All posts tagged: wireless

Let’s take a brief overview of the web applications and cloud platform available from Exosite – a provider of Internet-of-things cloud services that help you collect, store, visualise and interact with data from your networked devices in the cloud. Exosite provides a cloud platform that can be connected to your Internet-connected sensors and other devices.

Once your device is connected, data is flowing into the cloud and you can set up logical rules to process and act on that data, log timestamped historical data or use Exosite’s built-in scripting language to process and interact with that data. Time-series information can be used to visualise, command or control devices, either in real time or in response to trends over time.

Their platform makes it easy for product developers to create cloud-capable connected products with a range of microcontrollers and RF solutions from different hardware vendors. Exosite’s “One Platform” and “Portal” families of cloud Platform-as-a-Service and web applications provide value to developers and device OEMs, helping to minimise risk and time to market for developers of Internet-of-Things connected products. Exosite can help you to quickly prototype and deploy systems to meet your needs for cloud-based remote access to devices and their data.

Exosite’s data platform is a hosted-served system that removes barriers to market entry and empowers companies to quickly prototype and deploy their own Internet-of-Things solutions using Exosite’s web service APIs. The system is designed with product developers in mind, meaning that it has a built-in framework that eliminates the complexity of infrastructure and simplifies IoT development. Exosite’s “One Platform” makes it easy for product developers to create cloud-capable products.

Furthermore the Exosite developer site provides a wealth of convenient user guides, API documentation, application notes and support information, as well as example source code and reference projects covering a range of different programming languages and architectures. There are libraries for interaction with the Exosite API in a range of different programming languages, allowing you to work with the languages that best suit your needs.

Working and maintaining the software is simplified as Exosite supports over-the-air firmware and software updates from their cloud service, if supported in the particular hardware used. This allows for remote wireless management of your devices, allowing firmware updates, feature enhancements, and other maintenance rolled out without the need for physical on-site service of hardware devices offers great value and convenience, improving user experience and reducing support costs for networks of Internet-of-Things connected devices.

With Exosite you can build pre-configured settings in the cloud for your families of devices, enabling newly manufactured devices to know exactly what version of software to install – right from the cloud, without any local intervention – as soon as they come online on the Internet.

As well as automatic provisioning, Exosite’s built-in device management tools make it easy to manage software installations and updates. When it comes time to update your devices in the field, you can simply upload your new content, select the device model type you would like to update, and hit deploy. Your new firmware is then deployed automatically, from the cloud, to every one of your connected devices of that type out there in the world. If those devices are not always connected to the Internet, they will automatically update themselves with the new software the next time they connect to the Internet.

Gathering data from an Exosite system isn’t difficult at all, and it allows you to aggregate and monitor data from your network of devices in the cloud in real time – as well as run powerful scripts to combine multiple lower-level inputs and build custom dashboards to report on defined metrics in an easily interpretable, visible way.

Exosite is easy to integrate with other systems, allowing you to easily push data out of its cloud platform into existing, external services. Since Exosite is based around cloud infrastructure, you can scale your application without having to worry about infrastructure or server administration.

You can build your own web app, or customise Exosite’s own app. You can get started with an Exosite developer account for free and use their simple but powerful set of APIs to start interacting with your devices in real time over the Internet. When you’re ready to scale up with your commercial solution, you can easily move up to a paid account, giving you an OEM-ready “white label” platform with the features and capabilities needed to build a business around your connected Internet-of-Things application.

For a better end-user experience designers can easily customise the website theme, control the user experience, configure device options and set up pricing plans for your customers, but you can grow at your own pace without worrying about the scalability of the underlying server infrastructure.

Exosite supports a range of open source and proprietary hardware development kits and platforms, reducing the time required to develop and build Internet-of-Things connected hardware solutions. For example, Exosite provides libraries for use with Ethernet-enabled Arduino and Arduino-compatible development boards, as well as support for development kits and development boards with network and Internet connectivity from hardware vendors such as Microchip and Texas Instruments.

Combining these hardware development tools with Exosite’s cloud platform allows you to get online with cloud-connected hardware quickly, getting your sensor data online and getting physical devices interacting with the cloud. Exosite makes it easy to connect, manage, and share your sensor or device data online.

Testing or getting started with Exosite is simple, as the free developer account has everything you need to start interacting with your devices in real time over the Internet. You get a web dashboard account, full access to the API, a cloud scripting environment, and the ability to upgrade features a-la-carte.

This account is aimed at allowing you to build your own Internet-of-Things environment on a one-off basis. If you find value in it and want to deploy it as a business solution for a wider audience then you can easily upgrade to a paid “white label” account in order to do so. Finally the developer account includes two devices and one user, while a paid account gives you support for many more devices, many more users, SMS messaging capability from the cloud and more.

It’s no secret that the Internet-of-things not only holds a lot of promise for connected devices and the possible products you can profit with – however getting started can seem like a maze with literally scores of options, platforms and hardware types.

To make your start in the IoT as smooth and cost-effective as possible, partner with the LX Group. We have experience in all stages of IoT product development – along with every other stage of design to manufacturing. To get started, join us 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.

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

Should your next product or design be an Internet-of-Things product? That is, should every embedded design always feature Internet connectivity, or machine-to-machine communications, where the possibility exists? There are lots of different perspectives on this question, several advantages and disadvantages and pros and cons that need to be weighed up.

Although Internet-of-Things connectivity is very popular and hyped at the moment, it isn’t always going to be a worthwhile fit that provides valuable advantages for all devices in all situations.

Internet connectivity provides advantages – data collection and logging with the data stored in the cloud, accessible via the Internet from any device anywhere in the world, or the possibility of convenient remote access and control of devices via the Internet, for example, but this type of Internet connectivity brings with it concerns over security, safety and privacy.

There is a very slight potential that devices connected to the Internet can be accessed by unauthorised persons, if and only if exploitable security vulnerabilities exist. This is a serious concern for Internet services that control real, physical hardware that is potentially dangerous if misused, or for hardware that controls security-critical systems such as building access-control systems for example.

Control of security-critical real-world hardware, and the secure and confidential management of personal information (data collected from health and medical data-logging instruments such as RF heart rate sensors, for example, or information from a home automation system that indicates the typical hours that people are at home and are not at home) needs to be taken into account when deciding to have embedded automation systems exposed to the Internet.

Product designers need to consider whether the benefits of Internet connectivity are worth the risks. Consumers expect that such data will be collected and handled with some degree of privacy and security, and the convenience of Internet-based data collation and access to data will only be accepted by the market if it doesn’t also come with unacceptable privacy concerns.

If your design incorporates Internet connectivity, does this connectivity contribute to a positive, easy user experience or does it potentially make the user experience more difficult? If your product or design requires the consumer to have an existing Wi-Fi or Ethernet network to provide Internet connectivity, for example, is this inconvenient for some consumers?

Even though most consumers already have Wi-Fi networks, is the product still worthwhile for consumers that don’t? What about if the Internet connection to the LAN, or a mobile or cellular Internet connection if that’s what you’re using, fails? Can your design still function usefully in an environment without Internet connectivity, or is it completely useless?

Can the device work in a transparent, convenient way for the end user in an environment where the Internet connectivity is unreliable and may be off-line sometimes? For example, can data be temporarily buffered in local memory while the device is off-line, and then transmitted to the Internet service later, reconnecting transparently without user intervention?

Adding Internet-of-Things connectivity to a design can introduce hardware complexity, and extra cost for your device. It can mean other increased costs such as server and hosting costs, the costs of wireless LAN or other network infrastructure, the cost of cellular network access if cellular modems are used, and potentially the significant costs associated with RF regulatory compliance, testing and approval for consumer products which are intentional RF radiators. Such regulatory requirements may be simplified or eliminated if the RF connectivity component of your design is eliminated.

Are these costs worth it for the benefits? Or are you simply over-engineering, and adding “Internet of Things” connectivity because it’s in vogue and it’s a trendy buzzword? Do these features provide value for money in the context of your particular product, or are they simply features for features’ sake?

Overcomplicated, over-engineered systems that try and pack too many features into a single design can potentially suffer from disadvantages such as increased hardware cost and size, decreased market uptake due to relatively high cost, relatively high power consumption, more difficult and complicated user interfaces, and greater challenges in trying to assure the reliability, security, low maintenance and support costs of your design.

Furthermore a larger, more complicated system inevitably has more points of potential hardware (or software) failure, more work to be done in debugging and quality assurance, and more potential points of security vulnerability.

All this may sound like the Internet-of-things is a negative point of difference for existing and potential products – however this couldn’t be further from the truth. You already know that connected devices are the way of the future. The key to success in manufacturing, information security and customer satisfaction lies in the right design and working with a team who understand the IoT and how it can be put to work for your benefit.

Here at the LX Group we have experience embedded hardware design for the IoT, including security, regulatory standards and compliance testing, working within standards and design for manufacture. To get started, join us 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.

One of the major hurdles of developing portable (and connected) devices is finding the balance between power consumption and battery storage that allows for a genuinely useful device and experience. Generally most components can be optimised through good design and wise choices, however the main microcontroller or CPU can be a sticking point – until now.

Intel have taken this problem to heart and as a solution, recently announced their “Quark” family of system-on-chip cores. They’re a family of low-power 32-bit CPU cores designed to compete with ARM’s Cortex-M series in modern Internet-of-Things and wearable embedded computing applications.

Quark is a very low-power and compact x86-compatible core designed to be even smaller and lower in power consumption than Intel’s low-power Atom CPU cores, which are targeted at tablets, low-power netbooks and smartphones.

Notably, Quark is the first Intel core that is fully synthesizable and designed for potential integration with third-party IP blocks. This means that a customer could use the Quark core, license it from Intel, and hook it to peripherals on a custom system-on-chip, like for example custom graphics, I/O, storage, 802.11 or 3G networking.

It is claimed that Quark will be one-fifth of the size of the Atom core, and have one-tenth of the power consumption. At this level, Quark is much more powerful – and power hungry – than a lightweight 8-bit microcontroller, but it is also not a competitor to the more powerful ARM Cortex-A family either. It aims to compete with the popular Cortex-M family of 32-bit microcontroller cores from synthesizable microcontroller IP leader ARM.

The Quark core is a single-core, single-thread, low-power, small-footprint CPU core, and it is targeted at “Internet-of-Things” applications, wearable computing devices such as “smart watches”, and low-cost disposable medical devices as well as industrial and building automation control systems.

At this years’s Intel Developers Forum, a prototype “smartwatch” based on Quark technology was displayed as a proof of concept, along with a wearable instrumented patch for medical datalogging. Quark has been demonstrated in a prototype Internet-of-Things enabled HVAC automation application by HVAC leader Daikin. Daikin’s prototype system has WiFi and 3G support, and allows for secure remote control and monitoring.

The Quark product line is designed to slot in below the existing Atom family in terms of cost and power consumption, compatible with the Pentium instruction set architecture but aimed at markets where small form factor and low power consumption take priority, with a power consumption target that is apparently less than 100 milliwatts in some cases.

This power efficiency makes Quark attractive in wearable computing applications such as “smart watches” and Google Glass style wearable displays where battery capacity is very limited due to size constraints. Some bracelet-like wearable devices have been shown at this year’s Intel Developers Forum as a proof-of-concept of a wearable system powered by Quark technology.

Being smaller, lower power, and less powerful than Atom, Intel will be targeting the Quark product line at the Internet-of-Things market in applications where more power than a traditional embedded microcontroller is desirable or required, but less power consumption than an ordinary PC or notebook is desirable.

Quark is synthesizable, which means that customers can add their own IP around the core. ARM, for example, lets companies license its CPU cores and then add their own co-processors or other components to create chips optimised for a wide variety of projects and industries. How this would work in the case of Quark is not exactly clear however, since Intel plans to keep manufacturing of Quark silicon entirely in-house, at least initially.

This is a new move for Intel, but the company intends to retain control over their entire chip fabrication process in-house, bringing in existing customer IP for integration with Quark and in-house fab, although it is possible at least in principle that other foundries could fabricate Quark-based systems for licensees of the IP.

Intel’s decision with Quark means leveraging its own IP in a way that lets it offer customisable hardware to potential customers, without giving up control of either its processor IP or its own fab capabilities. Designers will not be allowed to customise the Quark core, they can only connect third-party IP blocks to its fabric.

Quark’s partially-open fabric appears to be somewhat derivative of ARM’s long-standing and successful policy of licensing its Cortex IP to other chip makers in a synthesizable form. ARM Cortex M3 and M4 cores have been rapidly stealing market share away from other microcontroller platforms in recent years – since the 32-bit architecture offers significant performance gains over 8-bit platforms such as PIC or AVR.

Furthermore their Cortex-M3 is finding its way into smartwatches such as the Sony SmartWatch 2 and the Qualcomm Toq as well as wireless sensor network system-on-chips such as TI’s CC2538 802.15.4/ZigBee/6LoWPAN platform. However as the Quark matures we’re sure it will be a successful player in the portable device and IoT arena.

Technologies such as Intel’s Quark are an example of how technology is constantly improving, and with the right knowledge it can be used to your advantage. However there are also many existing power-saving chipsets on the market your team may not be aware of, or unsure about taking on a new development platform.

But don’t let that get in the way of improving your existing or new designs – if you’re not sure about your options, discuss them with a team that understands the latest technologies, platforms and how to integrate them for your advantage – the team at the LX Group.

Getting started is simple – 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.

The wireless lighting control market has seen a shift in recent years away from bespoke or proprietary lighting solutions, as efficient and low cost solutions have been introduced to the general market based around standards that you may already by familiar with – such as ZigBee – which provide opportunities for greater system standardisation and interoperability.

Whilst consumers increasingly recognise the value of the convenience, flexibility, and comfort that wireless, embedded “Internet-of-Things” devices bring to the home or office, a barrier to widespread adoption of these kinds of home automation systems in the past has been that traditionally, most product manufacturers have not provided a system that allows interoperability among different lighting and home automation vendors.

ZigBee Light Link was created to save time, money and installation labour by standardising simple, easy to install networks of intelligent lighting as well as control devices such as light switches, occupancy sensors, daylight sensors and Wi-Fi connected network gateways which allow the ZigBee Light Link network to be controlled by the consumer from a PC, tablet or smartphone.

As one of many ZigBee application profiles, ZigBee Light Link is a ZigBee application profile aimed at intelligent, wireless control of household lighting. It provides the lighting industry with a global standard for interoperable “smart” consumer lighting and control products that are easy to use, and it allows consumers to achieve wireless control over all their LED fixtures, light bulbs, timers, remotes and switches from their smartphone, PC or tablet. Products using the ZigBee Light Link standard allow consumers to configure their lighting remotely to reflect ambience, task or season, whilst at the same time improving energy efficiency.

The ZigBee Light Link 1.0 application profile is currently published, whilst the ZigBee Light Link 1.1 application profile specification is presently under development. Leading home lighting solution manufacturers who have contributed to the development of the ZigBee Light Link standard include GE, Greenwave, OSRAM Sylvania and Philips.

Products employing the ZigBee Light Link standard, and earning the ZigBee Certified seal, are known to the consumer to be interoperable and as easy to use as a common dimmer switch. Adding or removing devices from the lighting network is quick and easy, making it easy and intuitive for consumers to use every day. Since ZigBee Light Link is a ZigBee standard, ZigBee Light Link-based smart lighting solutions will interoperate effortlessly with consumers’ other devices employing ZigBee standards such as ZigBee Home Automation, ZigBee Input Device and ZigBee Remote Control.

A ZigBee Light Link network is a secure mesh network which allows communication to be safely relayed by multiple individual network nodes, i.e. control devices and lamps. A single light or group of lights can have the user’s favourite lighting state stored in memory and recalled immediately – even for a whole house worth of lights, at the press of a button.

Additional nodes can easily be added to or removed from the network without affecting system functionality or integrity. Adding or removing lamps is very easy and robust. Contrary to other networking solutions, it does not matter which lamp is installed first, or whether other lamps in the network are switched on or off. With ZigBee Light Link, adding a new lamp at a remote location is as easy as adding a new lamp within RF range.

Smartphones, tablets and PCs can control lighting products based on ZigBee Light Link via a ZigBee network gateway connected to ethernet or a Wi-Fi network. Such a connection also allows the ZigBee Light Link network to be controlled via the Internet, via web applications or mobile smartphone apps, for example.

Devices such as ZigBee-networked wireless wall switches and remote controls may also be used to control the lighting network. Functionality such as automatic timer control, “alarm clock” use, or “vacation mode” security use can also be defined in software and configured by the user with a simple software interface on the PC or mobile device.

The ZigBee Light Link profile can be used with ZigBee transceivers and ZigBee-ready system-on-chip microcontrollers from several semiconductor manufacturers – for example, the CC2531 or CC2538 IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee System-on-Chip solutions from Texas Instruments.

Texas Instruments offers the Z-Stack Lighting Software for the CC2530 ZigBee-enabled RF system-on-chip, which is an implementation of ZigBee Light Link and comes with a sample demonstration program for both a wireless “smart light” and “smart switch”, allowing engineers to easily get started in the development of an easy to use lighting control solution based around ZigBee Light Link.

The Z-Stack Lighting development kit from Texas Instruments consists of two “Z-Light” reference design RGB LED lamps based around the CC2531 chip programmed as ZigBee Light Link Colour Lights and a CC2531-based USB gateway dongle programmed as a ZigBee Light Link Colour Scene Remote, which can be operated independently as a remote control with on-board buttons or used as a gateway to interface the lighting network to PC software, for software-based advanced control and functionality.

This development kit contains everything needed to set up a basic ZigBee Light Link network and control the lamps either individually or in groups using either buttons on the controller node or software on the PC. TI’s website contains tools and application examples for free download that can be used to experiment with more advanced features of the ZigBee Light Link lighting control protocol and to develop demonstrators for direct wireless control or control from cloud-based or web services. Schematics and documentation for these hardware reference designs are also fully provided for free download from TI.

Thus the information and hardware is available for you to integrate products into this new standard of wireless lighting control, and if this technology interests your organisation but don’t have the expertise in – or just need to have it taken care of by a team of experts – and 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.

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.

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 examine the ANT technology. It’s a wireless sensor network technology that defines a protocol stack for use with small, embedded system-on-chip radios operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. ANT provides power-efficient operation for battery-powered wireless devices, low overhead in the communications link, interference tolerance and worldwide ISM spectrum compatibility.

Similar in some respects to Bluetooth Low Energy and IEEE 802.15.4, ANT is aimed at applications in wireless connected, networked devices for health, sports, home automation and industrial control applications.

Whilst ANT has some similarities to Bluetooth Low Energy and IEEE 802.15.4, there are some differences. For example, the ANT physical layer supports an on-the-air data rate of up to 1 MBit/s, compared to 250 kbit/s for IEEE 802.15.4 operating at 2.4 GHz.

This means that an ANT system needs to stay on the air for a shorter amount of time to transmit a given amount of data as compared to an 802.15.4 system. Another noteworthy difference is that the ANT protocol is proprietary – whilst ANT transceiver chips are available from some manufacturers such as Nordic Semiconductor and Texas Instruments, these ANT-protocol transceivers are basically “black boxes” of proprietary hardware and firmware which are interfaced to an external user application processor over a UART, SPI or USB interface.

Similar to IEEE 802.15.4 and Bluetooth Low Energy systems, ANT systems can be configured to spend long periods in a low-power “sleep” mode with a current consumption on the order of microamps, wake up briefly to communicate, with a peak current consumption on the order of 10 milliamps during active transmission, and then return to sleep mode. At low message rates the average current consumption can be less than 60 microamps on some typical devices.

ANT-based wireless sensor network nodes are capable of acting as either masters or slaves within the network, that is, acting as transmitters, receivers or transceivers as required to route data where it needs to go within the network whilst also minimising the power consumption of each node. For example, the RF transmitter of a given node is powered down if that particular node only needs to receive at given time. Every node is capable of determining when to transmit based on the activity of its neighbours.

Due to the low power requirement the ANT system has been relatively widely adopted in the athletics and sports sector, particularly for fitness and performance monitoring. ANT transceivers are embedded in equipment such as heart rate monitors, speed and cadence sensors for athletics, blood pressure and blood glucose monitors, pulse oximeters and temperature sensors. Examples of existing commercial product lines employing ANT technology include Nike’s performance monitoring products as well as the Garmin Edge range of cycling computers.

Furthermore, ANT+ is an extension of the ANT protocol which adds interoperability between devices – allowing for the standardised networking of different ANT devices to facilitate the collection and interpretation of sensor data from multiple sources. For example, ANT+ enabled fitness devices such as heart rate monitors and pedometers can have all their data collated together and assembled into performance metrics, allowing a more holistic view of the user’s fitness and performance based on multiple data types.

Three types of message transmission can be accommodated by the ANT protocol – broadcast, acknowledged and burst. Broadcast messaging is one-way message communication from one node to another, where the receiving node transmits no acknowledgement. This type of message is suited to sensor-network applications and is the most power-efficient mode of operation.

Acknowledgement of each received data packet can also be transmitted by the receiving node, in acknowledged message mode, although there are no retransmissions. This mode of operation is well suited to control and automation applications where accidental transmission of a duplicate control or actuation message should be avoided. Burst messaging mode may also be employed, where multiple messages are transmitted using the full data bandwidth.

The receiving node acknowledges receipt of each packet, which is sequence numbered for traceability, and informs the transmitting node of any corrupted packets which are then retransmitted. This mode is suited to data transfer where the overall integrity of the data needs to be maintained.

ANT employs a mechanism to ensure RF coexistence in the relatively congested 2.4 GHz ISM spectrum that is different from from the spread spectrum mechanisms employed by 802.11, 802.15.4 and Bluetooth networks. This time-based multiplexing scheme provides the ability for each transmission to occur in an interference-free time slot within the defined band. The radio transmits for less than 150 microseconds for each message, allowing a single channel to be subdivided into hundreds of time slots.

This is an adaptive, isochronous scheme, meaning that it doesn’t require a master clock synchronising every device. Each device starts broadcasting at regular intervals, but then modifies its transmission timing if another device is transmitting in that particular time division. This allows ANT to adapt to a congested RF environment whilst also ensuring that there is no overhead when interference is not present, minimising power consumption whist maintaining a high level of network integrity.

In a very congested RF environment, if this time-division scheme is not sufficient, ANT does have the capability for frequency agility, allowing a frequency hop to an alternative 1 MHz wide channel and then going back to time-sharing coexistence. This frequency-hopping is controlled by the application processor that controls the ANT chip.

Although a broad overview, the ANT system can be thought of as a useful and reliable method of data communication between devices with limited power supply and used in areas of high RF congestion – especially idea for consumer devices. 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.

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 Bluetooth wireless data protocol has been in use for over ten years, and in recent time the new low energy standard has been introduced. This gives designers another option for wireless connectivity between devices with an extremely low power consumption. In the following we examine what it is, the benefits and implementation examples.

Bluetooth LE (for “low energy”) is aimed at novel applications of short-range wireless communication in connected Internet-of-Things devices for medical, fitness, sports, security and home entertainment applications, and was merged into the main Bluetooth specification as part of the Bluetooth Core Specification v4.0 in 2010.

Also known as “Bluetooth Smart”, it enables new applications of Bluetooth networking in small, power-efficient Internet-of-Things devices that can operate for months or even years on tiny coin cell batteries or other small-scale energy sources. Bluetooth LE devices offer ultra-low power consumption, particularly in idle or sleep modes, multi-vendor interoperability and low cost, whilst maintaining radio link range that is sufficiently long enough for the intended applications.

The Bluetooth LE protocol is not backwards-compatible with the “classic” Bluetooth – however, the Bluetooth 4.0 specification does allow for dual-mode Bluetooth implementations – where the device can communicate using both classic Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE. Whilst Bluetooth Low Energy uses a simpler modulation system than classic Bluetooth, it employs the same 2.4 GHz ISM band, allowing dual-mode devices to share a common antenna and RF electronics for both Classic and Bluetooth LE communication.

Small, power-efficient devices like wearable athletic and medical sensors are typically based on a single-mode Bluetooth LE system in order to minimise power consumption, size and cost. In devices like notebooks and smart phones, though, dual-mode Bluetooth is typically implemented, allowing communication with both Bluetooth LE and classic Bluetooth devices. When operated in Bluetooth LE mode, the Bluetooth LE stack is used whilst the RF hardware and antenna is usually the same set of hardware as used for classic Bluetooth operation.

Devices using Bluetooth LE typically have a power consumption, for Bluetooth communication, which is a fraction of that of classic Bluetooth devices. In many cases, devices can operate for a year or more on a single coin cell. This potentially makes Bluetooth LE very attractive for Internet-of-Things networks, telemetry and data logging from environmental sensor networks, for example.

Since many modern consumer devices such as mobile phones and notebooks have built-in Bluetooth LE support, data can be delivered directly to the user’s fingertips from the Bluetooth sensor network with no need for an intermediary gateway or router as would be required for an Internet-of-Things network employing other technologies such as 802.15.4 ZigBee. This direct interoperability with a large installed base of smart phones, tablets and notebooks could potentially be a very significant attraction of Bluetooth LE networks in wireless sensor network and Internet-of-Things applications.

An active Bluetooth radio has a peak current consumption on the order of about 10 milliamps, reduced to about 10 nanoamps (ideally) in sleep mode. In a Bluetooth LE system, the objective is to operate the radio with a very low duty cycle on the order of about 0.1-0.5%, resulting in average current consumption on the order of 10 microamps. At an average current consumption of 20 microamps, such a system could be operated off a typical CR2032 lithium coin cell (with a charge capacity of 230 milliamp-hours) for 1.3 years without battery replacement.

The lower power consumption of Bluetooth LE is not achieved by the nature of the radio transceiver itself (since the same RF hardware is typically used, in dual-mode Bluetooth devices), but by the design of the Bluetooth LE stack to allow low duty cycles for the radio and optimisation for transmission in small bursts – a Bluetooth LE device used for continuous data transfer would not have a lower power consumption than a classic Bluetooth device transmitting the same amount of data.

The Bluetooth specifications define many different profiles for Bluetooth LE devices – specifications for how a device works in particular families of applications. Manufacturers are expected to implement the appropriate profiles for their device in order to ensure compatibility between different devices from different vendors. A particular device may implement more than one profile – for example one device may contain both a heart rate monitor and a temperature sensor. Here is a non-exhaustive list of a few different Bluetooth LE profiles in use:

Health Thermometer Profile, for medical temperature measurement devices.
Glucose Monitor Profile, for medical blood glucose measurement and logging.
Proximity Profile, which allows one device to detect whether another device is within proximity, using RF signal strength to provide a rough range estimate. This is intended for security applications as an “electronic leash”, allowing the detection of devices being moved outside a controlled area.
Running Speed and Cadence profile, for monitoring and logging athletic performance.
Heart Rate Profile, for heart-rate measurement in medical and athletic applications.
Phone Alert Status Profile, which allows a client device to receive notifications (such as an incoming call or email message) from a smart phone. As an example, this is employed in the Pebble smart watch.

The Bluetooth LE shows a lot of promise, and with a minimal chip set cost gives the designer another cost-effective wireless protocol. 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.

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.

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 addition to the Internet-of-Things marketplace in more detail – the system known as “ThingSpeak”. Considered to be one of the first openly-available IoT platforms, ThingSpeak operates on their own free server platform, or you can run the software on your own personal servers – and as the entire system is open-source, it’s easier to work with and customise.

As with the other systems examined, ThingSpeak gives your devices the opportunity to interact with a server for simple tasks such as data collection and analysis, to integration with your own custom APIs for specific purposes. Due to the open-source nature the start-up cost can be almost zero, and unlike other systems ThingSpeak is hardware agnostic – giving your design team many hardware options. However as always, let’s consider the main two components in more detail.

Hardware – You don’t need to purchase special base units or proprietary devices. As long as your hardware is connected to the Internet and can send and receive HTTP requests – you’re ready to go. For rapid prototyping, examples are given using many platforms including netduino, Arduino, mbed, and even with the competitive Twine hardware. This gives you a variety of MCU platforms from Atmel and ARM Cortex providers to work with, and as these development platforms are either open-source or inexpensive, your team can be up and running in a short period of time.

Furthermore creating your own devices can be quite inexpensive – a simple device based on an Atmel AVR and Ethernet interface can be manufactured for less than $20 in volume, and doesn’t require any software licensing expenses. To save on hardware costs, it could be preferable to have various sensors in a group communicate back to one connected device via inexpensive Nordic NRF24L01 wireless transceivers – and the connected device can thus gather the data into the require fields for transmission back to ThingSpeak.

Software – Thanks to the open-source nature of ThingSpeak either working with the existing server software or creating your own APIs isn’t a challenge. Interaction is easy with simple HTTP requests to send and receive data, which has a useful form. Each data transmission is stored in a ThingSpeak “channel”. Each of these channels allows storage and transmission of eight fields with 255 alphanumeric characters each, plus four fields for location (description, latitude, longitude and elevation – ideal for GPS), a “status update” field and time/date stamp. Data sent over the channels can be public or private – with access via your own devices and software finalising the security.

Once sent to the server this data can be downloaded for further analysis, or monitoring using various HTTP-enabled entities – from a simple web page, mobile application or other connected device. Various triggers can be created to generate alerts for various parameters, and can be sent using email, twitter, or other connected services such as an SMS gateway. After being in operation for almost three years, the platform has matured to a reliable service that has exposed many developers to its way of doing things, so support and documentation is becoming easier to find.

Overall the ThingSpeak system offers your organisation a low barrier to the Internet of Things. Creating a proof-of-concept device or prototype hardware interface can be done with existing or inexpensive parts, and the use of ThingSpeak’s free server can make an idea become reality in a short period of time. And once you device on the service, by internalising the server software, you can have complete control and security over your data.

If you’re interested in moving forward with your own system based on the ThingSpeak, we have a wealth of experience with the required hardware options, and the team to 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.