Is there an easy way to connect my Wireless Sensors to the IoT Cloud?

Do you have an application to transfer wireless sensor node data to the Internet Cloud?  IoT connectivity measurement applications are growing at a rapid pace, accelerating the design cycle to meet market demand. 

Wireless sensor design complexity may present challenges that delay the development cycle. IoT design requires diverse skills in embedded, sensor measurement, wireless connectivity and mobile software application development.  IoT suppliers are offering hardware reference designs and development kits to aid designers in accelerating their IoT development cycle.  

Earlier this year, Silicon Labs introduced the Thunderboard^tm React, a cost-effective prototyping vehicle to demonstrate how easy it can be to connect wireless sensor nodes to mobile devices and the cloud. The board features a battery-powered, sensor demonstration board with a Bluetooth low-energy module based on a Silicon Labs EFR32 Mighty Gecko Multiprotocol wireless SOC based on an ARM Cortex-M4 CPU, running plus open-source design files and software for mobile.

The Thunderboard^tm Sense kit expands the Thunderboard^tm family offering designers a way to develop and prototype sensor or actuator applications using BLE-to-cloud connectivity.  The Thunderboard^tm Sense system application diagram in Figure 1 Illustrates sensor connectivity via an accompanying BLE mobile phone app (iOS and Android).  Within minutes, the phone AP can be configured to demonstrate sensor data connectivity to the Internet Cloud.

Figure1.  Thunderboard^tm Sense - System Application Diagram

The Thunderboard^tm Sense delivers sensor technology featuring the Silicon Labs Si7021 Temperature/Humidity and Si1133 UV/Ambient Light sensors. In addition, Thunderboard^tm Sense provides Barometric Pressure, Gas CO², Hall Effect, MEMS Microphone, and 6-axis inertial sensor.  Silicon Labs multi-protocol EFR32 Mighty Gecko radio provides wireless connectivity support for Bluetooth low energy, ZigBee, Thread and proprietary wireless protocols in a developer friendly kit.  There’s a built-in SEGGER J-Link to simplify programming and debugging support in the Simplicity Studio Windows10 software developer’s platform.

Figure 2.  Thunderboard^tm Sense - Features

The Thunderboard mobile app enables a quick proof of concept of cloud connected sensors. Sensor selection and measurement steaming is configured by the mobile app. The mobile app for Android or iOS streams sensor data to the cloud, displays sensor measurement views, and provides beacon notifications.

Figure 3.  Thunderboard^tm Sense – mobile phone app control panel

The Thunderboard Sense kit allow you to view temperature/humidity, light UV index, air pressure, orientation, acceleration, speed/distance, sound level, CO2, VOC levels and allows you to control wireless-controlled lights and switches directly.  The cloud allows analysis and sharing of real-time data in trend views as illustrated in Figure 4.  Data analysis is simplified with user selectable alerts and alarms.

 Figure 4.  Thunderboard^tm Sense –  Cloud Sensor view environment 

The Thunderboard™ Sense is an ideal wireless sensor development platform for battery operated IoT applications that provides a user friendly platform for developing and prototyping IoT concepts.

For more information:

Accelerate your sensor IoT design with the Thunderboard SLTB001A kit; Available today.

For more information:  http://uk.rs-online.com/web/b/silicon-labs/

Thunderboard Sense: http://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/Pages/thunderboard-sense-kit.aspx