Arrow Launches IoT Service
Arrow Electronics, a distributor of electronic components and a provider of engineering and consulting services to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), has launched a new offering called Intelligent Services. Intelligent Services provides a framework and software tools to help OEMs and systems integrators create and deploy IoT platforms. Arrow’s approach is to use application programming interfaces (APIs) as a replacement for vendor-specific proprietary interfaces and software development kits (SDKs) in order to make it easy for non-programmers to build IoT networks.
Arrow partnered with MachineShop—which makes API-centric IoT middleware that collects and normalizes data from disparate systems and provides secure interfaces between devices and platforms—to develop Arrow’s Intelligent Services. Arrow is also partnering with three of its suppliers, NetComm Wireless, Embedded Planet and Lantronix, all of which are selling IoT gateway devices as part of the Intelligent Services offering.
GreenPeak, Dusun Electron Collaborate on Smart Parking App
Chipmaker GreenPeak Technologies, based in the Netherlands, has partnered with Chinese IoT development company Dusun Electron Ltd. to launch a parking application designed to ease mounting traffic congestion and improve parking access in China’s larger cities.
The solution includes a smartphone app that drivers can use to select criteria such as how far they are willing to walk from a parking space to their destination, as well as the parking fee they are willing to pay. Occupancy sensors, installed at select parking garages, monitor each parking space and transmit wirelessly to a gateway device, which constantly updates the mobile phone application, as well as electronic signage inside the garage, showing the number and location of available spaces. The application guides drivers to open spaces based on their chosen distance and payment settings.
GreenPeak Technologies provides the sensors, chipsets and gateways, operating in compliance with the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless communication standard, using the ZigBee protocol. Up to 200 occupancy sensors can be networked to a single gateway. Pricing for the sensors begins at $15, and the gateways cost $25 apiece. Dusun Electron developed the smartphone application and cloud infrastructure on which it runs.
The first deployment of the parking application has taken place in the city of Wuxi, in China’s Jiangsu province. A number of cities in the United States have deployed similar sensor-based parking application, some of which embed sensors in parking garages, while others use them to monitor street parking. This summer, Seattle technology company INRIX launched a service that tracks parking availability by collecting data from cities regarding the use of Internet-connected parking meters.
Built.io Upgrades Integration Tools
Built.io, which sells a mobile app development platform, has made a number of upgrades to Flow, its integration service to help companies connect sensors, beacons and other IoT devices with cloud-based services and mobile devices. These upgrades include pre-configured integration software to connect devices with enterprise software from Salesforce.com, Marketo, Oracle and SAP, as well as a revamped workflow tool that allows users to drag and drop icons within the Built.io software in order to integrate devices with back-end systems. Flow now also includes a gateway used to securely connect firewalled systems to cloud- and Web-based services.
Microsemi Launches Security Services Program
Microsemi Corp., a provider of high-security semiconductor and software products that power components such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and solid-state hard drives used in a range of industries, is opening a virtual Security Center of Excellence and making it available to any Microsemi customer. Microsemi will staff the center with security and systems analysts, as well as cryptography, hardware and software engineers. The company says it created the center in response to a recent growth in cyber-security threats emerging within IoT products and services.
The center is designed to help customers in multiple vertical markets to address and respond to security threats within their specific applications.
The facility specifically offers the following services: risk assessments, implementation cost estimates, testing services to discover and evaluate side-channel threats and other security vulnerabilities in products and services, and security design consultations.
Sigfox Expanding into Czech Republic
French technology company Sigfox, which deploys sub-1GHz radio devices to create low-power wide-area networks for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, says its network will soon begin operating in the Czech Republic, thanks to a partnership with T-Mobile and Czech firm SimpleCell Networks. The companies decided to deploy Sigfox technology in the republic based on the results of a pilot program they conducted there this summer, in which data transmitted from Sigfox base stations was received within one second as far as 120 kilometers (74.4 miles) away, provided that there was a clear line-of-sight between the two points. Interference from urban infrastructure shortens the transmission distances, but T-Mobile believes it will enable country-wide coverage by installing 350 Sigfox base stations across the Czech Republic, which it plans to do by the end of 2016. T-Mobile will work with Sigfox to begin selling products and services based on the network during the first half of the year.
During June and July of this year, Sigfox announced that its network is also expanding into Luxembourg, Belgium and Denmark.