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How to lower barriers and speed up development of your IoT applications

By Milan Yudkovich, Founder, SensiEDGE

By 2025, an estimated 70 billion connected devices, including lights, thermostats and wearables, will be in service. A recent report by McKinsey estimated these devices will contribute an estimated $11 trillion to the global economy, while Gartner predicts IoT technology will be embedded in 95% of new electronic product designs by 2020. Hence, easy-to-use IoT system-on-module (SoM) starter kits are becoming vital development tools for design engineers.

Typical project goals when developing IoT proof-of-concepts include high levels of functionality, reliability and ease-of-use. Achieving such ambitions in a timely, cost-effective manner demands that designers seek out solutions that deliver technical advantages when developing proof-of-concepts. The latest IoT SoM starter kits can help developers accelerate the design phase of projects – a prime example being SensiBLE from SensiEDGE.

SensiBLE development
SensiBLE is an industrial-grade customisable solution for those wanting to design IoT products without getting involved in hardware development or production logistics. Its hardware-ready configuration features 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis magnetometer, 3-axis gyroscope, pressure, humidity and temperature sensors. Also included are a microphone and ambient light sensor, along with Bluetooth LE 4.1 capabilities and a low-power ARM® 32-bit Cortex®-M4 CPU with FPU.

SensiBLE is cyber-protected by hardware link layer AES-128 encryption and decryption. Power can be supplied directly using a standard 3V watch battery, a pair of AAAs or another power source from 2 to 7V. All of this serves to simplify proof-of-concept for applications that include voice-to-text, activity recognition, wearable sensors or environmental applications.

SensiBLE enables wireless connectivity without RF experience or expertise. The kit is CE and FCC certified, while the firmware, Bluetooth stack, protocols and profiles are readily embedded, allowing developers to fast-track design ideas into prototypes – and on to market. Despite its high-level functionality, it comes in one of the world’s smallest form factors, just 20 x 30mm.

Cloud connectivity
SensiBLE can connect in seconds to all major cloud systems, including IBM Cloud, AWS IoT and Microsoft Azure. Choosing which service to use is often influenced by project specifics and developer preference, with each having its merits.

IBM Cloud allows developers to connect to databases and Watson-powered AI-functionality. AWS helps users collect and send data to the cloud, for easy analysis. Microsoft Azure offers integrated tools, DevOps and a marketplace to support users building anything from simple mobile apps to internet-scale solutions.

Explosive growth
Although fully customisable, many customers will use SensiBLE in their device as-supplied, proving very convenient as the market expects to see continued, robust growth for IoT solutions in 2018 and beyond. With modules available off-the-shelf, ultimately SensiEDGE helps developers, makers and start-ups to build proof-of-concepts and launch to the market faster.

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