Here are some IoT trends for year 2019 to watch:
More device: There are four times as many devices connected to the Internet as there are people in the world, and the number of devices is increasing rapidly. There are computers, smart phones and many different kind of connected devices. Gartner forecasts that 14.2 billion connected things will be in use in 2019, and that the total will reach 25 billion by 2021,
Voice: The integration of voice into IoT devices creates an user experience that many consumers seem to enjoy. The next few years will see voice automation take over many aspects of our lives. The current major players in the IoT voice world are Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant. Microsoft’s Cortana seems to have already lost in the game as Satya Nadella says Cortana won’t challenge Alexa and Google Assistant directly; Microsoft will focus on making it a skill on other voice platforms instead. Voice won’t change everything but it will be one part of a movement that heralds a new way to think about our relationship with devices and data. Consider voice as a type of user interface to be added to the existing list of UI technologies. Voice will not kill brands, it won’t hurt keyboard sales or touchscreen devices — it will become an additional way to do stuff; it is incremental. We need to learn to design around it.Deloitte expects the sales of 164 million smart speakers at an average price of $43 in 2019. The smart speaker market will be worth more than $7 billion next year, increasing 63% from 2018’s $4.3 billion.
Automobiles: Automobiles are leading the way in IoT adoption. Gartner predicts that one in five cars will be connected by 2020. Both Google and Apple have tools that allow drivers to control calls, listen to messages and control apps using voice.
IoT clouds: Developing for the Internet of Things is a complex endeavor, and nobody wants to do it from scratch. IoT data platforms offer a jumping-off point by combining many of the tools needed to manage a deployment from device management to data prediction and insights into one service. There are many IoT cloud platforms to choose from. All cloud platforms have their own distinctive areas of pros and cons. Ultimately the project needs and cost-effectiveness determine whom to choose. Utilizing cloud services also brings new potential risks that are good to understand already at the beginning of the project. I wrote on article to Uusiteknologia.fi magazine issue 2/2018 on IoT cloud platforms.
Digital Twins: Digital twin tech, or a virtual representation of a product, is a critical concept in IoT that’s still being sorted out. Digital twin refers to a digital replica of physical assets (physical twin), processes, people, places, systems and devices that can be used for various purposes. Definitions of digital twin technology emphasize two important characteristics: connection from the physical model to the corresponding virtual model and this connection is established by generating real time data using sensors. Physical objects and twin models interact. Digital twins applications typically integrate internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning and software analytics with spatial network graphs to create living digital simulation models that update and change as their physical counterparts change. In various industrial sectors, twins are being used to optimize the operation and maintenance of physical assets, systems and manufacturing processes.
Edge computing: The shift from centralized and cloud to edge architectures is well under way in the IoT space. In the future, computing the edge of the network will become an increasingly important way of processing data from networked devices and sensor networks. Compared to traditional centralized cloud computing, the new edge computing brings computing servers closer to the edge of the communications network. Compared to cloud centered IoT solutions, edge computing allow for lower delays and more reliable operation with respect to cloud services. At the same time, it promises improved security as not all potentially sensitive information needs to be transferred from the site to cloud. However, this is not the end point because the neat set of layers associated with edge architecture will evolve to a more unstructured architecture comprising of a wide range of “things” and services connected in a dynamic mesh. In thins kind of system data processing can be done on almost all network devices from IoT modules to gateways and in the future to 5G base stations. Relevant standardizing organizations on this field are Edge Computing Consortium Europe, OpenFog Consortium and Industrial Internet Consortium.
5G: 5G networks start to arrive. The standards for 5G will be defined in large part by the direct integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) devices into global networks and devices. 5G networks are expected to be 10 to 100 times faster than current LTE technology. If you are in need for very high speed, your application resides inside the small 5G test networks coverage areas and your IoT device is allowed to consume considerable amount of power (more than 4G solutions), then you might be able to consider 5G. For all other cases I don’t see 5G would offer much for IoT applications in 2019. There is not yet ready 5G standards specifically designed for IoT applications. So for 2019 IoT and IIoT will need to be pretty much stick to 4G technologies like NB-IoT and LTE-M. For 5G to shape industrial computing application in larger scale than just some small tests we will have to wait till 2020. Addressing the issues behind Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices and 5G is important in next few years. Qualcomm, the largest supplier of modem chips used in smartphones, has introduced the X50 modem to give IIoT devices the ability to communicate over 5G networks. Beware of “fake 5G” marketing in 2019. The promise is that 5G will enable the future enterprise technologies everyone is predicting and waiting for: fleets of self-driving delivery trucks, virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR), and a world of enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) deployments — systems that will define an era that the World Economic Forum termed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Those promises will take years to realize, you will not see most of them in real use in 2019.
AI: Number one in Gartner’s predictions, no surprise, is artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be talked a lot with bold claims that AI goes from expert-only to everywhere. I would not expect it to be everywhere in 2019. Gartner, said in a statement, “AI will be applied to a wide range of IoT information, including video, still images, speech, network traffic activity, and sensor data.” At the moment many neural network systems are power hungry when implemented with traditional computer hardware. “For example, the performance of deep neural networks (DNNs) is often limited by memory bandwidth, rather than processing power.” By 2023, it’s expected that new special-purpose chips will reduce the power consumption required to run a DNN, enabling new edge architectures and embedded DNN functions in low-power IoT endpoints.
IIoT: The concept of a Smart Factory is composed of many different physical and informational subsystems, such as actuators and sensors, control systems, product management systems and manufacturing systems that all work together. This is a very complex system. It is critical to understand differing operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) priorities to achieve collaboration and integration. Without this, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and control projects will fail. Also finding the right Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) vendor partner is crucial to success. OPC Foundation has on initiative to extend OPC UA out to field devices to provide vendor-neutral, end-to-end interoperability beyond the plant. Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) network works well for OPC UA applications.
Value chain: IoT as an umbrella term will diminish. There are strong views that “Internet of things is not valuable in and of itself” so the conversation is going to shift away from an ambiguous buzzword to the actual use of technology. For product designers this means that when we design our connected world, we need to pull ourselves away from the cool technology that we are building and look at the system through our customers’ eyes. The sales pitch will be more like “It’s about the use cases, it’s about the solutions, it’s about the applications, managing and monitoring assets, performance management solutions, different kinds of solutions coming together to solve a problem—that’s really what the value proposition is.”
IoT platforms: IoT vendors will compete to be the destination for IoT platforms. The IoT supply chain has been moving toward more collaboration to provide development and design kits designed for specific use cases and industries. IoT development kits are sold more and more with bundled IoT could service offer. IoT cloud service providers offer and recommend hardware that is tested to work well with their platforms. IoT platform vendors will be narrowing their scope in 2019, honing in on specific use cases. Business professionals aren’t looking for one industrial IoT platform to manage every process going on at their company, they are instead looking for platforms that specialize in specific tasks.
New development kits: A new breed of development kits is incorporating the three tenets of IoT design — ease of use, security, and business value. The promise is that the design engineers don’t need to have specialized expertise in several areas like networking protocols or security-related tasks, enabling a much faster development time. One way to simplifying design work is by intelligently reusing the fundamental building blocks.
Security: Wireless IoT devices are considered a major threat to the security of industrial networks. A growing number of embedded systems are open to security threats as a result of increasing connectivity and IoT device adoption. And it’s costing OEMs a lot in terms of money and reputation. A 2018 Gartner Inc. survey found that nearly 20% of organizations surveyed experienced at least one IoT-based attack in the past three years. IoT security is already a 1.5 billion dollar market. The market research firm Garnet expects that global spending on IoT security will rise to $3.1 billion in 2021, up from $1.5 billion in 2018. It is not about the spending on IoT security products. Already “a significant portion of OEMs’ existing in-house labor cost is already dedicated to addressing security” and is rising faster than development costs. VDC pegs the worldwide embedded engineering labor spend related to security at $11.6 billion in 2017, representing nearly 8% of the overall cost of embedded engineering labor. There will be different kind of certification marks for IoT product cyber security – some mandated with laws on some countries and some voluntary. 5G is going to increase security risks. Do we understand the 5G security threats to come? Most probably not because we don’t seem to understand well even that 5G really is.
eSIM: The embedded SIM card has been spoken for a long time, and even the first smartphones in which the SIM card has been implemented with an integrated circuit have already been introduced to the market. Infineon has presented the world’s first industrially qualified eSIM. Of course, eSIM shares opinions. Many operators do not like it.
Infonomics and Data Broking: Last year’s Gartner survey of IoT projects showed 35 percent of respondents were selling or planning to sell data collected by their products and services.“Data is the fuel that powers the IoT and the organization’s ability to derive meaning from it will define their long term success,” This brings us to Social, Legal and Ethical IoT because“ Successful deployment of an IoT solution demands that it’s not just technically effective but also socially acceptable,” It is possible tha tIoT Firms Face a ‘Tidal Wave’ of Lawsuits.
IoT Governance: As the IoT continues to expand, the need for a governance framework that ensures appropriate behavior in the creation, storage, use and deletion of information related to IoT projects will become increasingly important. We also need to manage IoT devices to keep them secure and make sure that they do what they are supposed to do. A market for IoT managed services will develop to help manage and operate fragmented IoT assets. “The idea of managing the ongoing end-to-end life cycle of a connected product is becoming more important, and ultimately this managed service opportunity is going to need momentum in the coming year,”
New Wireless Technologies: IoT networking involves balancing a set of competing requirements, such as endpoint cost, power consumption, bandwidth, latency, connection density, operating cost, quality of service, and range. No single networking technology optimizes all of these.
Trusted Hardware and Operating System: Gartner surveys invariably show that security is the most significant area of technical concern for organizations deploying IoT systems. Today organizations often don’t have control over the source and nature of the software and hardware being utilised in IoT initiatives. “However, by 2023, we expect to see the deployment of hardware and software combinations that together create more trustworthy and secure IoT systems.
Home automation: Arm predicts that the intelligent home goes mainstream. In survey results they published two-thirds of respondents said technology became “more a part of my life” during 2018. Cisco Systems is saying connected homes will be a big driver for the Internet of Things. “Connected home applications, such as home automation, home security and video surveillance, connected white goods, and tracking applications, will represent 48%, or nearly half, of the total M2M connections by 2022, showing the pervasiveness of M2M in our lives,” Cisco states in its new white paper, Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Trends, 2017-2022. The market is starting slowly. Bundled IoT services will try to motivate a slow consumer market.
Smart cities: Cities are becoming smarter and smarter in an effort to improve efficiency in operations. Smart cities bring in both benefits and risks. Between smart lighting, traffic controls, and public transportation, smart cities are bringing in a whole new family of threat vectors. Cybercriminals will target smart cities with ransomware attacks. Smart cities need to take precautions.
Silicon Chip Innovation: “Currently, most IoT endpoint devices use conventional processor chips, with low-power ARM architectures being particularly popular. However, traditional instruction sets and memory architectures aren’t well-suited to all the tasks that endpoints need to perform,” New special-purpose chips will reduce the power consumption required to run a DNN. Very low power circuit designs are important in many applications. Battery-powered designs require complex optimizations for power in the context of area, performance and functionality. Devices that work without battery and gather operating power from environment are maybe even more challenging. Clearly, sensors are a big part of any connected device, and there is a lot of innovation occurring in this market that delivers new features — think AI — all housed in smaller packaging.
Open source: 2019 Will Be the Year of Open Source in IoT and embedded systems applications. From software and even hardware, we saw more activity in open source than ever before in 2018. And the momentum isn’t likely to slow down in 2019. Arduino is pushing strongly to IoT markets with MKR1000 series of IoT boards. Raspberry Pi is very widely used in IoT systems, especially on prototyping and small scale deployments
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Links to other articles for IoT trends for 2019:
Internet of Things in 2019: Five predictions
Kymmenen tulevaisuuden kuluttajatrendiä ja ilmiötä
Deloitte’s 9 tech predictions for 2019
New Chip Architectures, Sensors and Trust in Top 10 IoT Trends (Gartner presented its top 10 strategic IoT technology trends)
Week In Review: IoT, Security, Auto (predictions from Arm, Deloitte and Juniper Research)
Predictions 2019: The Internet Of Things
Gartner Identifies Top 10 Strategic IoT Technologies and Trends
1,284 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.mwrf.com/technologies/systems/article/21133828/lpwans-help-realize-supplychain-monitorings-potential?utm_source=RF+MWRF+Today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200610026&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
Tomi Engdahl says:
Glaze System Enables Downlink Communication for IoT Devices
https://www.hackster.io/news/glaze-system-enables-downlink-communication-for-iot-devices-c766acbf8492
The system overlays data on existing wireless signals to create a new channel of downlink communication for IoT backscatter device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/why-sweat-will-power-your-next-wearable
Tomi Engdahl says:
Savant Systems buys GE Lighting. Will the purchase help them move into the mass-market home networking space?
Savant Systems Buys GE Lighting
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/savant-systems-buys-ge-lighting
If you were trying to identify the handful of companies that created a business out of the emergence of electrical engineering in the Victorian era, certainly the list would have to include General Electric. GE’s lighting business was established by Thomas Edison in 1892, and it was just sold to engineering wunderkind Robert Madonna and his team at Savant Systems, in Hyannis, Mass. Savant builds high-end home-networking systems for the well-heeled.
By buying GE Lighting—and licensing the use of the GE Lighting and GE Smart Home names—Savant hopes to become a force in the emerging market for home networking devices, a business that has been a battleground for some of the biggest names in technology: Amazon, Apple, and Google.
Basically, it’s a combination of hardware and software that ties the way you live in the home together through an elegant user experience. A simple app that’s on a touch pad or on your Android or iOS device, it basically allows the different things in your home to communicate seamlessly together. So your heating, and your lighting systems, and your audio and your video systems, and your security systems are all tied together in this unique app.
So why are lightbulbs central to this vision?
When you look at what you have in GE Lighting, it’s this unbelievable ability to build and manufacture and engineer quality products at scale.
There are some great individual point solutions out there, but there’s no company that has really introduced this at scale across the entire system. Our vision is to take the Savant DNA and technology and really build out an ecosystem of products and solutions that can be deployed very broadly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
From interactive sound sculptures to connected improvisation, learn how professional artists are finding new ways to bring audiences into performances with IoT.
https://bit.ly/2XHxEhM
THE INTERNET OF MUSICAL THINGS — HOW PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS ARE HARNESSING IOT
https://blog.particle.io/the-internet-of-musical-things/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is it Wi-SUN’s Time to Shine?
https://www.designnews.com/sustainability/it-wi-sun-s-time-shine/30869875863128?ADTRK=InformaMarkets&elq_mid=13555&elq_cid=876648
From the sun to solar panels, wind turbines and, eventually, the utility grid, communication is as important as energy transmission.
Even with the still uncontained COVID-19 pandemic, the news is full of stories about governments and states moving ahead with the rollout of smart grid, renewables, and meter technologies. For example, food giant General Mills remains committed to achieving 100% renewable electricity globally by 2030. The company is investing in several renewable energy projects including two large-scale wind farms and anaerobic digestion biogas to capture and use methane from waste to generate electricity.
At the government level, the state of Hawaii is moving forward with wind, rooftop solar and grid-scale storage technologies to achieve zero-emissions by 2045. Several new policies are now in place to help achieve this goal including making it easier for solar contractors to add new smart meters during installations without a lot of red tape. Comprehensive energy management systems are also being put in place.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital Control in Power Supplies Adds Value to Industry 4.0, IoT Apps
Supply performance can be optimized for applications both on installation and dynamically in operation, with wider systems controlling and monitoring power-supply characteristics for efficient integration.
https://www.electronicdesign.com/power-management/whitepaper/21132605/digital-control-in-power-supplies-adds-value-to-industry-40-iot-apps?utm_source=EG+ED+IoT+for+Engineers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200619063&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
Digital control in power supplies can mean different things ranging from simple digital signaling of status/alarms and on/off control of a traditional analog controller (Fig. 1), to more sophisticated functions being added with a simple microcontroller, all the way through to full implementation of feedback-loop compensation with a digital signal processor (DSP) (Fig. 2). The latest techniques allow for flexibility in configuring a power supply’s characteristics and performance during development and commissioning, and dynamically in the end application.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Google launches group calling support for Assistant-powered smart displays, like Nest Hub Max, in Google Meet for up to 100 users and in Duo for up to 32 people — Chat with up to either 32 or 100 right from your Nest Hub Max — Google is expanding the ways you can make video calls …
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/25/21302923/google-meet-duo-group-call-assistant-smart-display?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Surfaces Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Care
https://www.hackster.io/news/smart-surfaces-will-transform-the-way-we-live-work-and-care-200b6b8e7010
We are approaching a revolution in the way that we construct, manage, and interact with the world around us.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Display quotes and synthesize speech on an Adafruit Industries PyPortal using CircuitPython and Amazon Web Services Serverless.
Adding Voice to a CircuitPython Project Using Amazon Polly
https://www.hackster.io/virgilvox/adding-voice-to-a-circuitpython-project-using-amazon-polly-609873
Display quotes and synthesize speech on an Adafruit PyPortal using CircuitPython and AWS Serverless.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Build connected devices using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) APIs
Explore Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) with Android and Arduino devices
https://developer.ibm.com/technologies/iot/tutorials/build-connected-devices-using-ble-apis/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT may boom as companies plan post Covid strategies
The disruption that Covid-19 has brought about will trigger a boom in the market for Internet of Things, or connected, technologies, say industry executives and analysts.
https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/amp/news/new-normal-creates-market-boom-for-iot-connected-tech/76127762
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/iot/article/21133490/three-2020-predictions-for-lpwan-and-iot?utm_source=EG+ED+IoT+for+Engineers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200625069&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
Tomi Engdahl says:
Modernizing Circuit Protection for Industry 4.0
Circuit protection has proven useful, but meeting the increasingly sophisticated industrial and commercial requirements can be a challenge.
https://www.electronicdesign.com/power-management/whitepaper/21135193/modernizing-circuit-protection-for-industry-40?utm_source=EG+ED+Analog+%26+Power+Source&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200625066&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
ARM plans to spin off its two IoT businesses to its parent company Softbank, in order to focus its efforts exclusively on the semiconductor IP business — Arm today announced plans to spinoff its two IoT business, a move that would effectively transfer the divisions under the broader umbrella …
Arm plans to spin off IoT businesses under SoftBank banner as it focuses on core chip design business
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/07/arm-plans-to-spin-off-iot-businesses-under-softbank-banner-as-it-focuses-on-core-chip-design-business/
Arm today announced plans to spin off its two IoT businesses, a move that would effectively transfer the divisions under the broader umbrella of the SoftBank Group core, which purchased the chip designer back in 2016. The move comes as Arm seeks to focus its efforts exclusively on the semiconductor IP business that has made the company a ubiquitous presence in the mobile world.
The transfer is pending additional review from the company’s board, along with standard regulatory reviews — though Arm says it expects the move to be completed before the end of September of this year. While it would effectively remove the IoT Platform and Treasure Data businesses from its brand, the company says it plans to continue to collaborate with the ISG (IoT Services Group) businesses.
The company will retain its business on the compute IP aspect of IoT, while leaving the data software and services aspects as their own spin-off businesses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Great Voice Assistant Face-Off
https://www.eetimes.com/the-great-voice-assistant-face-off/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bogdan Radacanu Tears Open a TP-Link TK50 Smart Bulb, Finds a Surprisingly Low-Power Wi-Fi Module
https://www.hackster.io/news/bogdan-radacanu-tears-open-a-tp-link-tk50-smart-bulb-finds-a-surprisingly-low-power-wi-fi-module-86e91fe50f43
Purchased more for curiosity than use, the TK50 proved home to a high-efficiency Wi-Fi module — around half the current of an ESP8266.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Review: Kit for testing wireless and IoT antennas
https://www.edn.com/review-kit-for-testing-wireless-and-iot-antennas/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Create Interactive Furniture on Demand with Foxels
https://www.hackster.io/news/create-interactive-furniture-on-demand-with-foxels-7d8c12006e83
Foxels are a modular system that uses programmable building blocks to create smart furniture in a myriad of different configurations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open access peer-reviewed chapter
Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting – Sources and Techniques
https://www.intechopen.com/books/renewable-energy-utilisation-and-system-integration/radio-frequency-energy-harvesting-sources-and-techniques
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Smart-City-of-Vukovar-Our-View-of-Smart-Living/
Tomi Engdahl says:
When will people stop falling for hardware based on walled garden cloud services? If I can’t support it with my own server, I don’t own the product!
Google offers refunds after smart glasses stop working
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53581762
Smart glasses company North has told customers that their $600 (£460) purchases will stop working in a few days’ time.
The Canadian company, recently purchased by Google, says its Focals glasses will cease functioning on Friday.
From then, owners will not be able to use “any features” of the glasses, or connect to the companion app.
But the company has also said it will automatically refund all customers.
It promised to send the purchase price back to the original payment method, and to contact those customers whose refunds it could not process.
At the end of June, North announced it was being acquired by Google, and would not release a planned second-generation device.
It also said it would “wind down” its first generation smart glasses, released last year.
Not-so-smart homes
There have been several examples of internet-enabled smart devices that are suddenly rendered “dumb”, losing many features or even becoming unusable when the company changes its business model.
And despite the short notice, Mr Wood says the offer of a full refund for North customers is “exceptionally generous”, and the best approach from a customer relations point of view.
“But not all people who invest in startups will be that lucky.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connected audio was a bad choice
https://tcrn.ch/30aMr7e
Good audio hardware should be timeless, and devices that need frequent firmware updates, have proprietary support for a certain operating system or can lose integration support quickly fly in the face of that.
Home entertainment integrations with these speakers are just awful, even among products built by the same company. Repeatedly connecting my stereo HomePods to my Apple TV has been maddening.
Smart assistants are much less ambitious than they were years ago and the ceiling of innovation already seems to have come down significantly. Third party integrations have sunk far below expectations and it’s pretty uncertain that these voice interfaces have as bright a future as these tech companies once hoped.
Now, many of you will say that my true error was a lack of commitment to one ecosystem, which is undoubtedly spot-on and yet I don’t think any of the players had precisely what I wanted hence the wildly piecemeal approach. Dumping more funds into a robust Sonos setup probably would have been the wisest commitment, but I have commitment issues and I think part of it was a desire to see what was out there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers developed a batteryless remote sensor powered completely by solar panels and capable of wirelessly transmitting images.
Meet Camaroptera, the Solar-Powered Remote Image Sensor That Manages Itself
https://www.hackster.io/news/meet-camaroptera-the-solar-powered-remote-image-sensor-that-manages-itself-ba950dc2887b
Researchers developed a batteryless remote sensor powered completely by solar panels and capable of wirelessly transmitting images.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Novel BLADE Architecture Could Boost IoT Devices’ Compute Performance, Energy Efficiency Sixfold
https://www.hackster.io/news/novel-blade-architecture-could-boost-iot-devices-compute-performance-energy-efficiency-sixfold-2adc0e06778f
Designed to integrate into cache memory and perform computation locally, BLADE offers some impressive gains for edge devices.
“BLADE is an arithmetic iSC architecture whose utilization of industry standard 6T bitcell arrays enables easy integration into current SRAM fabrication flows, and its low power digital design makes it appropriate for accelerating emerging applications on edge devices. We validated BLADE’s functionality from the system level down to the electrical level.”
“At the system level, we integrated BLADE into the cache hierarchy of an in-order CPU, accounting for system level interactions such as coherency and load/store consistency.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BLE and GATT for IoT
Getting Started with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Generic Attribute Profile (GATT) Specification for IoT
https://programmaticponderings.com/2020/08/04/getting-started-with-bluetooth-low-energy-ble-and-generic-attribute-profile-gatt-specification-for-iot/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/maurizio-di-paolo-emilio/news/networked-lighting-control-assures-efficiency-and-energy-savings?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=ad&utm_medium=EEWebEngInsp-20200806
Tomi Engdahl says:
How edge computing will unleash the potential of IIoT
https://www.controleng.com/articles/how-edge-computing-will-unleash-the-potential-of-iiot/?oly_enc_id=0462E3054934E2U
Combining the potential of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices with the processing power of edge computing, automation solutions and analytics is giving manufacturing production data more value. See five ways to make edge IIoT deployment more effective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Evolution Of Digital Twins
https://semiengineering.com/the-evolution-of-digital-twins/
Semiconductor development has been a longtime user of digital twins, and shift left is resulting in a rethinking of the models being generated and where they may have value.
Digital twins are starting to make inroads earlier in the chip design flow, allowing design teams to develop more effective models. But they also are adding new challenges in maintaining those models throughout a chip’s lifecycle.
Until a couple of years ago, few people in the semiconductor industry had even heard the term “digital twin.” Then, suddenly, it was everywhere, causing confusion because it appeared to be nothing more than development models. Some degree of clarity finally is emerging, but not about how it will affect the development process. What may change are new customers for those models and new ways in which value can be extracted from them, and over time that may influence the models created.
To start, the term digital twin is very broad. “Digital twins allow mimicking of real things through simulation,” says Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S. “Flight simulators are digital twins. Driving simulators are digital twins, especially if you want to model different ways in which a car can crash, or a pilot needs to learn to control the plane under severe duress. It is a good idea to be dangerous only in a simulated context.”
The term has been defined by a number of people. “A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical system that is used to answer questions that cannot be answered, or are difficult to answer, by a physical system,” says Marc Serughetti, senior director in the verification group at Synopsys.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seven ways automation design software helps IIoT
Electrical and automation design software can help with Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) automation implementations in seven ways. See product examples.
https://www.controleng.com/articles/seven-ways-automation-design-software-helps-iiot/?oly_enc_id=0462E3054934E2U
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-SUN vs. Wi-Fi
The Wi-SUN Alliance platform supports smart cities and the energy grid, but does it interfere with traditional Wi-Fi?
https://www.designnews.com/industry/wi-sun-vs-wi-fi?ADTRK=InformaMarkets&elq_mid=14147&elq_cid=876648
An important enabler of smart cities and the smart energy grid is the Wi-SUN Alliance. Perhaps that is why several organizations and government agencies have recently committed to the adoption of the wireless interoperability standard for smart cities, smart utilities, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Both Arm and Silicon Labs, two major global semiconductor companies, are now part of the Wi-SUN board of directors.
Still, many engineers outside of the smart energy grid market may not be familiar with the wireless standard. Why this growth in the usage of Wi-SUN protocols? How does Wi-SUN wireless differ from Wi-Fi and other standards? To answer these and other questions, Design News reached out to Phil Beecher, president, and CEO of the Wi-SUN Alliance.
Design News: How do you explain the recent growth of Wi-SUN related wireless technologies?
Beecher: Wi-SUN Field Area Network Technology has been deployed in the Utility Industry for a long time (more than 10 years). The alliance has brought about the convergence of best of breed technology from multiple vendors, providing a reliable, resilient, and secure communications architecture suitable for all large scale IoT applications, going beyond just utilities to also address the needs for Smart City automation.
Design News: How does Wi-SUN compare to existing wireless protocols? What advantages does it afford to designers?
Beecher: With cellular and LPWA architectures, devices communicate directly with a base station. If there is no base station in range, a device cannot communicate. Wi-SUN FAN is different: it uses a wireless mesh architecture based on open standards from IEEE, IETF (the internet engineering task force), and other organizations. A mesh network brings much more flexibility to in-device communication. If a device cannot talk directly to a router, messages can hop through neighboring devices. This provides excellent connectivity, particularly important in dense urban environments where urban canyons cause connection problems. If there are partial network failures (for example during power cuts or as a result of natural disaster, earthquake, hurricanes, etc.) then the network will automatically reconfigure to ensure that a maximum number of devices can still communicate. Mesh networks are not new, it is how the Internet is built to provide great resilience, but Wi-SUN Alliance has defined how to use the relevant open standards in a way to enable multi-vendor secure, resilient, interoperable solutions for large outdoor IoT networks.
Design News: You mentioned a Wi-SUN supported lighting application in the City of London. How did it go?
Beecher: The city of London is a challenging environment for communications, with a mix of modern, tall buildings and old, narrow streets. The City of London looked at their options and decided that Wireless Mesh communications would provide the best coverage and flexibility for the future. Wi-SUN FAN provides a communications infrastructure, not only for the initial streetlighting installation but enables the city to install other devices, e.g. pollution monitoring, parking management, from a choice of vendors, which will integrate into the same network.
Design News: What next for Wi-SUN, i.e., what does the future roadmap look like?
Beecher: We are increasing the communications speed to support more demanding applications for utility networks, such as distributed control of the grid, and integration of renewable energy generation and storage. We are also working on reduced power consumption to provide even longer battery life for devices that do not have mains power available, such as water and gas meters and low-cost sensors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Understanding the Underlying Sensor and Wireless Technologies in IIoT Apps
https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/article/21138610/understanding-the-underlying-sensor-and-wireless-technologies-in-iiot-apps?utm_source=EG+ED+IoT+for+Engineers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200818064&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
This article details some of the more common industrial IoT applications that utilize wireless sensor technology to control, monitor, and report on critical processes and control functions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Understanding the Underlying Sensor and Wireless Technologies in IIoT Apps
https://www.mwrf.com/technologies/systems/article/21138608/understanding-the-underlying-sensor-and-wireless-technologies-in-iiot-apps?utm_source=RF+MWRF+Today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200814019&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
This article details some of the more common industrial IoT applications that utilize wireless sensor technology to control, monitor, and report on critical processes and control functions.
From the connected home and smart wearables to Industry 4.0 and smart-city applications, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) permeate nearly every conceivable application. They bring automation to simple manual tasks with remotely controlled actuators and monitoring/tracking environments with evolving microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) sensors. These relatively simple, energy-constrained devices reveal a massive potential in data collection and data analytics to better assess human, machine, and even plant systems.
In industrial IoT (IIoT), short-range wireless solutions, cellular, and low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) can be leveraged to support the various sensor nodes. The choice of industrial communications depends on whether the process is time-critical with the need for real-time data or is non-time critical with either frequent or infrequent transmissions. Depending on the industrial application at hand, there are numerous IIoT use cases in which many sensor technologies and/or communication protocols may be brought to bear
Tomi Engdahl says:
Future Knowledge Management Challenges: Digital Twins Approach and Synergy Measurements
http://www.davidpublisher.org/index.php/Home/Article/index?id=42884.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
AIoT: When Artificial Intelligence Meets the Internet of Things
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/aiot-when-ai-meets-iot-technology/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Frustration-Free Setup Frequently Asked Questions
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GMPKVYDBR223TRPY
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-home-security-cameras-for-business/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Purdue University researchers’ new technology can transform paper from a notebook into a music player interface and even make food packaging interactive.
Battery-Free Low-Cost Printable Flexible Circuits Turn Paper, Card Into Interactive Gadgets
https://www.hackster.io/news/battery-free-low-cost-printable-flexible-circuits-turn-paper-card-into-interactive-gadgets-5b5ffd259cb4
Printed directly onto paper or card, these sub-$0.25 circuits can withstand moisture, flexing, and harvest energy from a finger-press.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth 5.1 SoC vs. Module: Which is Best for Your Design?
https://resources.altium.com/p/bluetooth-51-soc-vs-module-which-best-your-design?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-202009&utm_content=brain-food&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RFM09ESTBNall3T1RRMCIsInQiOiJkMHdUZFdiZmNBS3RGNjhTV2FjTVFhMWdxeHI0RjFXVnBnc1VkangrU3lIeTRKb1wvd0tLQkFiTkkyQVN6RzBCSGZ2cmx4Tmt4NkhJSFBueGR1RmxJcXFIZjhxak5IYmNCRmpvMEpTbTI2QlVLamhpa2VGUURJUTN3ZWg0ZVZDVVcifQ%3D%3D
The list of features available in Bluetooth just got a little longer since the release of Bluetooth 5.1. Component manufacturers have taken this mobile technology to the next level for IoT devices by integrating wireless comms with an MCU for embedded processing. This is just another step in the continuous push to pack more functionality into a smaller footprint.
If you want to incorporate a Bluetooth 5.1 SoC into your new product, you have two primary options for bringing this component into your board. The first is as an SoC that mounts to your board just like any other component. The other option is to bring a module into your new board—directly onto the surface layer. Here’s what you need to know about a Bluetooth 5.1 SoC or module in your next IoT product.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/11117-anturi-keraa-virran-vanhasta-sahkojohdosta
How Energy Can Be Harvested Using Magnetic Core As a Harvester
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dprfV73JhlA&ab_channel=e-peas%5BHeadquarters%5D
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple, Amazon, Google, and Zigbee Alliance Standard For Smart Home Tech On Track For 2021 Release
https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/20/09/08/2013249/apple-amazon-google-and-zigbee-alliance-standard-for-smart-home-tech-on-track-for-2021-release?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
FUNDAMENTALS OF
Smart Home
https://tismarthomefundamentals.com/?o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx_ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R
Welcome to the smart home design center. Here you will find the resources you need for innovation in electronics to help fast track your smart home designs. This hub will be your key reference center for solutions in building security, video surveillance, HVAC, smart appliances and service robots. Learn more to accelerate the future of smart home systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cornell University College of Engineering’s VibroSense tracks appliances by listening for the vibrations they create in walls and ceilings.
Cornell Tracks Appliances, Home Activities Using a Single Laser-Based VibroSense Sensor
https://www.hackster.io/news/cornell-tracks-appliances-home-activities-using-a-single-laser-based-vibrosense-sensor-f387deda558b
By pointing a laser Doppler sensor at a wall or ceiling and feeding the data to a deep learning system 18 individual activities are tracked.
A team of researchers at Cornell University have come up with a way to keep an eye on a range of appliances around the home, from washing machines to toilets — by listening out for the vibrations they create in walls and ceilings.
“Recognizing home activities can help computers better understand human behaviors and needs, with the hope of developing a better human-machine interface,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
11 Myths About Cellular IoT Design
Laird Connectivity’s Jonathan Kaye discusses the most common misconceptions about cellular IoT design—a growing area of IoT thanks to two new versions of the cellular standard that enable battery life of up to 10 years for wireless devices.
https://www.mwrf.com/technologies/systems/article/21140965/11-myths-about-cellular-iot-design?utm_source=RF+MWRF+Today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS200902069&o_eid=7211D2691390C9R&rdx.ident%5Bpull%5D=omeda%7C7211D2691390C9R&oly_enc_id=7211D2691390C9R
Tomi Engdahl says:
Murata, VitaNet to Automate Secure IoT Pairing and Authentication on BLE
Murata’s BLE module and VitaNet’s middleware makes it easier to convert industrial components into secure IoT devices.
https://www.mwrf.com/technologies/semiconductors/article/21141438/murata-vitanet-to-automate-secure-iot-pairing-and-authentication-on-ble
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silk-Based Microneedles and Bioinks Make an Easy Food Spoilage Sensor That Works Through Packaging
The silk-based sensors can be applied through packaging and quickly reveal the presence of harmful E. coli bacteria or concerning pH levels.
https://www.hackster.io/news/silk-based-microneedles-and-bioinks-make-an-easy-food-spoilage-sensor-that-works-through-packaging-ff63a04dcf98
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Z-Wave LR networks will support over 2,000 nodes, the Z-Wave Alliance claims, without sacrificing backwards compatibility.
Z-Wave Long Range Promises Four Times the Range, Longer Battery Life, and Full Legacy Support
https://www.hackster.io/news/z-wave-long-range-promises-four-times-the-range-longer-battery-life-and-full-legacy-support-062c4b73e692
New Z-Wave LR networks will support over 2,000 nodes, the Z-Wave Alliance claims, without sacrificing backwards compatibility.
The Z-Wave Alliance has announced a new specification that it claims boosts range fourfold, scalability tenfold, and can run for 10 years from a coin-cell battery while retaining full backwards compatibility with existing Z-Wave systems: Z-Wave Long Range (LR).
“The Z-Wave LR specification is the first of many technical developments to come from within the new Alliance standards development organizational structure,” explains Mitchell Klein, executive director of the Z-Wave Alliance. “As smart home networks continue to grow, mature, and add more complex devices, there is a need for more robust technology to support them. With Z-Wave LR, we are building upon Z-Wave’s legacy of strong networks by supporting more devices in a home or building with increased node counts and greater range. It’s more important than ever that IoT devices live on strong, reliable networks, and we’re excited to support this with the latest Z-Wave specification.”
https://www.eenewsembedded.com/news/new-z-wave-long-range-specification-announced
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.eetimes.com/the-smart-home-isnt-very/
Tomi Engdahl says:
If the humidity is too high, it will create mold, and if it is too low, we become uncomfortable. High levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are unhealthy and are responsible for illnesses, particularly for those with breathing disorders, such as children and the elderly. Recirculating indoor air or venting in outside air also has consequences both in energy efficiency and health.
http://ebmdes.pathfactory.com/ed_renesassensors/managing-air-quality-blog?partnerref=RenesasSensorCECEm5-09152020
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paper-Based Biodegradable Microneedle Patches Take the Pain Out of Blood-Glucose Testing
https://www.hackster.io/news/paper-based-biodegradable-microneedle-patches-take-the-pain-out-of-blood-glucose-testing-ad75bf0c8032
Simply pressing the patch against your skin would be enough to get an accurate blood-glucose reading, without the need for a finger-prick.