Oct 18, 2018PRESS RELEASE:
STMicroelectronics Intros Microcontroller-Debugging Probe for RFID Applications
STMicroelectronics has introduced the next-generation STLINK-V3 probe for programming and debugging STM8 and STM32 microcontrollers , adding enhancements to further increase flexibility and efficiency. Now featuring mass-storage support, a virtual COM port with multipath bridge, and three-times faster write performance, the competitively priced STLINK-V3 saves development time and easily reprograms devices in the field. This tool enables design engineers to debug or fine-tune RFID software, and program MCUs in RFID applications with new SW releases or updates.
In addition to providing typical JTAG/Serial-Wire Debug (SWD) and Single-Wire Interface Module (SWIM) connections, STLINK-V3's Virtual COM Port (VCP) and multipath bridge allow communication through the microcontroller UART, I2C, SPI, or CAN interface, or GPIOs. This lets developers conveniently automate tests using custom control commands and observe run-time data on the host PC, or use the STLINK-V3 to program devices with a bootloader and simplify product maintenance.
Major development tools already support STLINK-V3, allowing users to take advantage of the powerful features from within a convenient graphical environment such as the STM32Cube programmer and Integrated Development Environments (IDE) such as Keil MDK-ARM, IAR EWARM, and GCC-based IDEs. ST also allows free access to STLINK-V3 low-level APIs, to facilitate integration with custom or automated test platforms.
Supplied as a complete kit, the STLINK-V3SET contains the probe, debug connector, cables, and an adapter board that supports SWIM-specific features and provides access to signals from the multipath bridge. Users can further expand functionality cost-effectively with additional boards such as a voltage-translator module. The STLINK-V3SET is available now for $35.00 from www.st.com, or through distributors.
PRESS RELEASE:
InfluxData, Google Cloud IoT Core Integrate to Improve IoT Environments
InfluxData, the modern Open Source Platform built specifically for metrics, events and other time series data that empowers developers to build next-generation monitoring, analytics and IoT applications, has announced the availability of a new Telegraf agent for Google Cloud IoT Core. Now Google Cloud IoT Core users can get better insight and analytics from their IoT environments by using the leading time series database solution to provide continuous insight, improve operational efficiency, and better optimize their businesses with real-time decision making and control.
Google Cloud IoT Core is a complete set of tools to connect, process, store, and analyze data both at the edge and in the cloud. InfluxData's Telegraf is a plugin-driven server agent for collecting and reporting metrics and data. With this new Telegraf plugin, organizations can derive value by monitoring and tracking sensor data, using historical data from sensors to gain insights that can be applied to current situations (predictive maintenance, optimized traffic routing), and delivering automated action and control (such as shutting down a leaking water pump) with no human interaction. Google Cloud IoT Core can help customers maximize ROI of their IoT applications by capturing, understanding and acting on data collected from IoT devices and sensors in real time.
"InfluxData's ability to integrate with Google Cloud IoT Core enables us to address the time series data collection and analysis needs of IoT customers, and we are pleased to be a new contributing member to the Google Cloud IoT ecosystem," said Sharjeel Noor, Senior Director, Platform & Partnerships at InfluxData. "This effort fits with our IoT strategy where we focus on being the data services platform of choice, and offer these benefits as a part of larger ecosystems, such as Google Cloud."
IoT ROI is only as good as the real-time data collected and available to be analyzed for real-time decision making. IoT data is time series data, and InfluxData delivers the leading Time Series Platform that ensures data is collected and analyzed in real-time. InfluxData provides the data services layer to Google Cloud IoT Core that allows users to collect time series data for instrumenting, observing, learning and automating any system.
Since the Telegraf project's inception, the majority of the 160 plugins available today have been built by the community and not InfluxData engineers, demonstrating the vibrant contributions from its community. Subject matter experts easily create new Telegraf plugins helping the community quickly collect a wider range of metrics. As a result, any updates to existing plugins or the introduction of new plugins are available to customers, including Google Cloud IoT Core customers, in real time to quickly gather custom metrics about their workloads. Google Cloud IoT Core customers can be up and running in a few hours to easily collect and store their IoT data in a purpose-built time series database within the Google Cloud IoT ecosystem for alerts, monitoring and real-time decision making.
In addition, now Google Cloud users have one-click access to InfluxData's Time Series Platform for collection and analysis of metrics and events data for real-time decision making through InfluxData's new Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Marketplace listing at https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/influxdata-public/influxdb-enterprise-byol. Users can find simple one-click configuration available for the Telegraf-InfluxData-Grafana VM package. In the future, several popular one-click configurations such as the Prometheus-InfluxData-Grafana VM package are also planned for release. This furthers InfluxData's mission to help developers get to results faster by providing automated provisioning mechanisms on their favorite cloud platform.
InfluxData delivers a modern IoT data platform built from the ground up to support organizations looking to best leverage the wealth of IoT data delivered from their devices and sensors to provide an advantage for their customers. IoT data is unique in that sensors deliver time-stamped or time series data to measure change over time, the data is streamed relentlessly from sensors, and sensors capture and emit data in real time. With InfluxData, companies always have a direct view into the state of each of their devices and sensors so changes can be made to keep services running efficiently. Its InfluxDB database is the overwhelming leader among Time Series Database management systems, according to DB-Engines' latest results.
InfluxData has rapidly built its developer and customer base across industries – including manufacturing, financial services, energy, and telecommunications – by delivering the fastest growing Open Source Platform that enables customers to derive better business insights, data-driven real-time actions, and a consolidated single view of their entire infrastructure – from applications to microservices, and from systems to sensors. More than 420 customers, including Cisco Systems, Coupa Software, IBM, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Nordstrom, and Tesla have selected InfluxData as their modern data platform for metrics and events. InfluxData is pioneering the shift to time series in a modern metrics and events platform, and is making it possible for customers to become data-driven and take on digital transformation initiatives.
PRESS RELEASE:
Signify Unveils IoT Smart Lighting Portfolio
Signify, the world leader in lighting, has announced Interact Pro, the latest addition to its Interact IoT-ready portfolio. It's the first multi-tasking, smart lighting system and software developed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and is Signify's latest step to extend its growth and leadership in connected lighting systems, software and services.
Last year, systems and services represented more than EUR 900 million in sales and a comparable sales growth of 51%. Signify believes that Interact Pro enables it to continue this growth and extend IoT-ready offerings to new customer segments.
Interact Pro is an intuitive app and dashboard allowing SMBs to control and manage their lighting. This enables them to work smarter while facilitating the productivity and well-being of employees as well as reducing energy costs. Interact Pro works seamlessly with Interact Ready lamps, luminaires, and sensors from Philips. The system gives employees the ability to select the right light to suit their eyesight, task and the time of day.
Research shows that people spend an astonishing 90% of their lives in buildings[1], making indoor lighting an important consideration, particularly in the workplace. Interact Pro can improve workplace engagement as it can create an appealing work environment to attract and retain the best talent.
"Good lighting conditions can help improve people's mood and comfort, while giving them control over their environment increases employee satisfaction and productivity," said James Gubbins, owner of SME, Pelling Marketing By Design in Farnham in the south-east of England. "This is exactly what we're experiencing in our office where we're boosting our productivity by using the Interact Pro app on our smart phones. For example, employees can personalize lighting in their own workspace while sensors in our staff kitchen automatically turn off lights when no one is there. Overall, this has reduced our energy costs by almost 80%."
Designed for small to mid-sized commercial spaces that are less than 25,000 square feet, Interact Pro allows up to 200 light points, 15 sensors, and 15 switches per gateway to be connected and managed simultaneously. The cloud-connected Interact Pro software features a web portal, gateway, dashboard and app through which businesses can control their lighting.
Interact Pro is best suited to offices, warehouses and parking garages. Its lighting sensors automatically detect if someone is present, triggering the lights to switch on and then dim when they leave, reducing energy use and cost. Also, the sensors can automatically sense the level of daylight and adjust the light accordingly, so businesses can improve their energy efficiency. Data from the connected lighting system is displayed via the Interact Pro dashboard and app. This enables business owners to make informed decisions on how to manage energy consumption and meet their sustainability targets, thereby demonstrating corporate social responsibility. In addition, the Interact IoT platform allows push notifications and security updates, so the system is kept up-to-date automatically.
"The internet of things is unlocking unparalleled opportunities when it comes to lighting. We're pleased to be bringing these opportunities to SMBs through Interact Pro," said Harsh Chitale, Business Group Leader, Professional at Signify. "Increased data and intelligence means that Interact Pro can help SMBs make better decisions about how they make their businesses both more productive and a more pleasant place to work for their staff."
Interact Pro software and Philips Interact Ready lamps and luminaires are enabled by the Zigbee 3.0 open global wireless standard. The wireless connected lighting system with app-based set-up means it can be installed faster than traditional lighting systems. Consequently, installers can move onto the next job more quickly while also minimizing disruption to a client's business. Interact Pro is the only system that is able to mix luminaires and lamps in a connected system with the same level of features, such as dimming, grouping and scheduling.
Interact Pro allows lighting professionals to provide insight-driven, value-added services, so they can make positive recommendations to their customers and foster longer-term relationships, boosting repeat business. When authorized by the SMB owner, installers can perform remote diagnostics including health status checks via the Interact Pro dashboard. This allows them to easily identify any problem with a lighting system, avoiding wasted trips to client sites.
Interact Pro is being released globally and can be sourced exclusively through Signify channel partners. Training and demonstrations of the new Interact Pro software will be held around the world and support will be provided on an ongoing basis.
PRESS RELEASE:
Telit Releases Miniature IoT Modules for Medical Wearables, Fitness, More
Telit, a global enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced the xE310 family of miniature IoT modules. With initial models planned in LTE-M, NB-IoT and European 2G, the new form factor will enable Telit to meet growing demand for ultra-small, high-performance modules for wearable medical devices, fitness trackers, industrial sensors, smart metering, and other mass-production, massive deployment applications. Telit will start shipping xE310 modules in Q4 this year.
The xE310 family is one of the smallest LGA form factors available in the market with a flexible perimeter footprint supporting various sizes from compact to smaller than 200 mm2. The xE310's 94 pads include spares to provide Telit the flexibility to quickly deliver support for additional features as technologies, applications and markets evolve. Spares can be used for modules supporting Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or enhanced location technologies - in addition to cellular - while maintaining compatibility with cellular only models. They can also be used for additional connections that may be required for new 5G-enabled features.
The new form factor also gives OEMs greater flexibility, efficiency and yield during design and manufacturing. The xE310 family provides easy PCB routing while minimizing manufacturing process issues such as planarity and bending. The unique circular pad facilitates correct package orientation for automated assembly.
"The new xE310 is among the smallest form factors available today despite being packed with technologies and capabilities that developers and designers say they need to enable tomorrow's IoT applications," said Yossi Moscovitz, Telit president of products and solutions. "With this new form factor, xE310 modules can comfortably take IoT integration across all industries seamlessly from current standards, way into 5G many years from now; much the same way the standard setting xE910 has done over the past 10 years."
PRESS RELEASE:
myDevices Partners With Arm on IoT Sensor Offerings, Joins Arm Pelion IoT Platform Ecosystem
myDevices and Arm have partnered to accelerate the creation of finished IoT solutions by simplifying device onboarding and increasing the number of sensors, gateways, and solutions integrated with the Arm Pelion IoT Platform that customers can leverage. myDevices has partnered with hundreds of gateway and sensor manufacturers to create a robust ecosystem of LoRa devices that can be easily mixed and matched to create specific vertical applications. In addition to the vast catalog of devices, myDevices provides IoT enablement such as QR code onboarding, permission-based user management, escalations, threshold alerts, time-based rules, reporting, corrective action logs, device history visualization, and 3rd party integrations, all accessible from native mobile apps, an online dashboard, or an API.
"Organizations are looking for a fast and simple way to get their IoT solutions running from prototype development to production," said Charlene Marini, vice president of strategy, IoT Services Group, Arm. "Together with myDevices we are providing an easy onboarding user experience with device and data management, enabling customers to benefit from IoT solutions immediately and easily scale them as their business grows."
At the Arm TechCon event on October 16-18, myDevices and Arm will provision a wide variety of sensors and gateways to demonstrate how easy it is for integrators and enterprise customers to combine sensors to solve specific use cases such as cold storage, facility management, pest control, and other remote monitoring solutions.
"As a result of the collaboration, system integrators and enterprise customers can now easily configure and deploy a secure, commercial-ready IoT solution in days," said Kevin Bromber, Founder and CEO of myDevices. "In addition, Arm's device management provides secure FOTA updates to these solutions while Arm's data management provides enterprise level insights that meet the needs of the most challenging IoT use cases."
The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) presents a tremendous opportunity to disrupt the way we interact with devices and the world around us. However, solving the complexity, fragmentation and diversity challenges of IoT devices and the data generated by them is not an easy task. Arm is addressing these challenges with our recently launched Arm Pelion IoT Platform with device-to-data connectivity, device and data management, enabling organizations to develop IoT superpowers and institute transformational change.
IoT requires a strong ecosystem of companies working together to deliver value, and one size does not fit all. IoT takes a village, and Arm is tapping into its leadership in building ecosystems by fostering a diverse team of partners to enable IoT to scale securely. Following our recent collaboration with Sprint, who is leveraging Pelion, along with the Arm Platform Security Architecture (PSA) as the foundation of their Curiosity IoT, we are announcing new strategic partnerships with Intel, myDevices and Arduino to deliver greater IoT flexibility, simplicity and scalability for organizations.
True to the Pelion IoT Platform "Any device, any cloud" strategy, we are furthering our capabilities to support any device and any cloud by collaborating with Intel to remove IoT scaling barriers. Through the collaboration, our Pelion IoT Platform can onboard and manage Intel Architecture (x86) platforms, in addition to Arm-based IoT devices and gateways. The combination of our Pelion Device Management with the Intel Secure Device Onboard (Intel SDO) service allows organizations to manufacture devices without any prior knowledge of end customer-specific onboarding credentials or even which application framework the end user will choose.
This enables a more flexible cloud provisioning model and seeds a compatible base of Arm and Intel devices ready for management by the Arm Pelion IoT Platform, with onboarding into any application cloud. This will shift the industry from siloed supply chains to a harmonized framework for the design and sourcing of secure, connectable devices. We believe this collaboration is a big step forward for greater customer choice, fewer device SKUs, higher volume and velocity through IoT supply chains and lower deployment cost.
In parallel, we are also announcing Mbed Linux OS, which builds on our Mbed OS – the leading IoT platform OS with more than 350,000 developers – by enabling secure and rapid development and device management of IoT devices based on Cortex-A. Mbed Linux OS is integrated with our Pelion IoT Platform and will open up new classes of IoT devices that are easily managed through the platform, providing organizations with additional flexibility and faster time-to-market for complex applications, such as those processing video or edge gateways. With Mbed Linux OS, Arm is providing a secure foundation that enables our partners and OEMs to focus on building amazing things. Developers can sign-up for early access.
Furthering our commitment to scale IoT, we are partnering with myDevices to simplify device and solution onboarding and to increase the number of sensors, gateways, and solutions integrated with the Pelion IoT Platform that customers can leverage. myDevices has partnered with numerous gateway and device manufacturers to create a robust ecosystem of LoRa-connected IoT solutions for specific vertical applications.
myDevices' IoT in a Box solutions make it easy for a SMB or enterprise employee to set up and securely connect a gateway and sensors and start benefiting from Pelion Device Management and monitoring their solution with Pelion Data Management in just minutes using their smartphone. This simplicity is essential in enabling customers' IoT solutions to scale, so that they can obtain actionable insights from their IoT devices and data. Developers can try out Pelion services together with myDevices' IoT in a Box for only $199 using the new IoT Starter Kit.
Arduino is used by millions worldwide to innovate in IoT and retrofit existing installations. The same tools that are easy for beginners are productive for professionals. Therefore, we're excited to announce Arduino is also partnering with our Pelion Connectivity Management to give their users the option of competitive global data plans to suit everything from single IoT prototypes to production IoT deployments. Together with Arduino, we're enabling developers to create cellular IoT designs in minutes - on a foundation that can scale to millions of devices.
Continuing Arm's heritage of fostering a robust partner ecosystem, we believe teaming with leaders across the industry is critical in enabling IoT to scale. Through our device-to-data Pelion IoT Platform, 140+ partner ecosystem and Mbed Linux OS, we are making it simple and secure for organizations to build, deploy and manage their IoT solutions and extract real value from their devices and data.
PRESS RELEASE:
Redpine Launches MCUs for Smart and Secure IoT Devices
Redpine Signals, Inc. has launched the RS12000 SmartMCU, the industry's first family of MCUs designed specifically to meet the high MIPS, memory and security demands of IoT devices, while at the same time improving battery life compared to traditional ARM Cortex-M4 MCUs. Based on a unique optimized multi-core IoT processor architecture, the new RS12000 SmartMCU family delivers best-in-class performance, ultra-low-power, and highly-secure operation, making it ideal for IoT edge-intelligent, voice assistant-enabled, and network and cloud connected devices.
To achieve this, the RS12000 SmartMCU family features an ARM Cortex M4F running up to 250MHz, sensor hub DSP coprocessor at 125MHz, a four-threaded network security processor based on Redpine's ThreadArch running up to 160MHz, and a full suite of analog and digital peripherals.
"Redpine has fifteen-plus years of deep industry experience developing highly differentiated wireless connectivity solutions for the IoT market, and we have fully leveraged that know-how in our new SmartMCU architecture," said Venkat Mattela, CEO of Redpine Signals. "Existing MCU solutions in the market feature either high-performance or low-power, forcing IoT device designers to choose one mode or utilize multiple MCUs in their designs.
With its unique gear-shifting architecture, Redpine has - for the first time - empowered IoT designers with both high-performance and low-power within a single processor core. By combining this architecture with the RS12000 series' best-in-class trusted execution environment, Redpine is accelerating the development of the next generation of intelligent and wireless connected devices with zero compromise on security."
The RS12000 SmartMCU family's high-performance configurations feature up to four cores and provide double the processing power, memory, and peripherals by including two gear-shifting ARM Cortex M4 processors and two ThreadArch network security processors. As IoT devices are intended to be connected devices, the integrated network security processor includes the ability to run an embedded TCP/IP stack, offloading the primary M4 processor and providing the IoT designer full access to the M4 processor cycles and RAM. In addition – a sensor hub coprocessor at 125MHz accelerates DSP processing (CMSIS-DSP) and machine learning (CMSIS-NN) functions within a local sensor data buffer, thereby freeing up the M4 further.
Based on a trusted execution environment (TEE) architecture with a separate network security processor, secure RS12000 SmartMCU products include suite-B Crypto HW accelerators, secure boot, secure firmware upgrade, secure XIP and secure peripherals. Its high-security levels are ideal for applications such as smart locks, medical devices and secure voice-based ordering.
The RS12000 SmartMCU series' patent-pending gear-shifting is achieved through hierarchical architecture implemented at every level including big and small bus matrices, switching regulators, clock-sources, memory, GPIOs and peripherals, thereby providing optimized transitions between high-performance and low-power operating modes on the same M4 processor core. These ultra-low power capabilities enable battery-operated devices such as smart locks, fitness bands, industrial control units, sensors and location tags to have 3-4x the battery life compared with other solutions.
The RS12000 series includes an "always-on" sensor-hub with hardware accelerators for voice-activity detection (VAD), sensor data collection and capacitive touch. The RS12000 also supports a rich set of digital and analog peripherals including VAD, CAN, Ethernet, eMMC/SD Card, ADC, OpAmps, DAC and USB HS-OTG with PHY. The RS12000 seamlessly interfaces with Redpine's RS9116 wireless connectivity solutions to provide Wi-Fi, dual-mode BT 5 and 802.15.4 connectivity for IoT products. Redpine Signals offers the RS12000 SmartMCU series in QFN, BGA and WLCSP packages. The RS12000 SmartMCU series products are sampling now with volume production starting in Q1 2019.
