All posts tagged: cloud

The new Arduino Create platform aims to make embedded computing and Internet-of-Things development even easier, and an effort to make the popular Arduino development environment more relevant and up-to-date for today’s networked, connected Internet-of-Things applications – and to be easier to use for collaborative development and sharing of projects and open-source resources.

This new platform is intended to replace the widely used and proven Arduino IDE that many people will be familiar with. This system has been around for a decade, with minor revisions along the way – however is basically the same original system, derived from the Wiring platform.

Over time the Arduino IDE has inherited many things, some good and some bad, from this underlying legacy of the Wiring platform – and the Arduino Create platform aims to replace this with a modern, flexible toolchain. One of the most significant changes is that this new development environment will be a Web-based platform, with all the advantages as well as challenges that go along with that.

More than 10 years ago, the Arduino project set out to develop easy-to-use tools to make physical computing accessible and simple, with a focus on open-source software and hardware. Today, the Arduino Create platform aims to continue to remain true to these values in order to bring the same outcomes to the world of Internet-of-Things development, bringing this technology into the hands of teachers, students and creative artists, making the technology accessible for everybody, and serving as “one stop shop for Makers”.

But this new browser-based internet-connected platform is not just a new development environment. It enables everybody, including students, hobbyists, makers and other non-expert users to not just write code easily but also to share their work.

Users can easily configure their hardware, install updates and patches that are easily managed in the cloud, such as support for different board hardware types, and extra software libraries, and connect their networked devices to the cloud, using Web-accessible dashboards and other Internet-based features.

This cloud-based approach includes some clever features, such as the ability to easily “hide” sensitive private API keys and passwords within your code when you share it, and automatically insert this kind of secure information into your code at the preprocessor stage, before the code is uploaded to your board.

Alongside these new development capabilities, the new platform’s focus on community, culture leadership and education around the emerging Internet-of-Things domain is clear. The Arduino “IoT Manifesto” sets out not only how Arduino will approach the Internet of Things, but also how they intend to develop tools for it as well as how they think other parties should approach the way they’re developing their own tools and services for the IoT.

Arduino Create makes it very easy to get started, featuring guided workflows to help easily configure Internet services and to help users through the process of installing the cross-browser plugin. Once the plugin is installed, you can get started writing code and uploading sketches to an Arduino board connected to your computer directly from your web browser, in a way that will be largely familiar on the surface to everybody who has ever used an Arduino.

On the surface the Arduino Web Editor looks a lot like the familiar IDE, only browser-based. All the standard libraries included with Arduino IDE installations are immediately available, along with support for all the standard Arduino hardware targets.

This makes usability easy for new users, with minimal transition required for users who are already familiar with the Arduino IDE. All the significant back-end changes are hidden underneath, with a largely familiar user experience.

The Create platform also includes the Arduino Cloud infrastructure, which allows you to connect your Arduino boards directly to the Internet with ease, using transport protocols such as MQTT to communicate from Arduino devices to Web services and to other devices.

The Arduino Cloud infrastructure as well as the Arduino Web Editor are powered by Amazon Web Services behind the scenes, with AWS IoT and AWS Lambda providing the Arduino Create platform with secure, reliable and highly scalable infrastructure, enabling the platform that enables makers to easily connect and manage their Arduino projects through the internet and the cloud.

Eventually the Arduino Cloud infrastructure will provide Arduino users with a one-stop-shop for Arduino-connected Web services, including real-time data display dashboards, streaming of data and database storage.

The community surrounding the Arduino platform is one of its defining characteristics, and the Arduino Project Hub integrated into the Arduino Create system aims to continue this community-oriented tradition.

The huge amount of open-source code, examples and community support available around the Arduino platform mean that if you have a problem you can probably find somebody else that has had the same problem earlier that can easily help you solve it.

This ecosystem of community support is a key part of the Arduino success story – this has helped make Arduino the default platform for beginners and hobbyists looking to get started with microcontrollers and embedded computing.

The Arduino Create ecosystem builds upon this tradition with the integration of the Arduino Project Hub. The Arduino Project Hub is intended to be the new focus for the extensive community of Arduino users to share their projects, ideas and examples.

Although this may be an exciting development for the hobbyist community, it is not an ideal situation for those looking to design, build and manage their own commercial Internet-of-Things products. This is quite apparent with first use, thanks to the ominous “You may lose your data” warning.

Furthermore, there are many options on the hardware, software and platform fronts that require serious consideration – with security being paramount. Thus you need to discuss your IoT project with professionals from the LX Group.

We have end-to-end experience and demonstrated results in the entire process of IoT product development, and we’re ready to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, telephone 1800 810 124, or just keep in the loop by connecting here.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

As an interesting example of larger, more established companies taking longer to bring a new product or service to market – IBM is now in the open-source cloud development platform arena with their new Bluemix service.

This is a new next-generation cloud development platform based on IBM’s Open Cloud Architecture and the open-source Cloud Foundry project. Bluemix is a Platform-As-A-Service (PaaS) offering that promises to deliver enterprise-level features and services that are easy to integrate into cloud applications.

As an open-standards-based cloud platform for building, managing, and running apps of all types, Bluemix offers the opportunity to work with the web, mobile, big data, Internet-of-Things applications and smart devices.

Bluemix capabilities include support for Java, mobile back-end development and application monitoring, as well as features from ecosystem partners, all in a cloud-based platform.

This enables organisations and developers to easily create, deploy and manage applications in the cloud, delivering enterprise-level services that can easily integrate with your cloud applications without you needing to know how to install or configure them.

IBM envisioned Bluemix as a system that would answer the needs and challenges facing application developers, their business counterparts and users. For developers, this means a system that significantly reduces the time needed to create and provision the application and allows for flexible capacity in terms of storage as well as delivering flexible capacity for bandwidth and processing.

It handles the back-end infrastructure without requiring the developer to spend time managing it, and allows developers to concentrate on what they do best – developing innovative applications.

For businesses, Bluemix represents a system that allows users to easily create cloud applications without needing a high level of technical knowhow, enabling businesses to rapidly adjust to customer requirements by leveraging the flexibility cloud applications provide – such as instant updates, new features and automatic deployment, empowering and enabling business users to leverage their resources in the most efficient way possible.

Rapid adjustment to changing customer needs and the automatic deployment of new features provides high responsiveness from the customer perspective, and their needs can be addressed very quickly once they make them known. Cloud-based cost savings also reduce the total cost of ownership.

With projections of billions of new Internet-of-Things devices being sold and connected over coming years, with corresponding growth in the amount of network traffic they generate, there have been a number of new technologies emerging that help developers connect and use the data coming from these devices.

One interesting example is MQTT, the Message Queue Telemetry Transport protocol. MQTT is a connectivity protocol specifically designed for machine-to-machine and Internet-of-Things applications, as a very lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport.

In response to projections for the IoT and the rapidly growing numbers of connected devices, IBM has developed an Internet of Things Cloud – which at the core is based around an MQTT instance. The IBM IoT cloud is currently in beta but is quite functional and you can use it to develop or experiment with publishing and retrieving data from your connected Internet-of-Things devices.

Once you have a device connected to the IBM Internet-of-Things Cloud you can build an app around the data coming from that device, and this is where Bluemix comes in. Using a combination of the IBM IoT Cloud and IBM Bluemix you can have a complete cloud-based based solution for your IoT applications, and Bluemix already has a service that is part of its catalogue to connect to the IBM IoT Cloud.

In addition to the service, Bluemix has a boilerplate for IoT applications which stands up a Node-RED instance allowing you to design data flows for your application. For example you can use Bluemix along with the IoT cloud to build Internet-of-Things applications based on data coming in from a hardware device such as a Texas Instruments Sensor Tag.

You can use Node-RED, running on top of Bluemix and the IoT Cloud, to collect sensor data over the tag’s wireless Bluetooth Low Energy interface, store it in a MongoDB database and create a REST API exposing the data, without writing any code yourself.

Included with IBM’s IoT Cloud there are a number of “recipes”, which are basically example IoT scenarios that can get you up and running quickly with common applications. The recipes contain instructions on how to set up the hardware as well as provide you with the code needed to connect the device to the IoT Cloud and publish data. What makes using these recipes even easier is the quickstart service that is part of the IoT Cloud.

When using the quickstart service you don’t have to create an account or register any devices, you just run the code given to you in the recipe, head to the quickstart page, enter the MAC address of the device and you can see the device data being published to the IoT Cloud.

To get an IoT device and demonstration application up and running quickly it couldn’t be easier. For example, a combined Beaglebone Black and TI Sensor Tag application is one of the recipes provided, supporting the TI Sensor Tag which has a number of sensors on it you can use for many different and interesting use cases, connected to a Beaglebone Black which removes the need for a power-hungry local PC running all the time.

All the hardware needed, the Sensor Tag, the Beaglebone Black, and a Bluetooth LE USB adapter, costs less than 100 dollars, and once you’ve got the hardware you can quickly follow the documentation provided to start publishing data from sensors to the cloud using a combination of Bluemix, IBM IoT Cloud and NodeRED.

Although not the first in the market, IBM’s offering is powerful and scalable – and could be the solution to your IoT product requirements. Here at the LX Group, our experienced award-winning engineering team can harness Bluemix for your success.

Getting started is easy – join us for an obligation-free and confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Device Cloud by Etherios is a device management platform and data service that allows you to connect a huge range of devices to Internet-connected applications, anywhere. As a public cloud service, it is designed to provide easy integration between devices and the cloud, facilitating real-time network management and rapid development of machine-to-machine and Internet-of-Things applications.

Using Etherios Cloud Connector and the open-source APIs available it is easy to integrate a wide range of client software, including web applications or mobile applications, with Device Cloud.

This public cloud platform provides easy cloud-based management of device networks, secure application messaging and data storage for Internet-of-Things and machine-to-machine networks comprised of wired, wireless networked, cellular and satellite-connected devices. It offers customers centralised management of gateways and connected end-devices, ease of integration via APIs and Etherios’ Cloud Connector, elastic scalability of the cloud platform, allowing easy and cost-effective growth as your device network grows, enterprise-level reliability and industry-leading attention to security.

To get started trying out Device Cloud, you can simply create a free Device Cloud account and enjoy access to Device Cloud services including Device Manager with up to five devices and support for Web services, data streams and SMS connectivity. With a free Developer Edition account you’ll have access to all the features of Device Cloud in order to design, test and prototype your Internet-of-Things or machine-to-machine solution, and you’ll be able to freely evaluate all the functionality and features of Device Cloud for a small network of devices.

There are two Device Cloud hosting centres at present, one in the US and one in Europe. When creating a Device Cloud account you can select which hosting centre to use, allowing latency to be minimised by selecting the hosting location that is geographically closest to the majority of your devices that you will be registering to Device Cloud.

Traditionally, devices were expected to keep a persistent network connection open to Device Cloud, with an occasional keep-alive or heartbeat signal sent to confirm the link while application data was not actively being sent. However, Device Cloud now incorporates SMS support for deployment scenarios where bandwidth costs are high, allowing some actions such as a device reboot to be initiated remotely via SMS.

For more complicated communications, Device Cloud can send an SMS “shoulder tap” to request a connection, causing the device to initiate a traditional connection back to the server over the cellular link only when such a connection is really needed, reducing bandwidth costs. Once connected, web services, requests and UI actions can connect to the device.

Connecting your products into the enterprise network can create new revenue streams, service offerings, and improved customer satisfaction. Etherios Cloud Connector is a software development package that helps to realise these goals by enabling you to securely connect essentially any devices in a machine-to-machine or Internet-of-Things network to the Etherios Device Cloud system. Supported devices range from Arduino boards, Microchip PIC and STM microcontrollers to Freescale and Intel chips, the Raspberry Pi single-board computer and common smartphones. Cloud Connector simplifies integration of your devices with applications and gives you easy, direct access to the data from your devices.

Etherios can help you to build a specific Device Cloud Solution that suits your needs, providing a free Dia framework including reusable software modules and open-source reference code, a free integrated development environment based on the Eclipse IDE that includes helpful examples and tutorials, and other sources of design assistance, including custom application development services. Etherios also offers expertise and services in embedded design, software services, electronic and RF engineering, and printed circuit board layout.

Etherios Cloud Connector is available for Android, Kinetis microcontroller devices and other common embedded platforms, allowing easy connectivity of many different devices to Device Cloud. The large family of “connectors” available simplify the process of managing dynamic hardware and device infrastructure, making it easy to deploy and modify your networks of connected devices and applications.

Highly elastic cloud infrastructure makes it easy to maintain a cloud platform that meets the needs of your expanding network – a complete, scalable, Internet-of-Things toolkit that is cost-effective at any scale.

A pre-built, cloud-based solution can offer fully featured, production-grade capabilities for an initial pilot and proof-of-concept of your Internet-of-Things service or product, and Device Cloud enables application developers to bring a product to market very quickly and easily compared to bespoke solutions.

You could perhaps build your own platform, but only with significant investments in development time and cost in order to achieve the same range of features and functionality that is available from an off-the-shelf solution such as Device Cloud today. The primary benefit of Device Cloud is cost, with world-class scalability, reliability and security offered at an extremely competitive cost.

And with our team here at the LX group, it’s simple to get prototypes of IoT systems up and running – which also translates to lowering the cost of the system development through to the final product. We can partner with you – finding synergy with your ideas and our experience to create final products that exceed your expectations.

To get started, join us for an obligation-free and confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Choosing an Internet-of-things platform can be a challenge, not only due to the ever-increasing range of options in the marketplace – but also the ease of working with the platform to meet your end goal. With this challenge in mind we introduce the Realtime.io/Iota system from iobridge – a system suited to real time monitoring and control.

Realtime.io is a technology platform that enables easy development of near real-time Internet-of-Things applications for developers and manufacturers. The Realtime.io platform is a complete, end-to-end solution of hardware, firmware and a cloud platform for the Internet of Things which allows developers to integrate Internet connectivity into their product designs relatively easily with minimal effort required for either hardware or software development.

Realtime.io Cloud Server and Iota technology are aimed at making it easy and cost effective for manufacturers to Internet-enable their products, either in new or existing designs. The Realtime.io cloud server technology acts as a bridge between embedded devices or products running Realtime.io Iota software and user software running either in-browser or in the form of smartphone applications – which allows your devices or products to be monitored and controlled conveniently over the Internet.

Despite being easy to use with minimal development effort, Realtime.io also provides some flexibility in how it is integrated for more advanced developers with existing hardware platforms.

You have the flexibility of choosing your own hardware and developing your own user interfaces or letting ioBridge do it for you. The Realtime.io connected Iota hardware modules from ioBridge provide 12 GPIO pins, eight of which are usable as either digital I/O or as ADC inputs. These embedded Iota modules are available with either Wi-Fi or Ethernet hardware for connectivity between the device and your LAN (and hence the Internet).

Although you can use the Iota hardware modules for relatively easy hardware development of a new product, or relatively easy integration into an existing microcontroller-based design (for example with a simple UART connection between the Iota module and the existing microcontroller).

Commercial users who already have their own custom Wi-Fi or Ethernet-enabled hardware have flexible options in how they integrate with the Realtime.io cloud platform, giving Realtime.io an advantage over some competing platforms such as Electric Imp where their hardware card must always be used.

Rather than using an Iota hardware module with its integrated firmware, you have the option of licensing the Iota firmware library for integration into your existing embedded hardware design, if your design includes an appropriate microcontroller along with Ethernet or Wi-Fi connectivity.

In either case, for commercial licensing, Realtime.io collects a royalty fee either per Iota hardware module provided or per unit of customer hardware shipped integrating Iota firmware. Easy to use breakout boards and development kits are available for hardware development and experimentation using either the Ethernet-connected or Wi-Fi connected Iota hardware modules.

No port-forwarding, dynamic DNS or complicated firewall reconfiguration is required for an Iota-connected hardware system to talk to the Realtime.io cloud service via the Internet, and initial setup of Wi-Fi credentials is easy, making installation and initial deployment of Realtime.io-connected hardware relatively easy for any user.

The combined infrastructure of Realtime.io and Iota was created to provide a near-instant communications link between devices and applications, providing near-real-time two-way operation for both monitoring and control with a software latency of typically less than 10 milliseconds.

Typical end-to-end delays are only about 100 milliseconds, most of which is the unavoidable ping time across the Internet to the Realtime.io server. This is very desirable, since high latency can significantly detract from user experience with Internet-of-Things connected hardware solutions in applications such as home automation.

Everything is API driven, and easy to use for both hardware developers and web developers. By providing API abstraction, Realtime.io enables developers to prototype their connected project ideas easily and then transition to production hardware and software designs very quickly, without requiring expertise in both electronic and software engineering.

ioBridge provides a web API that can be used by Realtime.io customers to develop their own custom applications or to integrate with their own or other third-party systems.

Realtime.io allows you to create web applications based on HTML5, CSS and Javascript with interaction with physical devices, social networks, external APIs, and ioBridge web services. The Realtime.io App Builder allows you to build web apps directly on the Realtime.io platform, with an in-browser code editor, JavaScript library, app update tracking, device manager, and single sign on with existing ioBridge user accounts.

The web client API allows you to interact with Iota-enabled devices connected to Realtime.io cloud servers. This API provides access to HTTP streaming from one device or multiple devices, access to GPIO registers on your devices (and therefore hardware interaction and control), and administrative information such as access to the connection state and IP addresses of the network of connected devices.

The Realtime.io system holds much promise, and through a four year development period the system can deliver on the promises of reliable, secure and scalable integration with new and existing products.

If your organisation is considering bring new IoT-enabled products to market, looking to update existing disparate nodes to a contemporary networked environment – or you have some great ideas and not sure how to start, we can help you at any and all stages of the required processes.

We’re ready to offer our experience and know-how on this and every other stage of product development to meet your needs. As we say – “LX can take you from the whiteboard to the white box”. So for a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Recently Google announced their new Cloud Platform services, which allow almost anyone to build applications, websites, store and analyse data using Google’s infrastructure. This is an exciting development for those looking to implement a scalable Internet-of-things system at a minimal cost – so we’ll take an overview of the system as it stands today.

Almost everyone is aware of the researched information, computing power and infrastructure available for Google’s myriad of services, and now it’s possible to harness some of this for your own needs. With the introduction of their “Cloud Platform”, you can harness this power that Google has used internally for years to provide Google’s familiar high-speed, high-scale big-data products and services such as Search, YouTube, Google Docs and GMail and make it available as cloud computing services for use with your own Internet-of-Things projects.

Large-scale, high-speed, distributed “cloud” storage and computation with large amounts of data is at the heart of everything that makes Google what it is, so it’s clear that they have substantial opportunities to offer external cloud-computing customers.

Whilst Google is not the first major player in the cloud computing market, their substantial infrastructure and “Big Data” experience represents a significant source of potential competition with other established cloud computing providers such as Amazon Web Services. The capability to use Google’s data centre infrastructure for cloud storage and computation, their data tools such as BigQuery to process very large scale data sets – and integration with Google’s data, services and apps are increasingly attractive.

The Google Cloud Platform is made up of a couple of different core components – Compute and Storage being two of the most important. The Compute component includes the Google Compute Engine, which is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform designed to run any application on top of Google’s infrastructure – which offers fast networking, scalable processing and storage, and the App Engine, a platform for developing and hosting web applications. The Storage component includes Google Cloud Storage and the BigQuery large-scale query system.

As with most cloud computing platforms, end users access cloud-based applications and infrastructure through a relatively lightweight local computer – via a web browser, lightweight desktop software, or a mobile device application – with the data and most of the software are stored on remote servers in the cloud. Therefore, the hardware requirements for the user to leverage the power of applications and data on Google Cloud Platform-hosted applications and services are almost trivial.

Many components of the Google Cloud Platform support open standards and protocols such as REST-based APIs. The Google Compute Engine is built atop a JSON RESTful API which
can be accessed via numerous different libraries, command-line utilities and GUI front-end tools. Google’s BigQuery, a cloud-based fully managed interactive query service specifically designed for work with massive datasets, is operated via an SQL-like query language.

Google Cloud Storage complements the Compute component of the Google Cloud Platform and serves to glue together all Google Cloud Services. Google Cloud Storage is a HTTP service that serves data directly over HTTP with high performance and resumable transfers of objects up to the terabyte scale. It offers support for two different APIs – one that is compatible with the XML standard used by competing providers such as Amazon Web Services and another API built around JSON and OAuth, consistent with the Google Compute Engine’s API.

The Google App Engine is a “Platform-as-a-Service” cloud computing platform for the development and hosting of web applications in Google’s managed data centres. Applications are sand-boxed and distributed across multiple servers. One of the major benefits of using the Google App Engine is that it can offer automatic scaling for web applications – that is, automatically allocating more resources for the web application to handle the increased demand as the number of requests for a particular application increases.

All that sounds quite useful, however why would your organisation use the Google Cloud Platform? Whilst it requires an initial investment to import your data (especially on a large scale) into the cloud, this is offset by the substantial advantages offered by the platform. By offering fully managed services that remove the requirement for upfront capacity planning, provisioning, constant monitoring and planning software updates. This can significantly reduce the total cost of ownership of large-scale data handling solutions.

Furthermore there’s one thing in particular that sets the Google Cloud Platform apart – the network that connects the company’s data centres so data can be processed and delivered where it is needed in milliseconds. Google has a private distributed backbone between all its data centres – so if you’re moving data around within Google’s cloud, even within geographically diverse data centres (although this is essentially invisible to the user) your data travels over Google’s backbone, and not over the Internet – providing substantially improved performance.

Whilst the Compute and Storage components of the Google Cloud Platform are separate offerings, the performance of Google’s networks make it appear as though they integrated seamlessly, thus allowing integration of Google’s cloud storage and computation with no obvious slowdown.

At the LX Group we have a wealth of experience and expertise in the IoT field, and can develop new or modify existing hardware and software to integrate your system with the Google Cloud Platform. As always, our goal is to find and implement the best system for our customers, and this is where the LX Group can partner with you for your success.

We can create or tailor just about anything from a wireless temperature sensor to a complete Internet-enabled system for you – within your required time-frame and your budget. For more information or a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Continuing from our previous articles which are focusing on a range of currently-available Internet-of-Things systems, we now move forward and explore another successful addition to the Internet-of-Things marketplace in more detail – the system known as “Ninja Blocks”. An Australian invention, developed only last year and originally released via the ubiquitous Kickstarter crowd funding system – Ninja Blocks are now a commercial product and available for use. It is billed as the “ Internet of things for the rest of us” – however anyone person or organisation can make good use of it.

Like other systems the Ninja Blocks consist of two major elements – the hardware devices and attached I/O devices, and the software environment. Using this combination you can create sets of “rules” that allow interaction between the hardware and the end user with a variety of methods. For example temperature can be monitored remotely, alerts can be sent when a button is pressed, or an image can be emailed from the connected webcam – ideal for remote monitoring, security or personal interest applications.

Furthermore the entire system is open hardware, and can be modified at whim – all the design files are available for download and examination. So creating your own devices to interact using the system is a possibility, and we can easily help you integrate your existing hardware to make use of Nina Blocks connectivity. Now let’s examine the hardware and software in more detail.

Hardware – Housed inside an enclosure (that you’re encouraged to open) is a “BeagleBone”, which is a single-board Linux-based computer running a 720 MHz super-scalar ARM Cortex-A8 processor. Attached is a daughter board which contains an Arduino-compatible microcontroller and a 433 MHz wireless data link. There’s also three USB ports to connect various sensors (such as temperature, motion detectors), actuators (such as radio-controlled AC outlets) and the aforementioned USB webcam. Connection to the Internet is via a typical RJ45 connection or a Wi-Fi USB adaptor.

Included in the Ninja Blocks retail package is a wireless passive infra-red motion detector, a wireless button (similar to a doorbell button), a wireless temperature/humidity sensor and a wireless door sensor (which is a magnet/reed switch, ideal for doors and windows). This allows experimentation and a rapid method of getting familiar with the system.

The wireless hardware operates in the consumer product 433 MHz frequency area, which allows integration with a wide variety of commercially-available products. If you can decode or understand the protocols used by such hardware it can be used with Ninja Blocks. For example the use of wireless AC outlets is a perfect example of how quickly (and safely) almost any device can be controlled remotely. In doing so this also removes the requirement for customised AC wiring and certification.

Software – Getting started is incredibly simple, as the cloud-based environment allows you to create sets of rules that generate actions based on the data coming from the hardware. Like any other IoT system you can also create specific applications for your own needs to work with the cloud service. Further you can also update the firmware on the Arduino-compatible hardware inside the Ninja Block to allow for customised hardware interactions.

Just like the hardware design, there’s no secrets to the software and the Ninja Blocks API is documented including various examples that is growing over time. Any programmer with contemporary experience can get up to speed within a reasonable amount of time. However the system can remain “code-less” as the owner can simply work with the graphical cloud interface if need be.

The Ninja Blocks system spans almost every user type, from the interested beginner to the organisation who knows what they want and doesn’t have the resources to “reinvent the wheel”. It may look like a simple product however there is a huge scope for customisation and adapting existing hardware is a genuine possibility.

If you’re interested in moving forward with your own system based on the Ninja Blocks, we have existing experience with the platform, a relationship with the Ninja Blocks organisation and thus can guide you through the entire process – from understanding your needs to creating the required hardware interfaces and supplying firmware and support for your particular needs.

Our goal is to find and implement the best system for our customers, and this is where the LX Group can partner with you for your success. We can create or tailor just about anything from a wireless temperature sensor to a complete Internet-enabled system for you – within your required time-frame and your budget. For more information or a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Continuing from our article last week which examined the Twine wireless sensor blocks, we now move forward and explore another recent addition to the Internet-of-Things marketplace in more detail – the “Electric Imp”. Although the name sounds somewhat toy-like, the system itself is quite the opposite. It’s a unified hardware, software and connectivity solution that’s easy to implement and quite powerful. It offers your devices WiFi connectivity and an incredibly simple development and end-user experience.

That’s a big call, however the system comprises of a relatively simple hardware solution and software development environment that has a low financial and learning entry level yet is quite customisable. Like other systems it comprises of a hardware and software component, so let’s examine those in more detail.

Hardware – Unlike other IoT systems such as Twine or cosm, the Electric Imp has a very well-defined and customisable hardware structure that is both affordable and incredibly compact. Almost all of the hardware is in a package the size of an SD memory card, and the only external parts required are a matching SD socket to physically contain and connect with the Imp card with your project, and supporting circuitry for an Atmel ATSHA204 authentication chip which enables Imp cards to identify themselves as unique unitsin the system.

Connection to the cloud service is via a secure 802.11b/g/n WiFi network and supports WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryption, however due to the size of the Imp there isn’t an option for a wired connection. The external support schematic is made available by the Imp team so you can easily implement it into almost any prototype or existing product. But how?

Imagine a tiny development board with GPIO pins, an SPI and I2C-bus, a serial UART, and a 16-bit ADC inside your project that is controlled via WiFi – this is what the Imp offers. It’s quite exciting to imagine the possibilities that can be introduced to existing projects with this level of control and connectivity. From remote control to data gathering, system monitoring to advanced remote messaging systems – it’s all possible. Furthermore, due to the possibility of completely internal embedding of the Imp system inside your product, system reliability can be improved greatly as there’s no points of weakness such as network cables, removable parts or secondary enclosures.

Software – As each Imp is uniquely identifiable on the Imp cloud service, you can use more than one in any application. Furthermore, your Imp firmware is created and transmitted to each Imp card online – which allows remote firmware updates as long as the Imp has a network connection; and a cloud-based IDE to allow collaboration and removes the need for customised programming devices, JTAGs, or local IDE installations. This saves time, money, development costs and offers a more portable support solution.

The firmware is written in a C-like language named “Squirrel”, which is created using the aforementioned online IDE. Once uploaded to the Imp card the firmware can still operate if it loses a network connection – or if a run-time error occurs and a network is available, the details will be sent back to the IDE. This allows developers the ability to remotely debug Imp applications in real-time – saving on-site visits and unwanted client-supplier interactions.

Furthermore, Imps have an inbuilt LED which can be utilised to display status modes if an application fails or other information which can be used to a clients’ benefit, helping them describe possible issues if a network connection isn’t available. There is a detailed language description, a wide range of tutorials and example code to help developers get started – and although some features are still in the beta-stage, the core advertised features are available at the time of writing.

If you’re interested in moving forward with the Electric Imp, we can guide you through the entire process, from understanding your needs to creating the required hardware interfaces and supplying firmware and support for your particular needs. The up-front hardware cost is much lower than other systems, and with volume pricing the implementation costs can be reduced further.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

When considering an Internet-of-Things framework for an existing or new project, one of the greatest challenges is getting the system running within what is most likely a tight deadline. And part of the greater challenge is the choice of interface between you devices and the network – and how will they interact? At this juncture your decision can be to create a bespoke solution, or use an existing product. The latter is ideal for proof-of-concepts, quick jobs or just when you need to get a MVP (minimum viable product) through the door. With this in mind, we’ll check out one example of an existing solution that you may make use of – called “Twine”

Although originally an idea that was brought to fruition using crowdfunding via Kickstarter, Twine has now become one of many viable choices in the IoT marketplace. As usual, it consists of a hardware and software component – so let’s examine those and then see how they can work together to solve your problems.

Hardware – The Twine devices are quite unassuming and compact, measuring approximately 70×71×20mm and can fit in the palm of your hand. With an elastomer coating they’re quite robust, however not water resistant or proof. These devices provide the link between the cloud-based software and a variety of hardware options. Inside each device already exists temperature, vibration and orientation sensors – and a port for external sensors. It connects via an 802.11b wireless network and is powered via a micro USB socket or 2 AAA cells.

You can also acquire a range of external sensors covering moisture, magnetic switches (for doors, etc) and also a breakout board to connect your own hardware. You can connect any device that outputs an analogue or digital signal with a 0~3.3 V range. Furthermore there’s also an Arduino shield for connection to that ubiquitous line of hardware. The last two options then give you the ability to quickly connect your own sensor or interface via an Arduino-compatible board other hardware with which you’d like to interact with over the cloud system. Therefore development costs of this additional hardware will be restrained due to the ease of interfacing with the sensor port or Arduino interface.

Software – There are two primary methods for interacting with the Twine hardware, with their proprietary cloud-based system or via HTTP to your own applications. Using the cloud-based method – you create a series of rules that can monitor incoming sensor data then make decisions based on the results. From simple things like email alerts notifying you of temperature changes to SMS text messages when a device has been physically moved – there are many possibilities that can be constructed in a short period of time. There’s also the option of receiving messages via twitter and text-to-voice call.

The process of creating applications for Twine doesn’t require any coding at all, so demonstrations of the system can be created and modified by general employees and management. Using an online drag-and-drop interface with simple condition parameters is used to generate actions based on the status of the connected sensors. However there is also the opportunity to have Twine directly interact with your own infrastructure using HTTP GET and POST requests. This is also preferable for those looking to keep their data within internal systems.

It can be said that Twine is not the most complex or customisable system on the market at the time of writing, however if your needs meet the capabilities then it can be a valid option. You can get a basic system operating in a few hours, and integrate other hardware in no time at all.

If you’re interested in moving forward with Twine or other platforms, we can guide you through the entire process, from simple installations for demonstration purposes to a complete system with customised external sensors and programming support. Our goal is to find and implement the best system for our customers, and this is where the LX Group can partner with you for your success.

We can discuss and understand your requirements and goals – then help you navigate the various hardware and other options available to help solve your problems. We can create or tailor just about anything from a wireless temperature sensor to a complete Internet-enabled system for you. For more information or a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Moving on from our examination of Hardware design directions for Internet-of-Thing solutions, we now turn to the software portion of the solution. As there was many hardware options to consider, there is also a variety of choices to select from when looking for a service to collect data from and interact with your hardware. Each have their own features, costs and drawbacks – however these factors and more are subject to the goals of your project.

Nevertheless each have their own distinctive features, so let’s examine three existing and experienced market players in more detail. The first is known as “cosm”, however previously called “pachube”. Cosm is flexible in that you can use your own hardware designs or existing hardware from other vendors, and no hardware licensing is required. You can prototype very easily with cosm using inexpensive development platforms such as NXP’s mbed or even an Arduino-compatible board. This allows your hardware team to get started straight away.

However the service is mainly for capturing and organising “feeds” of data from connected devices, and this can be done for zero cost. There are other options that allow device management and provisioning, however they are in beta stage at the moment. Nevertheless the cosm platform is effective and excellent for capturing data from remote devices for analysis and action – and with very low start-up and running costs it’s great for experimenting or proof-of-concept prototypes.

The next service we consider is “Thingspeak”. This is a fully open-source IoT platform that designed for data feeds and interaction with hardware in both directions. You can also import existing data collected before implementation. Although Thingspeak is open-source, it does provide security via API keys and user authentication. Rules can be created that react when data reaches a certain value or parameter – which cause twitter messages, can trigger hardware or other devices via a connected PC.

You can also export all captured data in .csv file format for ease of local analysis or system transfer. Due to the openness of the system, there’s a great variety of tutorials and examples available for Microsoft .NET, Arduino, python, processing and other environments – which will help your team get up to speed. And currently the service is no-charge. With these factors in mind, Thingspeak can provide a simple solution however more direct enquiries with the organisation would need to be made with relation to long-term changes in costings.

Finally we take a look at “Nimbits”. This service provides the usual cloud-based data gathering, analysis and so on – but using the Google Apps. This offers an incredibly reliable server, integration with Google Docs and other related software tools. As with Thingspeak, Nimbits is fully open-source and allows import and export of your own data. Nimbits offers integration with social media such as facebook and twitter.

The service is free for up to 1000 API calls per day, and then one cent per 1000 calls. Therefore you can again try it for free, or at a very low cost. Getting started is simple, with a range of tutorials on data capture, and interaction or messaging based on circumstances. It does require more coding than cosm or Thingspeak, however this isn’t an insurmountable challenge.

The IoT industry is growing, and even as we write this more services are being introduced and demonstrated. It can be difficult to choose which service to use, as they’re all quite young and untested over the long term, so having hardware and plans that can span two or more different services is essential for the longevity and sustainability of your IoT project.

Here at the LX Group we can discuss and understand your requirements and goals – then help you navigate the various hardware and other options available to help solve your problems. We can create or tailor just about anything from a wireless temperature sensor to a complete Internet-enabled system for you. For more information or a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design. https://lx-group.com.auPublished by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Moving forward from our last instalment about the recent rise of the Internet of Things, in this article we’ll start to examine some of the major IoT systems that are already on the market in order to help determine which of them may be suitable for integration into your next or current project. At this time this isn’t an exhaustive list – however the three systems examined below each offer a wide variety of functionality which is implemented in different ways.

The first system is the “Electric Imp”. This is a simple yet powerful client hardware and cloud service system with a focus on simple implementation. The hardware consists of a device which is the same physical format as an SD memory card, and a unique identification IC which is fitted to your product. The Electric Imp card contains an industry-standard 802.11b/g/n WiFi transceiver and antenna, and a Cortex-M3 microcontroller with GPIO, I2C and SPI bus support and more.

The physical size of the hardware makes the Imp system relatively simple to integrate into existing and new products, and the hardware cost can be well under Au$30 in volume. To make things happen, software for the Electric Imp is created using an online IDE which is then transmitted to the required Imp via the Internet. This software allows your product to interact with web services, servers, smart phone applications and more. Furthermore the software can be updated and broadcast without any user operations, allowing bug-fixed and new features to be seamlessly rolled out.

However the Electric Imp is still in “developer” mode – considered as a late beta. Nevertheless it offers an inexpensive and theoretically trouble-free option for IoT integration. For more information, visit the Electric Imp website.

The second system is “Ninja Blocks” – developed locally in Australia, and finding global success. The Ninja Block is based around a combination of a BeagleBone Linux computer and a customised Arduino-compatible – and connected to the Internet. The system allows interaction with a cloud service (the “platform”) and variety of customised devices such as temperature and motion sensors, and also allows connection to commercially-available devices such as RF-wireless power outlets and alarm sensors.

Devices communicate with the Ninja Block via RF or USB cable, and the cloud interaction is provided by the cloud-based Ninja Platform. Once new devices are added to the Ninja Block, they are recognised by the cloud-based platform and the end user can create rules which interact with sensors and actuators. Furthermore smartphone applications can be developed for local interactions. Finally, the Ninja Blocks system is designed for the end-user in mind, allowing your customers to either create their own rules for your products – however you can also integrate your own API.

Due to the success of the system it is envisaged that a market for devices to interact with the Ninja Blocks will grow – and thus the opportunity lies in creating new products to interact with the system. Furthermore the system hardware has been open-sourced, allowing much faster and cheaper device design. For more information visit the website.

The final system we examine is the “ioBridge” system. This is the most mature of the three systems examined, and possibly spans the gap between the Electric Imp and Ninja Blocks. Almost any kind of device can be designed to integrate into the ioBridge systems, and as with the other two work with cloud-based servers/services and local mobile applications.

One benefit of the ioBridge service is the established development environment and the ioBridge company can create bespoke web applications for your product that integrates their hardware. However as it was before the “rush of Open Source” the ioBridge system is closed-source and licensing is required to create devices to work with it. If you’re looking for an IoT system this may not be the most cost-effective hardware solution, unless your product is designed specifically for customers already entrenched in the ioBridge ecosystem. For more information visit their website.

Although the Internet of Things may sound simple, and the goal is to be for the end user – as product developers there is much to take into account. The market hasn’t even come near the point of maturity – however all the options available are exciting and have great possibilities for automation, connectivity and making customers’ lives easier. Just as the manufacturers of video recorder units had competing standards in the 1980s, so do the IoT systems of today. It is too early to decide the winner, however each system has its’ pros and cons for each of your applications.

Here at the LX Group we can discuss and understand your requirements and goals – then help you navigate the various IoT options available to help solve your problems. We can tailor anything from a modified sensor to a complete Internet-enabled system for you. For more information or a confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.