Security, the essential pillar in the Internet of Things

The three hardware pillars of the Internet of Things (IoT) are microcontrollers, wireless chips, and security chips. What is cool about Atmel is that we make all three types of hardware. Atmel is on the ground floor of the Internet of Things (IoT).

I was a pretty natural evolution, since the “Things” are really embedded systems. Atmel has made the chips driving embedded systems ever since the AVR series came out in 1995. So having a really strong position in microcontrollers is essential to any IoT company.

Another pillar of IoT is wireless. Sure, some embedded systems plug in with an RJ45 connector. Indeed, the SAM4E chip has an “E” in the name that stands for its on-board Ethernet controller. But many of these clever new “Things” will connect wirelessly. For that Atmel has Wi-Fi chips, Bluetooth chips, Zigbee chips, and even the chips used in car access key fobs you can use to communicate wirelessly to a hub or base station.

What is not obvious to a lot of people is that security is an equally important pillar in the Internet of Things. Think of the medical privacy laws. Those laws may well apply to any data you are sending to the cloud. At the recent Internet of Things Privacy Summit held here in Silicon Valley, Michelle Dennedy, chief privacy officer at McAfee noted:

 “There has to be a layer of security from the (computer) chip outward. Sure, you want your health information going to your doctor. But you need to help people feel confident that it’s not going elsewhere.”

What is great about Atmel is that we also have a complete line of security chips. You can use these chips to make sure that your “Thing” is the actual and genuine thing it is supposed to be. You can use our chips to make sure that it’s the right thing to be plugged into some other system. You can use security chips to make sure the code you are executing is the genuine code and not some hijack attempt. What I love is that many of the security chips have several kilobytes of undedicated non-volatile memory. So along with security, you have a place to store setup or user information that will persist even when power is cycled to your device.

Back in 1994 my programmer buddy John Haggis showed me the World Wide Web on his computer. It was Mosaic browser looking at a few academic websites. John was really excited. I didn’t get it.”What’s the big deal about that?” I asked. It just seemed like a fancy version of the dial-up bulletin boards I was using to get datasheets and CAD models. I won’t make that clueless mistake with IoT. This is going to be huge. The Internet of Things has all the network effects of the Internet combined with the convenience and utility of the embedded systems that have been making our lives better for the past few decades. Our automotive group tells me that we can look at future cars as just another thing in the Internet of Things. I have written up how IoT will help farmers. You can bet IoT will be a big thing in industrial automation. And there will be a major impact in consumer electronics, from thermostats to toasters. We haven’t even dreamed up some of the “killer apps” for the Internet of Things. Fasten your seat belt, it’s going to be a wild ride.

RF Modules: A low risk path to wireless success

It is rare for a day to go by without having at least one conversation with an embedded developer, project manager, Maker / hacker or hobbyist where the subject of the Internet of Things (IoT) and/or wireless connectivity does not come up in discussion.

Today, IoT is certainly a major focus in product development and wireless is a major component of that solution. Usually, my conversation centers around comments from product developers regarding how difficult it is to develop a production ready wireless product on the first pass; it is especially difficult for the growing number of product developers or Makers that are just getting their feet wet in wireless design and development.

Only the very experienced RF designers are willing to start from scratch when beginning a new wireless product design. For the rest of us, we look for proven reference designs and more recently, the first thing we browse for is an off-the-shelf certified module.

In comes Atmel! The company has recognized for a while that RF modules provide a low risk path to success, for those seeking to add wireless connectivity to their product. And, it is this realization that has led to a growing family of RF modules to meet one’s wireless needs in Wi-Fi, 802.15.4, and BLE coming soon.

The certified wireless module approach turns a complicated RF design task into an easier, more manageable digital peripheral interface task. Don’t misunderstand me, one still must be careful and adhere to best practices in your embedded PCB design to support an RF module; however, it is a much easier to be successful on the first go-around when using an RF module than it would be starting from a chipset or IC layout and design.

A typical wireless module with on board “chip” antenna (white rectangle shown in image).

For the most part, the layout of impedance controlled traces, and antenna layout and matching are all taken care of for you when using a module. Usually, the most difficult thing you have to consider is placement of the module on your target or carrier board, such that your placement does not adversely affect the radiation pattern or tuning of the antenna.

Not only does the design become simpler, but the costs associated with getting a wireless device to market becomes lower.  Because in general, all of the fees and time associated with governmental certification testing for agencies like the FCC, CE and IC (Industry Canada), are already taken care of for you. Also in most cases, the modules are shipped with a unique IEEE MAC address pre-programmed into the module’s non-volatile memory, so that each unit has a world wide unique address. By using a module that contains this pre-programmed assigned address, you can avoid the costs of obtaining a block of IEEE addresses assigned to your company.

At first glance, the cost of using a complete pre-certified RF module in a production design, as compared to implementing one’s own chip set design may appear more expensive. However, for those doing this for the first time with a staff that does not have a lot of RF design and certification experience, the hidden costs and time required to achieve the performance your application requires and to get the product into the market, leads to a lot of unwanted surprises requiring multiple attempts to achieve the final goal. Starting with a module helps get the product into the market faster with less risk, and provides a way to get product acceptance, before having to deal with cost reduction activity’s that may require moving from a module solution to a chip set solution.

For those that get to the position where the use of a pre-certified module on a proven product requires a cost reduction, Atmel has a solution ready for you. Each of the Atmel Zigbit modules have complete Altium design files and Gerber files available for free download via the Atmel website. This will enable you to take the exact design files that were used to create the module you were using or considering, and to use these files to devise your own version of that design. You can then have your new chip based layout manufactured by your own contract manufacturer; thus, you do not have to start over from the beginning and you already know that this RF design works well and can be easily certified. Governmental certification of your own board layout would be required, and in the case of the United States, you would be given your own FCC ID assigned to your company for this product.

For those product designers that are experienced in RF layout and design, a module can allow you to create a proof-of-concept product prototype very quickly and with little effort. Once the concepts have been proven and features have been decided upon, you can migrate from module to chip set design for high volume production.

Software developers, Makers, and hobbyists can eliminate a lot of the issues often found when trying to create low volume wireless products by obtaining one of the many Atmel evaluation boards that contain a wireless module.

These boards typically come with a bootloader and with some form of pre-loaded firmware to get you started immediately. You can explore that topic in more detail in an earlier Bits & Pieces post that describes the wireless composer and the Performance Analyzer firmware.

The Performance Analyzer firmware is what typically comes pre-installed on a Zigbit module “evaluation” board. Otherwise, the module itself would come with only a pre-programmed bootloader.

You can learn more and download user guides / datasheets for the Atmel Zigbit modules via this link.

With the Internet of Things becoming such a focus at this time, you may want to get started with a pair of low-cost wireless module evaluation boards and use this platform to learn wireless connectivity techniques that can be used in your current or future job.  Demand for those with knowledge and experience in wireless connectivity and embedded systems is growing greater everyday.

Whether you’re a Maker or an engineer that wants to create a home project that requires a microcontroller and some type of wireless connectivity, you might want to take a look at the ATZB-256RFR2-XPRO evaluation board that includes the ATZB-S1-256-3-0-C module already mounted on it. This module is based upon the megaAVR microcontroller core and includes an 802.15.4 2.4ghz radio as a peripheral/.You may recognize the megaAVR core as being the same MCU core as used in the well-known and incredibly popular Arduino Uno board. You can use the familiar Arduino IDE for development and many of the Arduino libraries available on the internet will run directly on this module. Additionally, you can also find a bootloader and sample Lwmesh (Light Weight Mesh wireless networking) applications for this module here. (Search for for “ATmega256RFR2 Arduino Solution.”)

Look to our friends at Adafruit and Sparkfun to obtain various sensor breakout boards to complete your wireless connectivity projects.

Do you have big ideas? You can feel confident that with the 256k of flash program memory and the 32k of data sram available with the ATZB-S1-256-3-0-C module, as you will be able to create any Arduino application that comes to mind. And don’t forget, you have an onboard 802.15.4 2.4Ghz radio for your wireless connectivity needs. If you find you need additional features in your development and debug tools, you can simply move to Atmel Studio with its rich set of features.

Calling all Radio Amateurs CQ CQ CQ de NS1C… 

Are you now, or have you been in the past, involved in Amateur Radio? Have you been dreaming about QRP low power radios that are very small, battery operated, a complete radio solution, and cost in the $29 to $39 dollar range? You’re in luck — boards and modules are available that operate in the 915mhz or 2.4ghz radio bands! As a HAM radio operator, you are allowed to take the capabilities of these 802.15.4 radio modules even further than an engineer who is required to create a license free ISM radio solution. You can experiment with additional RF output power and experiment with high gain directional antennas (use the modules with u.FL RF connectors).

Maybe a nice field day project for next year would be to use a low power 15.4 radio from the top of a mountain or high hill and use mesh networking to see how many hops a group of participants can communicate over. Voice communication certainly could be implemented using external analog circuitry and some additional software; however, when getting started, you could stick to digital data communications or use the wireless microcontrollers to control or monitor other components of your Amateur radio station.

Parents teach your children…. or maybe, children teach your parents!

I am sure that everyone can think of many home or science fair projects where a parent and child can work together (hardware / software / documentation) and everyone can learn something new. Heck, in the end, you may actually invent the next great product that your family can introduce to the world!

Your possibilities are endless.

A map of every connected device on Earth

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case, billions of things. John Matherly, Founder of Shodan, recently created a map depicting the location of every single Internet-connected device across the globe. In order to achieve this feat, the creator pinged every device online, then mapped the location of the ones that responded.

Matherly used his search engine, which he developed to identify connected devices, to gather the data. Earlier last month, he sent ping requests out to IP addresses across the globe and recorded those that acknowledged receipt. The map uses various colors to illustrate how many devices are indigenous to an area. The redder the dot, the more the devices. The bluer, the fewer. You’ll also notice that there are several locations lacking any dots. These colorless spaces represent remote areas with no computers or smartphones on a wireless network.

“I would expect certain areas (especially in Africa) to become brighter, but the only way to know for sure is to gather empirical data and keep track of it that way,” Matherly wrote on Reddit.

As anticipated, the United States and Europe depict the highest concentration. You may have noticed that lonesome dot in Greenland… turns out that’s the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observatory. Additionally, though it may seem like areas of China should be colored bright red on the map, the country’s ‘Great Firewall’ explains why most of the country appears dark. As you can imagine, it’s not exactly a perfect science. “Some organizations block ping requests, so you’re not seeing those computers,” Matherly told Motherboard.

While Matherly’s tweet says the picture shows where every web-enabled device is located, that might be a bit of a stretch. Nevertheless, the image manages to provide the critical mass with a great visualization of Internet traffic spanning the globe. With the proliferation of the Internet of Things over the next couple of years, it’s without question that we’ll begin to see some of those dark holes colorize as more devices become connected. Cities will get smarter. Cars will become connected. Once-ordinary objects will be given new powers.

runScribe separates itself from the wearable pack

Though there may be plenty of wearables on the market that can log the steps you’ve taken or track the distance you’ve jogged, the runScribe can do those things and a whole lot more. In fact, the latest device from ScribeLabs provides 3D insight into the mechanics of how you run, thus enabling data to drive you toward smarter training decisions.

Recently launched on Kickstarter, the runScribe is described as a lightweight running wearable that mounts onto the back of your shoe and uses a 9-axis sensor to precisely capture the movements of your foot during the gait cycle. The unit itself makes thousands of calculations every step you take and creates reports on 13 separate kinematic metrics that can better help an athlete understand factors ranging from shoe selection to fatigue impact.

While some run analyzers come embedded within a shoe itself, the runScribe is interchangeable and can provide the user with a comparative report as to which shoe allows them to perform best. To make the use of the runScribe even simpler, the device can communicate via Bluetooth with a smartphone application that is available on both iOS and Android.

“The response from runners, both casual and professional, has been rewarding because they understand that running is a sport with an incredibly high injury rate. The metrics that we use today to assess our performance only tell part of the story,” Scribe Labs CEO and Co-Founder Tim Clark shares. 

One of the most helpful aspects of the runScribe is the active community that it creates. With the assembly and analysis of a massive amount of data from runners across the globe, the runScribe team can help predict and prevent injuries by tracking specific patterns that lead to physical breakdowns.

“As a community, we need to be smarter about how we run, and with runScribe, runners can have a deeper understanding about how the decisions they make impact their running mechanics,” explains Clark. 

To sweeten the pot, the runScribe is ideal for any level of runner, whether you’re just trying to get into better shape or are a competitive track athlete. There are a series of different levels of technology available. The starter pack gives you access to six kinematic metrics for $99, while the complete 13 are available in the pro unit which runs around $140. The technology onboard can improve the workout of nearly anyone that straps on the wearable strap.

The campaign exceeded its initial funding goal of $50,000 in just over two days, and currently sits just shy of $170,000. At the moment, runScribe is in its final design phase with a pilot build to be slated later this year. For those interested in learning more about or funding the runScribe, feel free to head on over to its official Kickstarter page.

Report: 40.9 billion wireless connected devices expected by 2020

According to an updated market forecast from ABI Research, the installed base of active wireless connected devices will exceed 16 billion in 2014, an increase of nearly 20% from 2013. The number of devices will more than double from the current level, with 40.9 billion projected for 2020.

“The driving force behind the surge in connections is that usual buzzword suspect, the Internet of Things (IoT). If we look at this year’s installed base, smartphones, PCs and other ‘hub’ devices represent still 44% of the active total, but by end-2020 their share is set to drop to 32%. In other words, 75% of the growth between today and the end of the decade will come from non-hub devices: sensor nodes and accessories,” revealed Aapo Markkanen, Principal Analyst.

From a tech supplier’s strategic point of view, the critical question that lies ahead is how the plethora IoT devices will ultimately be connected. Until recently, the choices that product OEMs have faced have been fairly straightforward — with cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and others all generally addressing their relative comfort zones. Going forward, they will be in an increasing competition with each other, so for the suppliers the strategic stakes are getting much higher.

“The recently introduced Thread protocol, spearheaded by Nest Labs, is not only setting the bar higher for ZigBee in the 802.15.4 space, but also piling up pressure on Bluetooth suppliers to enable mesh networking. In the meantime, the LTE-MTC and LTE-M initiatives may well expand the market for cellular M2M, while startups like Electric Imp and Spark could do the same for Wi-Fi. And finally, we also shouldn’t ignore what’s going on with passive, proximity-based connectivity offered by RFID and NFC,” added ABI Research Practice Director Dan Shey.

Another prime example of this convergence is the newly-unveiled Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), formed by tech leaders Atmel, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, Samsung and Wind River. The aim of this new project is to establish a common communication framework based on industry standard technologies to wirelessly connect and intelligently manage the flow of information among devices, regardless of form factor, operating system or service provider. The OIC also intends to deliver open source implementations for a variety of IoT market opportunities and vertical segments from smart home solutions to automotive and more, utilizing both existing and emerging standards like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct, Zigbee, Zwave and Ant+.

The new Atmel | SMART product line includes the SmartConnect wireless IC family, which combines ultra-low power Atmel MCUs with wireless solutions and complementary software. The SmartConnect wireless portfolio is a family of self-contained, low-power, and certified modules bringing wireless Internet connectivity to any embedded design, without compromising on cost and power consumption. Adding to the already broad family are recently-acquired NMI’s 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth certified products. These innovative, highly-integrated solutions will accelerate seamless communication and connectivity for the IoT.

“Combined with our existing Wi-Fi and Zigbee solutions and industry leading microcontroller portfolio, Atmel is positioned for substantial growth in the Internet of Things marketplace,” explained Atmel CEO Steve Laub.

 

Tech on Tour hits the road: Several months later

After tirelessly crisscrossing the globe for several years offering hands-on technical training, the Atmel team kicked off a new Tech on Tour era this past January with a tricked-out mobile trailer. Designed to literally drive the Internet of Things (and other next-gen technologies), 40’ x 85′ trailer brings hands-on training, hackathons, key technology demonstrations and other gatherings based around Atmel MCUs, MPUs, wireless, touch solutions and easy-to-use software tools. With more than 150 stops spanning across 30 states and 4 Canadian provinces, Tech on Tour is estimated to reach nearly 4,000 engineers this year alone.

Tens of thousands of miles later, the big rig has navigated the country — from Silicon Valley to the Hudson Valley, Atmel’s XSense Fab to the White House, Southern California to North Carolina, the deserts of Arizona to the plains of Kansas, the woods of Washington to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Thousands of engineers, execs and Makers alike have set foot onboard the trailer, including AVR Man, Sir Mix-A-Lot and even 13-year-old CEO Quin Etnyre. It has shared good times with our valued partners and lovable ol’ pals while turning heads and making new friends along the way. It has hosted a number of expert panel discussions, found itself parked in a middle of a tradeshow floor (link) and even had the chance to take in some of the landmarks in our nation’s capital. There have been sightings in the wild to selfies standing before the truck. And, after all of that, as we take a look back at the first six months of its inaugural tour, we must say that it’s been pretty truckin’ awesome!

“The IoT is being led by a rising generation of tinkerers, inventors and innovators. These are dedicated people who are working out of universities, garages and small companies. We are going and meeting them,” explained Sander Arts, Atmel VP of Marketing.

Already having made stops in both Minnesota, Illinois and Pennsylvania, the second leg of the tour is well underway. The Tech on Tour trailer will continue driving the Internet of Things (literally…) en route to:

Sept. 17: Melville, NY
Sept. 19: Waterbury, CT
Sept. 24: Westford, MA
Sept. 29: North Reading, MA
Oct. 2: Point Claire, QC
Oct. 7: Syracuse, NY
Oct. 15: Vaughan, ON

With upcoming stops in:

Cleveland, OH
Detroit, MI
Indianapolis,IN
Milwaukee, WI
Madison, WI

Next up, the teched-out truck will be making its way to Long Island with our friends from Avenet Electronics on September 17th to showcase a wide variety of tech, conducting training to include touch, mass storage class boot loading and Atmel’s SAM D21 Xplained Pro (ARM-based MCUs).

Interested in joining our ToTerrific team of tech experts for a day of SMART ARM-based Cortex M0+ training? Registration for this stop is now open!

Event Details

September 29, 2014
8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Avnet Electronics
400 Riverpark Drive
North Reading, MA 01864

Registration fee of $64.00 USD includes:

• Hands-on training with an Atmel Technology Expert
• Step-by-step training materials
• Atmel SAMD21 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit
• Atmel QT1 Xplained Pro

Get your hands-on training and roll up your sleeves with first-hand instruction and building with Atmel’s latest ARM Cortex M0+ microcontroller and development board. This Atmel | SMART SAM D21 is intended for the next IoT, wearables, or industrial embedded system. With connectivity options including interface integration, the SAM D21 device also has various design tools and development boards to quickly jump start learning and design integration. Accelerating your product to MVP and fit the connectivity design parameters and ultra low power sipping parameters are key to today’s next emergent embedded systems.

A couple of days later, the mobile trailer will take a quick trip north to Pointe Claire, Quebec at Future Electronics. Registration for this stop is also now open!

Event Details

October 2, 2014
8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Future Electronics
237 Hymus Blvd
Pointe Claire, Quebec H9R 5C7

During this stop, attendees will learn more about:

• Hands-on training with an Atmel Technology Expert
• Step-by-step training materials
• Atmel SAMD21 Xplained Pro Evaluation Kit
• Atmel QT1 Xplained Pro

In a majority of upcoming stops, the one-day sessions will feature hands-on technical training based on the Atmel | SMART SAM D21, an evolution of the industry’s first microcontroller with robust, high-performance, easy-to-use capacitive touch support. The SAM D20/21 represent a paradigm shift for capacitive touch sensing in terms of noise tolerance, power consumption, touch quality, and application integration. This is enabled through the on-chip hardware Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC), complemented with this new generation of touch support in the Atmel Studio 6 development Ecosystem. While onboard the big rig, explore how to easily configure the noise filtering and sensitivity of your user interface, based on specific application based considerations, using the QTouch Analyzer, using live trace logging of capacitive sensing signals. Understand the significantly simplified process of building and integrating a touch based user interface alongside your application, leveraging the interrupt-driven, non-blocking QTouch library code (only 5% of CPU resources, while scanning 10 channels at 50ms scan rate).

Become familiar with this Atmel Software Framework (ASF) compatible design process, giving you the ability to mix and match capacitive buttons, sliders and wheels with standard MCU components of your application such as the differentiated USB, DMA and TCC peripherals on the SAM D21. SMART Microcontroller based products go to market with firmware programmed at the factory.

Whenever a bug is fixed or new feature is implemented, the firmware on the product needs to be updated. The process of updating the firmware becomes easy if the product has the capability of updating its firmware by itself. In this hands-on training we will develop a USB Host bootloader project for a SAM D21 device, that can detect a mass storage device (for example a USB thumb-/flash-drive) when connected to the USB-port. If this device contains an updated firmware image, the bootloader will then update the flash of the device with new firmware.

To find out when Atmel’s Tech on Tour training will be heading to a city near you, follow along with our up-to-date schedule here. Don’t forget to register and reserve your seat. Space is limited!

The evolution and DNA of the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT), as noted in previous Bits & Pieces articles, is really just a concept at this point because the “things” are undefined. As those “things” become more defined, the IoT’s things stop being just things and become something. So, the main question right now: What are those things going to be? Perhaps the IoT should more accurately be called the “IoXT” with “X” being the variable describing what that particular thing actually is. An example could be the Internet of wearable fitness trackers, factory robots, home automation, smart appliances, vehicle to vehicle communication, traffic control… well, you get the picture. The X can (and will) be many different things.

Clearly, for the IoT to be meaningful, the X must be identified in detail. The IoT must evolve from the ultra-general (i.e. “things”) to specific applications, components, systems, and integrated circuits, among others. There appears to be an emerging need for a classification hierarchy to describe the IoT as it differentiates and evolves. The Linnaeus classification model that is used in biology to describe living “things”, comes to mind. The same classification process can apply to silicon-based things and not just carbon-based things (beings).

Do you see the connection?

                           

In a silicon-based classification regime, the term “IoT” would probably lie somewhere between phylum and family. Though it is not entirely clear exactly where yet, that does really not matter at this point; however, what matters is that engineers and product managers must push product definition to the genus and species levels for the IoT to ever truly matter.

In the early stages of IoT’s evolution, there could easily be a type of Cambrian explosion with the genesis of an insane number of new devices covering a wide spectrum of applications that from the truly inspired to the ridiculous. Economic Darwinism would later surely take over to narrow down the numbers overtime with many going extinct and others continuing to adapt into world-changing “things.”

Because the IoT’s silicon building blocks (i.e. the DNA of IoT) are getting into place, it will become very easy to create, modify, and adapt countless smart, sensing, secure, communicating devices. That ease of design is what is making IoT’s potential staggering, and why so many companies (especially silicon companies) are aggressively pursuing the IoT market.

As for the numbers, Gartner believes 26 billion devices will have connectivity by 2022, while Ericsson and Cisco both forecast the number being even higher at 50 billion units by 2020 and 2022, respectively. McKinsey Global Institute (MGI)  expects IoT to have an economic impact of $2.7 to $6.2 trillion by 2025. Gartner notes that IoT suppliers will generate incremental product and service revenue exceeding $300 billion in 2020, resulting in over $1.9 trillion in global economic value-add in diverse end-markets. According to IDC, the installed base of IoT will be 212 billion by the end of 2020, with 30.1 billion of that being connected autonomous things.

The following chart from McKinsey Global Institute details their view of the impact from various economic categories. Note that healthcare is the largest, which makes perfect sense given the affinity of bio-sensors, continuous monitoring, wearable devices, and wireless communication. Subsequently, it is no accident that the major mobile platform and consumer product companies are pursuing bio-metric capabilities for wearable products.

With an increasing demand for medical care as populations age in Western countries, remote telemedicine to cover under-served populations makes great sense. Telemedicine could easily revolutionize medical care, and connected-sensing devices could revolutionize telemedicine. There is little to hold the growth of medical sensing and communicating networks back, especially since governmental agencies are on a mission to extend the provision of health care universally. Perhaps this is a perfect storm.

Health networks will be joined by networks of many types; each of those will be driven by the ability to create IoT devices from their four main building blocks:

1. Brains (MCU)
2. Wireless Communications
3. Sensors of Various Types
4. Security.

Devices with those fundamental IoT building blocks will differentiate on each of those four axes depending upon what they need to do. Some of the types of networks that could show up and drive the IoT’s evolution are noted below:

• M2M:  Machine to Machine network
• V2V: Vehicle to Vehicle network
• Personal medical network
• PAN: Personal area network (wearable network)
• Home entertainment network
• Personal social network.
• Home automation/security network
• Personal fitness network.
• Car infotainment network
• Highway sensor network
• Hazardous material sensing network
• Smart appliance network
• Augmented reality network
• Multi-screen network
• Energy management network

There are of course others, too.

One last thing: The dirty little secret of the IoT is that there probably cannot be such a thing as the Internet of Things if those things are not secure. That is where devices like Atmel CryptoAuthentication ICs play an important, if not catalytic role. Making sure that the nodes in the various networks are authentic and that the data being transmitted have not been tampered with is what CryptoAuthentication devices do. It is easy to see why security is important when there are billions of things keeping track of you, right?

So, authentication may in actual fact be the sine qua non (“without which there is nothing”) of the IoT.

Or, to put it another way: No security? No IoT for you.

 

Drones!

So my buddy Andy Aronson over at honored competitor Texas Instruments mentioned he has a photographer buddy in Australia (check out his pic above) that just bought a new HD camera drone. No footage from it yet, the fellow is still sussing it out.

Andy also sent me a link to a video honoring my dear departed mentor Bob Pease. It must be drone season since that video had an advertisement for yet another HD camera drone, but one not yet in production. They had a video of the commercial as well.

I sent the link to a bunch of friends, noting that Arthur Clarke said “A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” but magic only sells when narcissists can use it for selfies. I also wondered if you had to have the fighter-pilot vision and reflexes of my buddy Bob Dible, who is an RC model racer champion in order to fly them. I guess so. My crack protege Francis Lau wrote back, noting:

My buddy got one and was showing if off to a few friends. He launched it and flew it straight up about 30 meters. It then promptly lost the GPS lock and started tilting forward towards the river. Controls were lost too and it was on its own in a trajectory towards the river. It wasn’t smart enough to just stay still if it lost connection. Alas, it was a short 30 seconds in the air before it hit the side pier wall of a house next to the river. It fell in and the quadcopter was lost forever. At least the thing was a freebie for my friend.

This was the model:

http://www.gizmag.com/dji-phantom-quadcopter/25672/

I’ve heard other stories of similar nature where the control isn’t very good and needs some work. Thousands lost and the promise of having an easy to fly drone not met.

Well the drone website says it will “…land automatically,” and I guess it did. So yeah, before you drop acid and take your new drone to the beach, you might want to work on your RC skills a bit, and make sure you know the limitations of the craft you just spend a few thousand bucks on. Otherwise what starts out like a Pepsi commercial might end up like a Greek tragedy.

Send your hearts fluttering with an ARM-powered wireless platform

A talented Maker by the name of Taylor Alexander, co-founder of Flutter Wireless, has recently gained a large amount of support for the company’s innovative wireless electronics development platform based on Arduino.

No novice to DIY, Taylor has spent a life of hacking, making and transfiguring things to have them do all sorts of different actions than these electronics were originally made to do. At the early age of five, he would break things down and rebuild them to create something entirely different — taking parts from old cameras, stereos and other electronic components, then transforming them into electric cars. From early on, it was evident Taylor was an innovator in the ‘making.’ Now, as everyone has witnessed, there are crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, a startup incubator platform where individuals like Taylor and his co-founders can create value from their extraordinary talents and early fundamental interest.

Not only has Kickstarter offered a new way of doing things, but the platform is reshaping the business and creation cycle for people with talents in technical and creativity. The site has enabled people to get financing, allowing inventors to obtain the investment needed much faster at the early stage of incubation and product development. This money can then be better used to scale faster and prove its concepts early on via social acceptance and crowdfunding with the merits of community and validation.

The powers of the Maker Movement — a fabulous combination of getting the media, bloggers and influencers onboard, riding pre-existing trends, thinking outside the box, conducting frequent demonstrations, all while responding to the ideas and wants of the community. Arguably the most important aspect of the DIY revolution is the validation and acceptance of the community wanting to endorse and witness an idea come to fruition. At an individual level, it’s an exciting and opportunistic time for an inventor or anyone looking to contribute to the landscape of technology or where it is going. These are some of the most compelling reasons as to why Flutter Wireless is able to prove innovative ground, validate their product ideas and infuse the necessary capital to promote more success across communities. As in its Kickstarter’s illustration, the wireless electronics development platform can be communicated from of a large 3,200 ft (1km) usable range. It is packaged with a powerful Atmel ARM-based SAM3S processor, coupled with integrated encryption using Atmel’s ATSHA204 cryptographic chip as the device to secure it’s system.

So, how does this wireless platform work? Well, as the Flutter Wireless site explains:

“Creating Flutter networks are easy, even if it’s just two boards. Specify networks in Arduino code or configure Flutter with our mobile app. Once configured, devices can enter and exit the network seamlessly. This makes it extremely easy to set up a network at home (or anywhere else) where all of your projects can reliably communicate. Flutter is like a second network for your devices.”

In fact, in the landscape of connecting devices and IoT, an individual building out of a wireless project shouldn’t have to be too expensive. “Flutter was built from the ground up with cost in mind, that’s why our boards start at just $20. We’ve worked hard to keep costs as low as possible and deliver you a quality product you can afford to use in as many projects as you’d like,” explains Taylor. The startup extraordinaire Taylor has helped further the ecosystem development by leveraging the concepts of “shields” and designing a handful of various protocol shields for Flutter. It’s really focused on individuals who want to get started quickly and build heterogeneous nodes of connected devices on a network. The Flutter boards come shipped with breakout boards and socket headers, combined with the power of connectivity to various protocols (Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy or conventional Bluetooth 2.1). The Flutter Wireless platform is comprised of the network shield which connects to your home router, creating a bridge between mobile devices (M2M) the Internet and Flutter. For a wireless system, the important factors are range and reliability. According to Flutter Wireless Kickstarter:

“We use WiFi everyday, but take a few steps down the driveway and coverage quickly becomes scarce. Flutter is a different kind of wireless system, completely self-contained with over a half-mile range. This allows for a wireless platform without borders, and no longer being chained to a router means your projects are free to follow you out the front door, through the yard, and down the street.”

As previously discussed in Bits & Pieces, the combined Flutter Wireless Development platform is quite comprehensive, considering it’s Kickstarter and crowdfunding origins. Flutter Wireless comes packaged with Atmel’s ATSHA204 to ensure maximum secure storage and protection of encryption keys. Flutter is designed to address security and wireless in a combined package. The platform is comprised of a design, which encompasses a special cryptographic hardware (Atmel’s ATSHA204) that integrates cryptography into every communication layer of the software. In essence, this gives the user ultimate control over who can and cannot communicate with their devices.

The project is given strengths by making it accessible via the Open Source community – ensuring the possibility of enhancing the roadmap by contribution to improve upon Flutter Wireless foundation though the power of the community. Furthermore, Flutter’s wireless concept seamlessly routes messages across a varied number of connected devices to reach their destination. It’s sort of like a lily pad of daisy chaining across many nodes or protocols. With that said, there is a world of potential in the IoT buildup for a number of reasons. Arduino already has a big open-source following. First, this is already proven (via the Maker Movement and Maker Faire) and it’s one of the easiest ways to bridge the physical and digital worlds together. Flutter Wireless can be a node in a larger mesh network, which could be useful for large public projects. (i.e.  Let’s say, a hobbyist or passionate drone user wants to fly his drone to the next town over, keep it connected across RC and mesh networks all within good range and security).

The winning formula:

ARM + Encryption + Easy Development + New IoT-Based Radio + Mesh + Shields + Open Source + Community + Crowdfunding = Thousands of lines of agile code, mesh support, tagging, and various protocol features required to support IoT buildup

Potential applications for Flutter Wireless include:

• Quadcopters
• Landscape sensors
• Agriculture remote sensor installations
• Remote security implementations
• Crowdsourcing spectrum analyzers
• RC hobbyists

Flutter still finds itself under development and continually evolving. The prototypes were designed with the Sparkfun Arduino Pro Mini for rapid development and proof of concept. Out of this ideated adventure, a new generation of boards are in the process being developed with Atmel SMART™ ARM-based SAM3S, a very affordable, versatile and powerful ARM core processor with a capacity for speed and storage space to suit any designer’s connected device project.

•  Atmel SMART™ SAM3S Cortex™ M3 Flash MCU (ARM based processor at 64MHz)
•  Cryptographic key storage using Atmel’s SHA204 CryptoAuthentication
•  Mesh networking capable
•  1,000+ meter range
•  915 MHz operating frequency
•  1.2 Mbps* max data rate
•  3.3v system voltage
•  10-40mA current draw (normal use)

More details can be found via the Flutter Wireless website. Devices found within this innovative wireless development platform can be found at Atmel’s product ARM processors page and said security components can be located on Atmel’s Cryptography product page.

Atmel strengthens its IoT leadership

Atmel today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Newport Media, Inc., a leading provider of high performance low power Wi-Fi and Bluetooth solutions, that will enable Atmel to offer designers and Makers the industry’s most complete wireless portfolio of smart, connected devices for the Internet of Things (IoT).

“This acquisition immediately adds 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to our offerings and will accelerate our introduction of low-energy Bluetooth products,” explains Atmel CEO Steve Laub. “Combined with our existing Wi-Fi and Zigbee solutions and industry leading microcontroller portfolio, Atmel is positioned for substantial growth in the Internet of Things marketplace.”

Expanding Atmel’s already broad SmartConnect™ wireless portfolio, NMI’s 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth certified products offer innovative, highly integrated solutions that will accelerate seamless communication and connectivity for the Internet of Things. NMI’s products combined with Atmel’s ultra-low power microcontrollers (MCUs) are designed for a broad spectrum of applications including industrial, home and building automation, and consumer products requiring smaller form factors and longer battery life.

Analysts at IDC recently confirmed the arrival of a connected future as the worldwide market for IoT solutions is expected to increase from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to a staggering $7.1 trillion in 2020.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel is well-positioned to benefit from the rapidly evolving Internet of Things. According to Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Andrew Uerkwitz, Atmel is one of a handful of companies that makes MCUs that will increasingly be in demand, with today’s announcement further bolstering its leadership position in the IoT market.

Interested in learning more about the IoT? You’ll want to check out our extensive Bits & Pieces IoT article archive here.