All posts tagged: wifi

In order to continue maintaining wireless standards to meet contemporary and future needs – the Wi-Fi Alliance has announced Wi-Fi HaLow, the Alliance’s branding for their work developing and promoting wireless networking solutions based on the IEEE 802.11ah standard.

The IEEE 802.11ah standard is a new extension of the very popular and widespread IEEE 802.11-2007 wireless networking standard, providing a new physical layer and MAC layer specification for Wi-Fi networks that can operate in the sub-gigahertz bands at around 900 MHz.

Because of the different propagation characteristics of radio waves at this frequency, this change significantly extends the range of existing Wi-Fi networks that currently operate in the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands, and allows the radio to propagate through walls and obstructions much more effectively. This allows homes and buildings to be comprehensively covered with reliable Wi-Fi connectivity without using a large number of access points, with a probable need for only one access point per building for seamless, reliable coverage even in large buildings.

Having reliable wireless networking connectivity across a whole home or building with minimal infrastructure is particularly attractive for Internet-of-Things, home automation or building management applications, and these IoT applications are the main application area that 802.11ah networks are aimed at enabling. Wi-Fi HaLow opens up new use-cases for Wi-Fi, such as home automation, smart energy networks, wearables, consumer electronics, low-power sensors, and what the Wi-Fi Alliance refers to as the “Internet of Everything”.

IEEE 802.11ah has rebuilt and optimised the physical layer and the MAC layer from the ground up, although the higher network layers remain more consistent with existing versions of the 802.11 standards.

These changes provide extended range, strong improvements in power efficiency, more scalable operation, and an enhanced link budget compared to 2.4 GHz systems. At the same time, however, 802.11ah aims to leverage the established Wi-Fi and IP networking ecosystem where possible, for easy configuration, easy pairing to access points or mobile devices, and connectivity into existing networks and the Internet.

802.11ah supports 4, 8 or 16 MHz of bandwidth, allowing higher data rates depending on the allocated spectrum that is available in different regions, with the low-bandwidth 1 MHz and 2 MHz modes being mandatory and globally interoperable for all devices where this lower bandwidth is realistic. For example, 26 MHz is available in the 900 MHz band in the United States, making these higher-bandwidth modes accessible.

The standard aims to offer a minimum of 150 kbps of throughput with 1 MHz of bandwidth used, or as much as 40 Mbps with 8 MHz of bandwidth. This is obviously less than what we expect from traditional Wi-Fi networks, but the favourable combination of moderate bandwidth, moderately low power consumption and long-range propagation make 802.11ah an attractive competitor with other technologies such as IEEE 802.15.4/6LoWPAN in building automation and IoT applications.

These lower-bandwidth nodes are well suited to low-cost battery operated sensor devices in IoT applications, where a relatively low data rate is required. No power amplifier is required for “home scale” transmission distances, and the minimum data rate of 150 kbps means that IoT sensors transmitting short, lightweight messages can remain in a sleep state most of the time – and wake up for a short period to transmit a burst of sensor data, lowering average power consumption and offering maximum battery life.

Average power consumption in this type of application is also reduced by using more efficient protocols at the MAC layer, such as smaller frame formats, sensor traffic priority, and beaconless paging mode. The MAC is also optimised to scale to thousands of nodes by using efficient paging and scheduled transmissions.

As with existing 802.11 Wi-Fi devices, the work of the IEEE and the Wi-Fi alliance ensures that 802.11ah devices will be interoperable across all the different hardware vendors, with a strong open standardisation process that brings in participation from many industry representatives and stakeholders.

With its focus on embedded and IoT applications such as home automation, 802.11ah is not intended as a general-purpose high-speed wireless networking solution for the home or office. It is likely to deliver significantly reduced speeds compared to familiar 802.11 networks, with speeds in the low tens of megabits per second. This is perfectly sufficient for the typical kinds of intended applications with an IoT focus, however.

The 802.11ah standard is intended to be an attractive competitor to Bluetooth in IoT and consumer electronics applications, offering longer communications range than either Bluetooth or existing Wi-Fi, but with a significantly reduced power consumption compared to familiar 802.11 Wi-Fi solutions on the market at present.

As this technology becomes more available in the market, it’s likely that it will begin to supplant Bluetooth in certain consumer electronics applications, as well as supplanting other wireless standards such as existing Wi-Fi and 802.15.4 networks in the Internet-of-Things domain where relatively long-range communication with a large number of low-bandwidth devices is required.

Here at 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.

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 IoT embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

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

Atmel has recently expanded its SmartConnect wireless connectivity portfolio with the announcement of a series of new, turnkey 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi system-on-chips and modules which are aimed at enabling expanded possibilities in Internet-of-Things, home or building automation and smart energy management as well as smart, connected consumer electronics applications.

The Atmel SmartConnect Wi-Fi family is a range of self-contained, low-power and pre-certified system-on-chips and modules which bring 802.11 wireless LAN connectivity – and access to the Internet – to any embedded system.

These integrated modules offer a great solution for designers seeking to integrate Wi-Fi connectivity without any existing engineering experience with 802.11, real-time operating systems, IP stack concepts nor RF electronics.

Aimed at opening the emerging “Internet of Things”, Atmel’s SmartConnect Wi-Fi portfolio is ready to be integrated in a vast array of battery-powered devices and applications requiring the integration of WLAN connectivity without compromising on cost and power consumption.

Although an active 802.11 radio is more power hungry than some other RF connectivity standards such as Bluetooth Low Energy or 802.15.4/6LoWPAN – the familiarity and existing ubiquitous infrastructure built around the 802.11 wireless LAN standard makes it an attractive choice for many applications, avoiding the need for extra hubs, gateways or cables to be installed to get your devices connected to the Internet.

Atmel’s Wi-Fi system-on-chips are optimised for applications requiring energy efficiency, such as battery-powered devices, with a wide 1.8V to 3.6V supply voltage range, a deep-sleep-mode with less than 20 micro amps of current draw and an architecture that allows for instant switching of the radio on or off or into a sleep state without startup delays.

This allows for battery-powered devices such as portable nodes in wireless sensor networks to be connected to the Internet whilst still retaining extremely good energy efficiency, staying in a sleep state most of the time, waking up several times per day for a moment to collect sensor values and send this data to a server on the Internet before going back to sleep.

Atmel’s SMART SAMW23 Wi-Fi modules are based on Atmel’s low-power Wi-Fi System-on-Chip technology, incorporating WiFi along with an ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller core – a fully integrated single-source microcontroller-plus-Wi-Fi radio solution compatible with Atmel Studio 6 and capable of supporting network-connected battery-powered network nodes with a battery lifetime up to years, on a single chip.

This turnkey system provides an integrated software solution, which incorporates application and security protocols such as TLS, an integrated TCP/IP stack and other network services along with a standard real-time operating system.

To help you accelerate your development of these kinds of Wi-Fi connected embedded sensor networks and other Internet-of-Things applications, Atmel will be making the SAMW23 Wi-Fi system-on-chip available on one of Atmel’s standard Atmel Xplained evaluation boards which will be able to plug into any other Atmel Xplained Pro microcontroller evaluation board.

Getting started with coding is helped by the SmartConnect library provided by Atmel for use with their SmartConnect range of Wi-Fi hardware – a turnkey software framework that is available for you to use in Atmel Studio 6. It removes the need to understand the Wi-Fi stack, enabling designers to focus on the functionality and user experience of their product.

The Atmel ATWINC1500/ATWILC1000 SmartConnect system-on-chip is a family of IEEE802.11b/g/n network controller and link controller targeted at Internet-of-Things applications, providing valuable solutions for add-on WiFi connectivity in existing microcontroller solutions and product designs, bringing wireless LAN connectivity to your embedded device through a serial UART or SPI interface.

The WINC1500/WILC1000 chipsets connect to any Atmel AVR or SMART microcontroller with minimal resource requirements, and in their most advanced mode of operation these chips support single-stream 1×1 802.11n connectivity providing up to 72 Mbps PHY throughput.

Both devices feature a fully-integrated RF power amplifier, LNA, RF switch and power management system and provide internal Flash memory as well as multiple peripheral interfaces including UART, SPI and I2C.

For the serious enthusiast or less-technical developers, the Arduino team in collaboration with Atmel have recently announced the launch of the Arduino Wi-Fi Shield 101 – an Arduino shield based around the new Atmel ATWINC1500 802.11 network controller, which enables rapid prototyping of wireless, Internet-connected Internet-of-Things applications on the popular open-source Arduino development platform at a relatively low cost.

This cost-effective and secure new Arduino Wi-Fi shield is an easy-to-use extension that can seamlessly be connected to any Arduino board, enabling high-performance Wi-Fi connectivity, giving the Arduino design and developer community more opportunities to securely connect Internet-of-Things applications ranging from consumer appliances to wearable electronics, robotics, or countless other applications where wireless network connectivity is desirable.

And thanks to the open-source nature of the Arduino team’s projects, some leverage can be gained for your own products if using the same open-source licensing model. However the new Atmel wireless platform holds great promise for developers of IoT-enabled hardware. And that includes the engineering team here at the LX Group – who can bring your ideas to life.

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.

Next in our series examining emerging power-efficient wireless chipsets, we consider the CC3000 series from Texas Instruments. As you may already understand, 802.11 wireless LAN standards are an attractive technology for building networks of wireless sensors and embedded devices due to industry familiarity and the availability of nearly ubiquitous existing network infrastructure.

The Texas Instruments CC3000 is a self-contained 802.11b/g wireless network processor that lowers the cost and complexity of adding Internet connectivity to an embedded Internet-of-Things network, allowing wireless LAN to be added to just about any existing microcontroller system relatively easily and at very low cost.

The CC3000 integrates the IPv4 TCP/IP stack, all the drivers and the security supplicant in the device, making it easily portable to lightweight microcontrollers without the memory burden of implementing a TCP/IP stack in the host microcontroller – a big advantage where relatively low-power, low-cost platforms such as 8-bit AVR or PIC microcontrollers with minimal memory are used. Furthermore, this compact module measures only 16.5mm x 11.5mm.

As it doesn’t require an external crystal or antenna balun, and in fact requires almost no external components except for an SPI interface to the host microcontroller, a regulated 3.3 volt supply, a few decoupling capacitors and antenna matching components and a 2.4 GHz 50-ohm antenna – and with a low cost of around ten dollars, the CC3000 is easy to design for and can meet many budgetary requirements.

This low cost is a game changer compared to most other embedded 802.11 solutions on the market at present, and allows wireless LAN connectivity to be added to existing embedded designs with relatively low complexity, minimal space, and a low cost. The flexible 2.7-4.8V voltage supply specification of the CC3000 offers great flexibility when combined with battery power or energy harvesting solutions (although 802.11 is not really intended as an ultra-low-power high-efficiency networking standard for battery powered wireless sensor networks and Internet-of-Things networks in the same way that, say, 802.1.4 or Bluetooth Low Energy are).

However, this chip is not a module with a built-in antenna or RF connector and a 50-ohm 2.4 GHz antenna must be added externally, meaning that the designer must have a little familiarity with microwave PCB design, such as microstrip transmission line layout and the choice of the right antenna connector. However, this offers the designer complete flexibility to choose the most appropriate architecture for the size, range and gain requirements of the design – a larger external antenna, a compact chip antenna, or an antenna designed into the PCB layout and fabricated as part of the PCB, with no component assembly required and no bill-of-materials cost.

Whilst development and evaluation boards for the CC3000 are available, this is perhaps one minor downside of the device’s small, ultra-compact package and lack of an integrated RF antenna – the design and fabrication of a custom microwave-capable printed circuit board is almost certainly required to use this device, especially if you decide for whatever reason that the existing evaluation boards are not suitable for your application.

Furthermore, the CC3000 is a relatively new device on the market, meaning that it may not have as much community support, documentation, community open-hardware following and a base of experienced users when compared to other, older wireless LAN chipsets or devices.

CC3000 reference designs available from Texas Instruments demonstrate chip-antenna based reference implementations that are already FCC, IC and CE certified, making it relatively easy to develop an 802.11-connected system that can pass compliance testing for products going into markets where such compliance is needed – provided the reference design is used without modification, with a chip antenna.

Additionally, the CC3000 is provided as a complete platform solution, with resources such as sample applications, API guides, porting guides and other extensive documentation provided and supported by TI.

The CC3000 library provided by TI for their MSP430 microcontroller family has recently been ported to the open-source Arduino platform by the developer community, allowing even a bare-bones Arduino-compatible AVR development board to connect to a wireless LAN using only a handful of components and only consuming about 12k of Flash and 350 bytes of RAM to run the open-source CC3000 library code, meaning that the Arduino still has sufficient resources left over to do many other interesting things.

An extra lightweight version of the library consumes somewhere between 2k and 6k of Flash, meaning that basic Internet connectivity is possible even on very small microcontrollers with very limited resources, such as the Atmel ATtiny series.

If you’re interested in designing around the TI CC3000 chipset but don’t have the expertise in PCB antenna design, embedded networking hardware – or just need to have it taken care of by an team of experts – but you’re not sure how to progress with a reliable implementation, we can partner with you to take care of this either in revisions of existing products or as part of new designs.

With our experience in retail and commercial products we have the ability to target your product’s design to the required end-user market and all the steps required to make it happen.

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.

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.au

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

Next in our series examining emerging low-power wireless standards, we consider 6LoWPAN, which stands for “IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Network”. This is a set of networking standards and specifications which is designed to address the ideas that the Internet Protocol (IPv6 in particular) can be and should be applied to even the smallest embedded wireless Internet-of-Things connected devices right out to the “end branches” of the network; and that power-efficient embedded devices with limited processing power should be fully able to be a part of the Internet of Things, including the use of IPv6 network connectivity.

Whilst the Internet Protocol is the workhorse for the Internet and local-area networks, the IEEE 802.15.4 standard defines the networking of wireless mesh devices. Although the two different protocols are inherently different, the 6LoWPAN specification defines encapsulation and header compression mechanisms that allow IPv6 packets to be sent and received over IEEE 802.15.4 wireless networks, essentially allowing the two standards to operate together, efficiently bringing the Internet to small, power-efficient, cheap devices without the relatively high cost, complexity and power consumption required to implement IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN connectivity at every wireless network node.

For example, a typical embedded 802.11 Wi-Fi module may consume 250 mA while it is awake and actively transmitting, and it may well require a separate microcontroller to interface it to the sensors or other electronics required for a particular application. On the other hand, a system-on-chip incorporating a microcontroller combined with an 802.15.4/6LoWPAN-compatible radio transceiver may only consume 25 mA when it is awake and actively transmitting RF data – an order of magnitude less power consumption.

6LoWPAN is well suited to small, compact, relatively low-cost embedded Internet-of-Things appliances that require wireless connectivity to the LAN and to the Internet but can accept connectivity at a relatively low data rate. Examples may include embedded automation, building control systems and wireless sensor networks in home, office and industrial environments, as well as smart energy metering, measurement and control networks. Devices such as smart meters may collate their data via a 802.15.4/6LoWPAN mesh network before sending the data back to the billing system over the IPv6 backbone.

Whilst IP networks are typically designed to optimise speed whilst managing traffic issues such as network congestion, 802.15.4 systems are designed to give a higher priority to efficient low-power operation and optimisation of memory use, maximising their utility on small, cheap, memory-constrained microcontrollers.

There are some complexities involved in interfacing the two systems elegantly – for example, whilst IPv6 requires a maximum transmission unit of at least 1280 bytes, the 802.15.4 physical layer allows a maximum of 127 bytes per packet, including the payload. The management of addresses for devices that communicate across both the dissimilar domains of IPv6 and IEEE 802.15.4 is also cumbersome, as is the routing of packets between the IPv6 domain and the PAN domain.

Since IP-enabled devices may require the formation of ad-hoc networks particularly during initial setup and configuration, the current state of neighbouring devices and the services hosted by such devices will need to be known. This requires a mechanism for device discovery of the neighbouring devices present in the network.

All 802.15.4 networks connected to the Internet, using 6LoWPAN or otherwise, do require the hardware and software of a physical “bridge” or “gateway” at some point or points in the network, in order to connect the 802.15.4 wireless mesh network to an 802.11 wireless LAN or wired Ethernet. Multiple such nodes mitigate the possibility of single-point failure of network connectivity for the mesh network, at the price of increased network complexity and hardware cost.

IPv6 nodes are assigned 128-bit IP addresses in a hierarchical manner, through an arbitrary length network prefix. IEEE 802.15.4 devices may use either 64-bit extended addresses or 16-bit addresses that are unique within a PAN (a Personal Area Network, which is a group of physically colocated 802.15.4 nodes) as long as an association between a node and a particular PAN has occurred. A particular PAN can also be identified by giving it a PAN ID, allowing the devices of that PAN to easily be recognised – for example, a particular PAN may be associated with a particular building or a particular room.

IEEE 802.15.4 is specifically intended for compact, cheap devices with a relatively low power consumption, operating efficiently from power sources such as batteries. After all, for networks of numerous Internet-of-Things appliances to become ubiquitous, individual wireless hardware nodes need to be as compact, unobtrusive and as cheap as possible.

Making each hardware device as small as possible also allows for portability and greater flexibility in how the devices are used – in wearable computing, for example. However, devices that don’t need to be wireless can be kept in the IP domain of the network and wired in to copper Ethernet – and if portability isn’t required, this means more bandwidth is available to the device. In such a case, a wired mains power supply may also be used, meaning that a larger amount of power is available.

In applications where wireless networking is required but device cost and power efficiency does not need to be so tightly constrained, or where more network bandwidth is required, 802.11 wireless networking may be chosen instead of 6LoWPAN over 802.15.4, keeping the device in the IP domain.

As you can imagine the 6LoWPAN standard offers new levels of compatibility with upcoming infrastructure and is perfect for low-power applications. And if this meets your needs but you’re not sure how to progress with a reliable implementation, we can partner with you to take care of this either in revisions of existing products or as part of new designs. With our experience in retail and commercial products we have the ability to target your product’s design to the required end-user market and all the steps required to make it happen.

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.au

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

The fact that the Internet of Things shows a lot of promise both now and in the future is certain – and your customers, designers and the public will have an almost limitless amount of ideas with regards to new products and their implementation. However when the time comes to select the hardware to drive these innovations, choosing from one of the wireless chipsets can be a minefield – and more so when WiFi is involved.

802.11 wireless LAN is an attractive technology for building networks of wireless sensors and embedded devices due to its widespread use and the availability of nearly ubiquitous existing network infrastructure. Let’s take a look at a few existing chipsets on the market today that can be used to add wireless networking to existing embedded designs with relatively low complexity and cost.

First there’s the RN131 802.11b/g WiFi module by Roving Networks – a complete low-power embedded networking solution. It incorporates a 2.4 GHz radio, processor, TCP/IP stack, real-time clock, crypto accelerator, power management and analogue sensor interfaces into a single, relatively power-efficient module. In the most simple configuration, the hardware requires only 3.3V power, ground, and a pair of serial UART lines for connection to an existing microcontroller, allowing wireless networking to easily be added to an existing embedded system.

The module incorporates a U.FL connector for connection of an external antenna, without any microwave layout or design needed to use the module. This module has a current consumption of 40mA when awake and receiving, 200mA when actively transmitting, and 4µA when asleep, and the device can wake up, connect to a WiFi network, send data, and return to sleep mode in less than 100 milliseconds. This makes it possible to achieve a runtime on the order of years from a pair of standard AA batteries – an ideal solution for power-efficient, battery powered wireless sensor network and Internet-of-Things solutions.

Next there’s the Texas Instruments CC3000 Wireless Network Processor – which allows WiFi to be added to any existing microcontroller system relatively easily, and at a low cost. The CC3000 integrates an entire IPv4 TCP/IP stack, WiFi driver and security supplicant on the chip, making it easily portable to lightweight microcontrollers without the memory burden of implementing a TCP/IP stack in the host microcontroller where relatively low-power, low-cost microcontrollers such as 8-bit AVR or PIC devices are used. And this compact module measures only 16.3mm x 13.5mm.

CC3000 reference designs available from TI demonstrate chip-antenna based designs that are already FCC, IC and CE certified, which can make it easier to develop bespoke solutions that can pass compliance testing for products going into markets where such compliance is needed. The CC3000 requires no external crystal or antenna balun, and in fact requires almost no external components at all except for an SPI interface to the host microcontroller and an antenna – and the device costs less than $10.

The flexible 2.7-4.8V power supply requirement offers great flexibility when combined with battery power or energy harvesting solutions. However, this chip is not a PCB-based module, meaning that a 50 ohm 2.4 GHz antenna must be added externally – so the designer must have a little familiarity with microwave design, such as microstrip transmission line layout and the choice of the right antenna connector. However, this offers the designer complete flexibility to choose the most appropriate antenna type for the size, range and gain requirements of the design – a larger external antenna, a compact chip antenna, or a microstrip antenna fabricated on the PCB with no bill-of-materials cost.

Our final subject is the Redpine Signals’ Connect-IO-n series of modules which allow 802.11 wireless LAN connectivity to be added relatively easily to an embedded microcontroller system. In collaboration with Atmel these modules have been optimised for use with Atmel microcontrollers, particularly the Atmel AVR XMEGA and AVR UC3 series microcontrollers.

Some modules in this family provide 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, whilst all modules provide the TCP/IP stack on board and are FCC certified, making RF compliance certification of your entire design easier. These modules are aimed at providing the ability to add 802.11 wireless connectivity to 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers with low integration effort and low memory footprint required in the host microcontroller to support the WiFi device, especially where 802.11n support is desired.

Like the other chipsets we’ve discussed, the modules in this series can be interfaced to the host microcontroller over a UART or SPI interface, and similarly to their competitors, a standby current consumption of only a few microamps potentially allows for years of battery life with no external energy source as long as the radio is only briefly enabled when it is needed.

The RedPine RS9110-N-11-28 module from the Connect-IO-n family in particular is relatively unusual in that it provides dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity for your embedded device – supporting connection to any WiFi device or network and potentially avoiding congestion in the 2.4 GHz band as used with 802.11b/g devices.

Whilst 802.11n offers a significant increase in the maximum net data rate from the 54 MBit/s of 802.11b/g to 600 Mbit/s, do you really need 600 Mbit/s of data to your wireless sensor network or embedded appliance? I doubt it. However, one case where you might want an 802.11n radio supporting operation in the 5 GHz spectrum for your wireless sensor network device is if your wireless LAN infrastructure is a pure 5 GHz 802.11n network – whilst this breaks compatibility with legacy devices, it delivers maximum network performance.

As you can see the possibilities for low-power connected devices are plentiful and the hardware is available on the open market. It’s then up to your team to turn great ideas into great products. Furthermore modifying existing products to become connected is also a possibility. However if wireless or Internet-connectivity is new to your team – and you’re in a hurry, have a reduced R&D budget, need guidance or want to outsource the entire project – it can be done with the right technology partner.

Here at the LX Group we have the experience and team to make things happen. With our experience with connected devices, embedded and wireless hardware/software design, and ability to transfer ideas from the whiteboard to the white box – we can partner with you for your success.

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.au

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

Wearable computing – the use of personal computers, displays and sensors worn on one’s person – gives us the potential for advancement in human-computer interaction compared to traditional personal computing – for example the ability to have constant access and interaction with a computer – and the Internet, whilst going about our daily activities.

This could be considered the ultimate in multitasking – the use of your computing device at any time without interrupting your other activities. For example, the ability to read an email or retrieve required information while walking or working on other tasks. Wearable computing potentially offers much greater consistency in human-computer interaction – constant access to the computer, constant connectivity, without a computing device being used in an on-and-off fashion in between other activities.

Once contemporary example of this is the new Google Glass, which represents an advanced, sleek, beautifully designed head-mounted wearable computer with a display suitable for augmented-reality applications – or just as an “ordinary” personal head-mounted display. Even before its public release, the frenzy surrounding Google Glass amongst technology enthusiasts demonstrates the potential level of market demand for wearable computers.

However, with a price of at least US$1500 price tag of Google Glass, (at least for its “Explorer Edition” beta version) this leads many to consider what potential might exist for the deployment of wearable computing and wearable sensor-network technologies – however at a lower cost.

One example is the category known as “Smart Watches” such as the Sony SmartWatch and Pebble Technology’s “Pebble” e-Paper watch – which both offer constant, on-the-go access to information from the Internet – and thus become a member of the Internet of Things – at a glance of the wrist. Text messages and email notifications are amongst the most simple, common examples of data that can be pushed to a smart watch, but the display of information from a multitude of other Internet-connected data streams is possible.

With the growing popularity and increasing hardware capabilities of smart phones, it is increasingly taken for granted that a smart phone carried on one’s person can act as a gateway between the Internet (connected via the cellular networks) and other smaller, lower-power wearable computer or sensor devices worn on the body and connected back to the smartphone via standard data links such as WiFi or Bluetooth. In using the smart phone as an Internet connection, the size, price and weight of the wearable device can be significantly reduced – which also leads to a considerable reduction in cost.

Furthermore, apart from providing mobile Internet connectivity, the smart phone can also provide a large display and an amount of storage capacity – which can be harnessed for the logging, visualisation and display of data collected from a network-connected sensor node wearable on one’s body, or a whole network of such sensor nodes distributed around different personal electronic devices carried on the person and different types of physical sensors around the body.

The increasing penetration of smart phones in the market and the increasing availability and decreasing cost of wireless radio-networked microcontroller system-on-chips, MEMS
sensors and energy efficient short-range wireless connectivity technologies such as Bluetooth 4.0 are among some of the factors responsible for increasing the capabilities of,
and decreasing the cost of, wearable computing and wearable Internet-of-Things and sensor platforms.

Speed and position loggers, GPS data loggers and smart pedometers intended for logging and monitoring athletic performance, such as the Internet-connected, GPS-enabled,
Nike+ system; along with biomedical instrumentation and sensor devices such as Polar’s Bluetooth-connected heart rate sensors are other prominent examples of wearable Internet-of-Things devices which are attracting increasing consumer interest on the market today.

Combined with display devices such as smart watches, smart phones and head-mounted displays such as Google Glass. these kinds of wearable sensors create a complete wearable machine-to-machine Internet-of-Things network that can be self-contained on one’s person. Which leads us to the next level of possibilities – what do your customers want a device to do? And how can it be accomplished? And do you have the resources or expertise to design, test and bring such a system to the market?

It isn’t easy – there’s a lot of technology to work with – however it can be done with the right technology parter. Here at the LX Group we have the experience and team to make things happen. With our experience with sensors, embedded and wireless hardware/software design, and ability to transfer ideas from the whiteboard to the white box – we can partner with you for your success.

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.au

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.

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.au

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