications lines from the generator’s controller (in this case, a Generac Evolution controller) to the serial communications pins on a Raspberry Pi 3. [jgyates] did most of the work in Python, and his code is able to monitor almost every aspect of this generator and report it over WiFi or Ethernet, as well as control the generator settings from anywhere that has an Internet connection.
Raspberry Pi Backup Generator Monitoring
Generac Generator Monitoring over WiFi using a Raspberry Pi
https://hackaday.io/project/20601-raspberry-pi-backup-generator-monitoring
This project will monitor a backup generator that utilizes the Generac Evolution or Nexus Controllers over a WiFi or wired connection. The project is written mostly in python and has been tested with a Raspberry Pi 3. Ideally you would need to create a physical enclosure for your raspberry pi and possibly make a cable to connect the raspberry pi to the Evolution or Nexus controller. If you are comfortable doing these things and you have a backup generator that has an Generac Evolution or Nexus controller then this project may be of interest to you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
Qualcomm gets antitrust clearance; the Garadget flap; sensors in power generation.
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-47/
Qualcomm reported that the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 expired on Monday, April 3, clearing the chip design company’s proposed $47 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors, at least in the eyes of U.S. antitrust regulators.
Meanwhile, NXP Semiconductors said it collaborated with GCL Technologies, the Technological Research Center of Guala Closures Group, on a product that will detect if a beverage bottle has been opened and tampered with, such as replacing a genuine alcoholic beverage with counterfeit booze. They developed a near-field communication closure offering using NXP’s NTAG 213 Tag Tamper technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Visible Things
The edge to enterprise IoT platform
https://www.avnet.com/wps/portal/silica/solutions/iot/internet-of-things/visible-things/
Targeting a wide range of industrial markets, Visible Things is a highly flexible and comprehensive evaluation and development platform for edge-to-enterprise IoT projects. The platform delivers tested, proven, secure and integrated hardware and embedded software to connect smart sensors and embedded devices via gateway solutions or low-power wide-area (LPWA) networking technologies, right through to the cloud and enterprise software applications.
To help users get up and running quickly with their IoT project, there are three Visible Things™ reference-design starter kit boards available, each managed by ARM® Cortex® based microcontrollers.
A Gateway board, which manages the all the necessary connectivity to the cloud service via Wi-Fi, and a smart sensor board including Bluetooth Smart connectivity and a range of sensors including motion, temperature/humidity and light/proximity. The kit also contains an integrated antenna and a mini-USB cable. A GSM peripheral module with embedded SIM and SIM-connector options is available as an expansion option to the gateway board to enable cellular connectivity up to cloud enterprise software services.
The second and third kits are designed for use with the SIGFOX and LoRaWAN™ networks, and include respective SIGFOX and LoRaWAN module sensors, with each board also integrating additional motion and light sensors. IoT application messages can be exchanged with the cloud service without the need to communicate via a gateway.
Infineon DPS310 – Digital barometric air pressure sensor
https://www.avnet.com/wps/portal/silica/products/product-highlights/2016/infineon-dps310/
DPS310 is a digital barometric air pressure sensor featuring an ultra-high resolution, high accuracy, low energy consumption and miniature size. DPS310 is specially designed to enable enhanced navigation experience, activity level monitoring, gesture recognition and weather monitoring.
The product provides ultra-high precision up to ±5 cm and ±0.06 hPa relative accuracy. The pressure sensing element is based on a unique capacitive principle, which is totally different from piezoelectric technology employed in most of the pressure sensors available in today’s market.
Operating pressure range: 300 – 1200 hPa
Operating temperature range: -40 – 85°C
Pressure level precision: ±0.006 hPa (or ±5 cm) (high-precision mode)
Applications
Internet of Things
Wearable electronics e.g. health and sports gadgets
Indoor navigation floor detection e.g. in shopping malls and parking garages
Outdoor navigation in personal navigation devices
Dead-reckoning e.g. in tunnels
Local weather station
Tomi Engdahl says:
Project Crow
https://hackaday.io/project/20694-project-crow
A camera and Computer Vision to capture wildlife and pipe the data feed to a variety of endpoints including a dashboard and databases.
This project has just started. Raspberry Pi computers are used to build camera traps to capture wildlife. This model adds Microsoft Cognitive Services to the mix to process images in real time. In addition the wiring will be completed using Node Red.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Advanced Product Analytics Platform For Industry 4.0 And IIoT
http://semiengineering.com/an-advanced-product-analytics-platform-for-industry-4-0-and-iiot/
How to achieve mass optimization through intelligent use of data.
Industry 4.0, Industrie 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution, is the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. IIoT is a critical component of Industry 4.0 combining sensing, intelligent analytics and Internet/cloud connectivity. One of the main tasks of Industry 4.0 is mass personalization (meeting the customer’s needs more effectively and
efficiently) and it is often associated with mass customization (combining the flexibility and personalization of “custom-made” with the low unit costs associated with mass production.) In
addition to mass customization, recent advances in IIoT, in particular the ability to complement process analytics with product analytics, have enabled another important task of mass
personalization – mass optimization.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Product Quality Getting Lost In The IIoT?
http://semiengineering.com/is-product-quality-getting-lost-in-the-iiot/
Big data is a necessary tool for cultivating product quality DNA, from the chip to the end device.
Manufacturing operations have continuously evolved using data capture and management to assess and test production effectiveness on the manufacturing floor. The advent of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and its anticipated ability to track and manage the factory environment with machine-to-machine process analytics heralds yet another transformation, promising a higher level of data intelligence. “Industry 4.0” will have a substantive impact on manufacturing business models and profitability, which is a fundamental justification for its advancement. Perhaps because of the tangible expectation of increased profit, much of the focus for IIoT investment has been toward manufacturing process improvements, with less emphasis, or acknowledgement of, the resulting effects on the quality of the product that is being manufactured. In this era of burgeoning big data analytics, product quality’s impact on enterprise profitability should not be overlooked.
In all industries, substandard product quality can negatively impact financial performance and company reputation. Scrap material costs and recalls resulting from defective parts circulated into the supply chain can compromise an organization’s profitability.
For product analytics to be more successful, data must be relevant to the goals of the organization. It must also be actionable, defined as:
Available quickly (“real-time”)
Processed immediately and automatically
Accessible to the supply chain
Product Analytics Throughout the Supply Chain
With all the business risks associated with releasing poorly performing or faulty devices to consumers, big data will be a necessary tool to cultivate product quality “DNA” from the semiconductor through to the electronic end device. As a device moves from chip to board to sub-system, and from manufacturer to OEM to end user, the complexity of data multiplies, making it challenging and costly to quickly identify the source of failure. With product analytics, this information is quickly traceable along the entire manufacturing process through to the end user. With the advent of the IIoT, it is imperative that product analytics information be combined with process analytics to support the next era of industrial automation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
These smart street lights don’t use their own brains to adjust to the weather
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2017/03/smart-streetlights-don-t-use-their-own-brains-to-adjust-to-the-weather.html?cmpid=enl_leds_smartlightingiot_2017-04-10
A Minneapolis suburb that is trialing tunable-white LED street lights has now equipped them to automatically adjust brightness and color temperatures based on weather conditions. So that must mean the town added sensors that can help detect rain, fog, clouds, dust, and the like, right?
The new tunable-white Echelon lamps in Minnesota have no onboard sensors detecting rain or snow. Rather, they take their cue from IBM’s Watson IoT group, drawing on IBM’s The Weather Company.
Rather, controls company Echelon Corp. feeds the lights with weather information provided by partner IBM, the computer giant that in 2015 acquired a large chunk of The Weather Company in an important buttressing of IBM’s Watson Internet of Things (IoT) strategy.
The lights know that a blizzard is raging not because any onboard circuits have directly detected it, but because the IBM Watson system has informed them. Once notified, the Echelon Lumewave system takes appropriate action. According to Echelon, the town can pre-program the lights to, for instance, deliver brighter and warmer colors during a snowstorm in order to minimize glare. Or they can deliver bluer colors during a thunderstorm to enhance visibility and alertness.
“IBM Watson analyzes local weather station data to accurately determine the weather condition,” Echelon head of product management Apurba Pradhan said in a conversation with LEDs Magazine.
White Bear Lake marks the first known example of how Echelon is working with IBM’s Watson Internet of Things group.
Cities could use the Echelon-Watson combination not just to adjust lighting levels during weather events, but also to warn people that a storm is approaching, be it snow, dust, sand, or whatever.
“Watson uses its powerful artificial intelligence to provide predictive analytics,” Pradhan said. “Sensors in a luminaire do not provide that capability. With predictive analytics, street lighting could be used as a public notification system for weather events. For example, certain New England municipalities use a blue light system on snow removal routes to let drivers know not to park on those streets during snow storms.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT drives an expanded ecosystem in the lighting value chain
http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-14/issue-3/features/internet-of-things/iot-drives-an-expanded-ecosystem-in-the-lighting-value-chain.html?cmpid=enl_leds_smartlightingiot_2017-04-10
With the advance of IoT and connected lighting, BEATRICE WITZGALL notes key areas of expertise that must be brought to bear in product development and projects, including a look at the changing supply chain.
Last fall, I spoke at the 2016 IES Annual Conference about the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart lighting. Several attendees asked me what a hardware manufacturer needs to do to turn wireless. It is a valid question, as I’ve found there is confusion in the ecosystem regarding which responsibilities each stakeholder has, which in turn is stalling development and market traction.
Hardware manufacturers
Many hardware manufacturers are wondering how they can enable their light fixtures to become wirelessly connected and controlled. It’s a different expertise and know-how set and many don’t know how to approach that. The wireless chip, whether it is ZigBee or Bluetooth, is basically nothing more than a radio component that needs to be integrated inside the fixture or onto the LED board, driver, or power supply. It’s the manufacturer’s choice and strategic decision if they want to go either with ZigBee or Bluetooth technology. Both have pros and cons.
The next step is then to determine the radio chip manufacturer the lighting company wants to work with. Typically, pricing and support are the key considerations.
Without an API, it will be hard for any hardware manufacturer to join the open architecture community and the larger ecosystem of software opportunities.
The API defines what kind of hardware control you have (on/off, dimming, color spectrum, tunable white, color changing such as RGB or multi-channel) as well as how to discover and commission your lights. Additional advanced API features offer scene creation, light grouping, multi-room use, and scheduling. A good example is Philips Hue, which opened up a huge ecosystem for third-party software apps to control this lighting hardware, thereby offering a range of different functionalities. My recommendation is to bring firmware development in-house as it allows you to keep control over all the components of your hardware.
The choice of protocol is a strategic decision and it depends on your speed to market and resources. ZigBee is a well-established and widely adopted protocol that already has hundreds of thousands of deployments. For ZigBee chips, NXP is a good starting point. Bluetooth is a novel protocol that in the long term will allow more functionalities through beacon integration. I suggest joining the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) as a member to have access to their resources and the recently published Bluetooth mesh standard from October 2016. Some hardware manufacturers offer both, or offer it as a flexible setup
There are some companies in the market that offer a Bluetooth chip integration kit to manufacturers, which simplifies the on-boarding process and fast-tracks the go-to-market strategy. While these are important considerations, those types of companies require that you sign up for their software solution based on an ongoing software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Typically, their software is not open and competitive with other software solution providers, and the hardware manufacturers lock themselves into a proprietary system that doesn’t allow flexibility or open architecture.
My recommendation is for manufacturers to take on the ownership of that additional component in-house and then offer an open API to selected software providers the same way Philips Hue has done with its wireless lamps. This will ensure an open landscape, larger market reach, and more flexibility, offering a more feature-rich environment.
Software developers
Lighting control software is replacing all the heavy hardware cabinets and hardware controllers. Easy over-the-air updates allow for new features and upgrades. The software is the controller – the part that used to be composed of tons of hardware racks in an IT closet and required lots of wiring. We now have the mobile apps and a whole web platform to manage and control the lighting with all its features, from light scenes to grouping and scheduling to status reports, user interfaces, and integrations. For example, LumiFi provides the software that controls the fixture and covers all the software aspects.
Software providers shouldn’t also necessarily provide hardware. They are two distinct skillsets and require different expertise and processes. Lighting control software is really starting from the moment the hardware manufacturer has integrated the ZigBee or Bluetooth radio chip inside its driver/dimming module and provides us with an API so the software can have access to the hardware.
Installers
The installer’s role is to deploy the systems and offer continued support to the end users. Installers require training on the wireless technologies. They need to understand how these wireless controls must be integrated into an existing building network and how the systems need to be commissioned.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mender
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/mender
The new production release of Mender 1.0, an open-source tool for updating embedded devices safely and reliably, is now available. Mender’s developers describe the tool as the “only open-source over-the-air (OTA) software updater for embedded Linux devices that integrates both an updater client and deployment management server”, both of which are licensed under Apache 2.0.
Using Mender, embedded development teams venturing into IoT can focus completely on developing their product instead of squandering time on building and maintaining a homegrown software updater or cobbling together a custom combination of tools or scripts to deploy software updates.
Mender utilizes a dual A/B rootfs partition layout to deploy full image updates and provides automated rollback of failed updates for any reason, including power loss on the device or poor network connectivity. This feature allows users to deploy software updates confidently without the fear of bricking their devices.
The Golang-based Mender runs efficiently on the embedded device and is tightly integrated with the Yocto Project and U-Boot
Over-the-air software updates for embedded Linux devices
Mender is an open source tool for updating your embedded devices safely and reliably
https://mender.io/
Avoid recalls and patch security vulnerabilities for embedded Linux IoT devices
Image-based updates using a dual A/B rootfs partition layout with rollback support
Manage and see reports of deployments with the intuitive UI or REST APIs
Apache License 2.0, end-to-end from server to client
Yocto Project integration: Easily integrate Mender into your devices using the meta-mender layer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded Systems Designers Are Creating the Internet of Dangerous Things
A study from the Barr Group gives low marks to safety and security practices used by embedded systems engineers.
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/embedded-systems-designers-are-creating-internet-dangerous-things/119133372156572?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170411
Embedded systems experts at the Barr Group have uncovered alarming information about the state of embedded systems design. The group’s recent study, 2017 Embedded Systems Safety & Security Survey , reveals that a significant percentage of embedded systems designers are failing to place emphasis on the security and safety of their designs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Your Sweat Knows More about You…
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331578&
Lucio Lanza believes that billions of things, once connected, will eventually embody intelligence. The notion makes us feel a little uneasy.
Fast-paced technology advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already taking us places unknown to us just a decade ago.
As the pace of innovation accelerates, we find ourselves either swept up by the promise of technology or engulfed by its resulting turmoil.
I was fully prepared to listen to the usual IoT talking points — including “one trillion IoT chips to be delivered in next 20 years.” This is the vision laid out earlier this year by Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, a new owner of ARM.
Well, as it turns out, that wasn’t Lanza’s story.
Next exponential growth
“Well, we’ve already seen the slowdown of Moore’s Law many times. But every time when happened, we changed it.”
By throwing in new factors and metrics like parallelism and clock speed, the semiconductor industry somehow managed to prolong Moore’s Law, he explained.
By throwing in new factors and metrics like parallelism and clock speed, the semiconductor industry somehow managed to prolong Moore’s Law, he explained.
Connected objects
In fact, “most of the things that will be eventually connected won’t even be digital,” said Lanza. Connected objects won’t be limited to so-called digital wearable devices tethered to our bodies. He’s talking about analog, real-world objects that will be eventually connected to the Internet.
Lanza offers the example of “say…something like a drop of your sweat.” Once sweat become one of the trillion things connected to the Internet, soon, it will know more about your health than you know about yourself, Lanza explained.
Lanza is expecting that all those previously mindless things, once connected, will eventually embody intelligence.
He anticipates an expanding list of connected objects to gain smarts and grow exponentially. “That’s fantastic,” said Lanza, “but it also makes me a little uneasy.”
“We need to make sure that each of these connected things will behave like a ‘citizen’ of the world we live in.”
Of course, many in the IoT community often discuss fragmented IoT devices and applications, and more importantly, worry about the insecurity of IoT.
But Lanza’s concerns go way beyond the present. He foresees a future when each of those analog things — connected to the Web — could eventually have smarts of its own, determining by itself how it behaves and lives with us in the same society.
“They must abide by the same rules that exist in our world,” noted Lanza. These objects must be kept safe, must not attack us and must be capable of security, explained Lanza.
As more objects connect and their data gets analyzed in the cloud, it almost seems to me that computers are hijacking our senses. More and more of what we see and hear is mediated, if not controlled, by technology.
As we move toward a world in which real life and technology start blending, Lanza wants people to think about IoT in a much larger context. It’s vital to make sure every connected object learns the rules of good citizenship which, ironically, too many of us actual human beings ignore.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi 3 gets Microsoft Cortana with Windows 10 Creators Update
Users will now be able to make cool devices with Cortana built in.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3188814/windows/raspberry-pi-3-gets-microsoft-cortana-with-windows-10-creators-update.html
You will very soon be able to use Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant with the Raspberry Pi 3 and make cool devices that can accept voice commands.
But for that, you’ll need to upgrade the popular developer board, which can run Windows 10 IoT Core, to the Creators Update of the OS.
You’ll be able to use Cortana on Raspberry Pi similar to the way it works on PCs. You’ll be able to ask for weather, time, traffic, or stock prices.
Cortana’s coming to robots and smart devices via Windows 10 for the Internet of Things
Is this how Microsoft coaxes hardware makers to roll out Amazon Echo rivals?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3150028/windows/cortanas-coming-to-robots-and-smart-devices-via-windows-10-for-the-internet-of-things.html
The impact on you at home: If I was in a betting mood I’d expect to see the new Windows IoT Core inspire multiple Cortana-powered smart speakers from third parties. Microsoft doesn’t appear to have any interest in making its own smart speaker. Instead the company is sticking to its standard the PC-is-the-solution-to-everything approach with Home Hub. That makes a certain amount of sense, however.
An army (or at least a platoon) of Cortana smart speakers would likely benefit Microsoft more than a single “Surface Echo” to take on Amazon and Google.
Far-field speech will enable Cortana to recognize voice commands from up to 13 feet away, and wake-on-voice allows users to activate a device with the “Hey Cortana” command.
Microsoft hopes to see the first Cortana-powered IoT devices roll out in late 2017 around the back-to-school or holiday shopping seasons.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT Pro 2017: Security isolates IoT devices
More common IoT companies are forced to share their corporate networks in different segments, estimated Cisco IT specialist Risto Eerola Helsinki IT Pro event.
IoT over corporate networks are divided into a plurality of reserved portions for different purposes. Thus, the normal office equipment, and IoT components are kept apart portions of network. When the IoT devices are added, the equipment to be automatically associated with the appropriate virtual network segments.
Data Network configuration management should be automated. It is estimated that eighty percent of a typical network configuration should be easily automated with appropriate tools.
So that he could open up the network for each of IoT devices with the necessary services, keeping the IoT device is able to tell the network what it needs. Cisco Systems is described a proposal Usage Manufacturer Description Framework standard proposal.
Source: http://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2017/03/30/pro-2017-tietoturva-eristaa-iot-laitteet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Revolutionizing the IIoT Industry One Streetlight at a Time
http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/revolutionizing-the-iiot-industry-one-streetlight-at-a-time
For Tre Zimmerman, co-founder and chief technology officer of Ubicquia, an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) provider, his next idea came from taking in the view one afternoon from his son’s bedroom window. At 2 p.m., Zimmerman noticed that a streetlight outside was still lit, when it clicked that that connectivity and power, nearby and readily available, were as accessible as the nearest street lamp.
“It gave me the sense that there obviously was power coming off the top of this light pole, and all we had to do was figure out how to tap into it,” said Zimmerman
Kairo took form as a customizable router that could plug into the cobra head of a light pole and access a city’s existing power infrastructure, enabling cities to become smarter virtually overnight.
Ubicquia used the Kairo solution to address the current IIoT power challenge by tapping into an existing infrastructure. There is a light pole every 120 feet in every major city, yielding 255 million streetlights ready and able to be connected and networked.
Ubicquia received the full power of Avnet’s IIoT expertise, supported by sales, supply-chain, design-chain and service teams.
In the case of Kairo, an example of Avnet’s value is seen with its suggestion to make the product customizable online. Given that the product is a stack of application-specific boards, all with different functions, it is easy to add a board or take one away. Now, you can go online and just click, drag and drop a variety of boards in place based on specific needs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cell Phone Bus expands to cars
CSI-2 is generally developed by the MIPI alliance, a camera interface for smart phones. The new second-generation bus standard will expand the use of, for example, IoT devices and drones. The real goal, however the ADAS-car camera systems.
Old CSI two bus four support virtual channel when the new number has been increased to 32. This means an increase of security, the ADAS system is able to fuse the data of several sensors.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6164-kannykkavayla-laajenee-autoihin
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Hackaday: How Does This Air Particle Sensor Work?
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/11/ask-hackaday-how-does-this-air-particle-sensor-work/
One of the new sensors [Peter] is working with is the MAX30105 air particle sensor. The marketing materials for this chip say it’s designed for smoke detectors and fire alarms, but this is really one of the smallest dust and particle sensors on the market. If you want a handheld device that detects dust, this should be the chip you’re looking at.
Unfortunately, Maxim is being very, very tight-lipped about how this particle sensor works. There is a way to get access to raw particle counts and the underlying algorithms, and Maxim is more than willing to sell those algorithms through a third-party distributor. That’s simply not how we do things around here, so [Peter] is looking for someone with a fancy particle sensor to collect a few hours of data so he can build a driver for this chip.
Here’s what we know about the MAX30105 air particle sensor. There are three LEDs inside this chip (red, IR, and green), and an optical sensor underneath a piece of glass. The chip drives the LEDs, light reflects off smoke particles, and enters the optical sensor. From there, magic algorithms turn this into a number corresponding to a particle count.
MAX30105
High-Sensitivity Optical Sensor for Smoke Detection Applications
https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/analog/sensors-and-sensor-interface/MAX30105.html
The MAX30105 is an integrated particle-sensing module. It includes internal LEDs, photodetectors, optical elements, and low-noise electronics with ambient light rejection. The MAX30105 provides a complete system solution to ease the design-in process of smoke detection applications including fire alarms. Due to its extremely small size, the MAX30105 can also be used as a smoke detection sensor for mobile and wearable devices.
The MAX30105 operates on a single 1.8V power supply and a separate 5.0V power supply for the internal LEDs. It communicates through a standard I2C-compatible interface.
Maxim is partnering with Valor Inc. to develop state-of-the-art algorithms for smoke detection applications using the MAX30105.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SwitchiFy – 4 way switching board with Wifi
https://hackaday.io/project/19693-switchify-4-way-switching-board-with-wifi
SwitchiFy is an ESP8266 based wifi relay board with a 4-way switching configuration which are widely used in big living rooms and bed room.
So I design a ESP8266 controlled 4 way switching relay board which can be put in between two 3 way switches. It used 2 relays to implement a 4 way switch (DPDT switch) and there are 3 sets of 4 way switches in the board.
While designed the board, I took careful consideration for creepage distance and clearance. The minimum creepage distance maintained in this board is 100 mils between high voltage and low voltage tracks. The high voltage track width can handle 4 Amps (which is more than necessary for home appliances such as light, fan etc.)
There was a mechanical constrain while designing the board. I co-ordinated with the electrician frequency while designing the board. He told that the standard switch box size available (in souther part of India) is 5 inch X 3 inch.
One of my friends developed a android application to control the SwitchiFy boards. The app scans for the Switchify devices and the user can select his required one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart utility meters enhance utility operations
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/smart-utility-meters-enhance-utility-operations/8ea50b87def09967e0246f5a8cf22c2a.html
The capabilities of advanced metering infrastructure offer opportunities for improving service and preventing lost revenue through phase error analysis.
The onset of the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) era of electricity metering has brought about numerous changes to utility-industry operations. A primary driver for the deployment of AMI meters and systems is their ability to bring more granular data into integrated back office utility systems. This data-regarding outage events, consumption, voltage, and more-can then be processed by systems to accelerate power-restoration times, improve end-user energy monitoring, and strengthen infrastructure analytics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Burger King’s new ad forces Google Home to advertise the Whopper
Oh no, Google
http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15259400/burger-king-google-home-ad-wikipedia
Burger King is unveiling a horrible, genius, infuriating, hilarious, and maybe very poorly thought-out ad today that’s designed to intentionally set off Google Homes and Android phones.
The 15-second ad features someone in a Burger King uniform leaning into the camera before saying, “OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?”
For anyone with a Google Home near their TV, that strangely phrased request will prompt the speaker to begin reading the Wikipedia entry for the Whopper. It’s a clever way of getting viewers’ attention, but it’s also a really quick way of getting on viewers’ nerves
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY DynDNS with ESP8266 and Dweets
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/12/diy-dyndns-with-esp8266-and-dweets/
You’re on a home router, and your IP address keeps changing. Instead of paying a little bit extra for a static IP address (and becoming a grownup member of the Internet) there are many services that let you push your current IP out to the rest of the world dynamically. But most of them involve paying money or spending time reading advertisements. Who has either money or time?!
[Alberto Ricci Bitti] cobbled together a few free services and an ESP8266 module to make a device that occasionally pushes its external IP address out to a web-based “dweet” service. The skinny: an ESP8266 gets its external IP address from ipify.org and pushes it by “dweet” to a web-based data store. Freeboard reads the “dweet” and posts the resulting link in a nice format.
Know your router public IP address, from anywhere. Great for cheap routers or IP cameras.
https://github.com/riccibitti/CloudMyIp
CloudMyIp is an inexpensive ($3) IOT device that reads the public IP address assigned to your router by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), and publishes it on a web page anyone can read with a link. Great for accessing your home network or IP cameras from abroad, saving the money for a subscription to a dynamic dns service (or the time spent for similar “free” services requiring you to connect and read their ads once a month for continued service).
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY Complete Philips Hue Home Automation
Philips Hue is nice but expensive… now there is a cheaper way.
https://hackaday.io/project/21111-diy-complete-philips-hue-home-automation
This project show you how to create a complete Philips Hue system based on EPS8266 sensors/lights and a RaspberryPi or any similar board as Hue Bridge. Hue API is used so all smartphone applications must be able to control the lights.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Detect Cars Running Stop Signs (and Squirrels Running Across the Roof)
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/12/detect-cars-running-stop-signs-and-squirrels-running-across-the-roof/
There’s a stop sign outside [Devin Gaffney]’s house that, apparently, no one actually stops at. In order to avoid the traffic and delays on a major thoroughfare, cars take the road behind [Devin Gaffney]’s house, but he noticed a lot of cars didn’t bother to stop at the stop sign. He had a Raspberry Pi and a camera, so he set them up to detect the violating cars.
His setup is pretty standard – Raspberry Pi and camera pointed outside at the intersection. He’s running OpenCV and using machine learning to detect the cars and determine if they have run the stop sign or not.
http://www.stopsign.devingaffney.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIPI Goes Beyond Mobile, Camera
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331589&
The specification originally designed to connect a mobile-phone camera to a host processor has come a long way. After earning universal respect within the mobile ecosystem, this successful spec is moving decisively beyond mobile.
The MIPI Alliance just last week unveiled MIPI CSI-2 v2.0. The new spec, according to the industry group, can now respond to complex imaging needs of IoT, wearables, AR/VR, drones and automotive systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Developer Prototyping Kit Google Cloud Platform Available
https://www.open-electronics.org/iot-developer-prototyping-kit-google-cloud-platform-available/
Google has worked with Seeed Studio and BeagleBoard.org to bring you a developer prototyping kit, based on the new Seeed Studio BeagleBone Green Wireless board, and tailored specifically for Google Cloud Platform.
The kit features the brand new BeagleBone Green Wireless, featuring the following: