On June 9, Will Tu, the director of embedded (electronics) marketing at semiconductor firm ARM, will chair a preconference symposium about the IoT industry at the annual Sensors Expo and Conference (which, after a long run in Chicago, will take place this year in Long Beach, Calif.). One of Tu’s goals in building the day’s agenda was to feature content that broadens the point of view around what sensors do, what vital roles they can play in IoT applications, and what sensor makers need to keep in mind as they market their products to new industries.
Slated to speak is Kevin Shaw, who leads business development at Audience Inc. a company that specializes in audio-processing technology used in mobile devices. Audience Inc. was recently purchased by Knowles, a major supplier of microphones and headphones, which Tu thinks is an indication of the growing role that audio sensing is going to serve in IoT products and services.
Also on the roster is Jeff Bier, the founder of the Embedded Vision Alliance. The Alliance, whose membership is composed of dozens of electronics and software companies, is working to support developers and suppliers of embedded-vision technology—think of the Microsoft Kinekt’s motion-, facial- and expression-recognition features—and help them connect with manufacturers that could incorporate the technology into their products and services to support IoT applications.
“In cars, you have systems that track how the vehicle acts within its environment, such as wheel speed or acceleration, but a lot of carmakers are not aware of what the passenger is doing in the car,” Tu says, as a way of explaining why carmakers might want to incorporate embedded-vision or audio-sensing technology into their vehicles in order to capture what he calls “passenger contextual awareness.”
“Humans relate to technology when it’s simplified, predictive [and] anticipates your needs,” Tu states. “We want to approach sensors [by thinking about how they] help us see and touch.” He invited people from camera and microphone companies to discuss how their products fit into IoT technologies—even a startup that is developing a sensor for detecting smells and tastes will make a presentation.
There is a disconnect between what sensor manufacturers provide and what end users need in their products, Tu believes. Sure, most automakers or mobile suppliers have large teams of engineers who want to just use the essential sensing components, whether those are accelerometers, gyroscopes, cameras, embedded vision, microphones or even smell decoders. Those experts want only the basic sensor components so they can build specific functionality around them. But what about the seemingly limitless list of companies in other industries? If sensor makers could package their products with sufficient computing power to be more like plug-and-play components, he reasons, they could land enough of a sales volume to cover the costs of that extra development work.
“A lot of sensor manufacturers are not conveying their products as turnkey solutions,” Tu says. “There are probably four or five microphones in a smartphone, and they might cost handset makers just a few dollars each. But as a sensor company, you can take that same mic and sell it for $10 to an elevator company if you add value to it,” and thus turn it into something that the company can easily integrate into its products to support a function, such as voice-controlled operation or an alert system.
Tu says individuals within companies, whether they’re large or small, often have a difficult time convincing management to invest in some type of sensing technology that could add functionality or value to their products. Here, he adds, the maker movement and cheap, highly configurable products, such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi computer boards, can play a role, since they support sensors and are capable enough to support a wide range of proof-of-concept prototypes.
Stepping up a bit in sophistication is the IoT Starter kit that ARM, in collaboration with Zebra Technologies and Atmel, has also recently announced. It includes Atmel’s SAM W25 Xplained PRO prototyping and evaluation platform, which comes with a pre-configured Atmel SMART ARM Cortex M-based microcontroller. Also included is ARM’s mbed operating system for IoT devices.
“We’re trying to empower the isolated developers in companies,” Tu told me. “They’re finding it hard to convince their managers to invest in IoT, but with those starter kits… you can get a rapid proof-of-concept out to show management. It’s not as hard as you think it is to build that POC, then show your manager what you did on your own. The barrier to entry has dropped a lot.”
Mary Catherine O’Connor is the editor of Internet of Things Journal and a former staff reporter for RFID Journal. She also writes about technology, as it relates to business and the environment, for a range of consumer magazines and newspapers.