Increase M2M Device Efficiency with LTE-M Wireless

The Third Generation Partnership (3GPP) telecommunications standard-building organisation has recently introduced the new LTE-M, or LTE for Machine-Type Communications, standard. LTE-M is intended to allow devices that operate on LTE (Long-Term Evolution) cellular networks to be less expensive, both in terms of hardware deployment and bandwidth costs, more power efficient – and generally better suited to the requirements of Internet-of-Things and M2M applications.

With IoT and M2M communications becoming more widespread, there has been a growing need for a version of LTE that meets IoT-oriented requirements of low power consumption and low cost at relatively low data rates, and this is exactly what LTE-M aims to deliver – low power consumption (up to five years for a device running on AA batteries), easy deployment, interoperability, low overall cost, and reliable wide-area coverage.

A key advantage that LTE-M has over alternative technologies for low-power wide-area IoT networks, such as SigFox or LoRA – is that it takes advantage of the existing LTE network infrastructure with no need to deploy new hardware.

Since LTE-M is able to share spectrum with standard LTE devices, this makes it a more attractive option for most mobile network operators compared to alternative LPWA technologies. Telcos only need to upgrade the software on their towers to enable support for LTE-M, without any need for hardware upgrades, which helps to keep transition costs low.

And as LTE-M is just a physical-layer change for operators, all upper-layer cellular features such as global roaming, billing, subscription management and support services can transition seamlessly.

LTE-M is also known as “Category 0” LTE, the lowest of the LTE device bandwidth classes, with a peak speed of 1Mbps. Category 0 is specifically aimed at the requirements of typical IoT and telemetry applications which require low cost and low power consumption, but not large amounts of bandwidth.

As well as reductions in power consumption and hardware cost in these more bandwidth-constrained devices, coverage range and reliability is improved, which is another desirable factor in the IoT market where devices may be used in remote areas on the edge of a network cell.

All these improvements, in hardware cost, network coverage and power efficiency, are important to ensure that IoT and M2M applications can be cost-effectively deployed on LTE mobile networks.

These changes are becoming more important as telecommunications network operators look to shut down obsolete 2G GSM – and even 3G, in some cases – network infrastructure. In Australia for example, Telstra has announced plans to have its 2G GSM infrastructure shut down by the end of 2016 – and although this is not a concern for typical consumer voice and data services it is potentially a real problem for some embedded IoT and machine-to-machine infrastructure where 2G modems are used on Telstra’s network.

A practical transition for these systems needs to be available soon, and it needs to be cost-effective and as simple as possible.

Although the standards that define Category 0 LTE-M devices are still a year or two away from widespread use, Category 1 LTE devices are deployable now, and these are viable for many M2M applications.

For example, Sequans has introduced a Category 1 LTE chipset solution named Calliope that is available now and is specifically aimed at the needs of low-cost M2M applications. LTE Category 1, at speeds of up to 10 Mbps, has been part of the 3GPP’s LTE specifications since the earliest days, which means that LTE network operators can support Category 1 devices without any need for network upgrades.

Category 1, and later Category 0, devices provide significant cost and power reductions compared to higher-bandwidth Category 4 or higher LTE devices, but they maintain seamless coexistence with regular LTE networks.

Category 1 LTE chipset solutions like Calliope offer engineers a basis for transitioning their cellular IoT/M2M designs which is available today and is sufficiently low-cost to remain competitive with existing 2G and 3G solutions while still providing all the performance, cost and longevity advantages of LTE connectivity.

Allowing devices that don’t require high throughput, like most M2M/IoT devices, to only access the limited class of bandwidth that they need allows cellular networks to be managed more efficiently, which is another advantage of using these low-bandwidth LTE device classes for IoT applications.

LTE-M includes mechanisms that give service providers the option of designating LTE-M IoT traffic as lower-priority than voice or video traffic from higher-revenue subscribers. This capability benefits both high-bandwidth Internet users and low-bandwidth IoT users as well as the telcos themselves.

Network operators reduce costs by using a single network for latency-tolerant IoT traffic and higher-bandwidth real-time services, while also avoiding the need to carve out spectrum for IoT markets that may take some time to grow in revenue. High-bandwidth users get more reliable services and IoT users get lower-cost subscription options that cost-effectively provide the amount of data and bandwidth they need.

Overall the upcoming LTE-M specification offers a win-win for both network operators and end users’ hardware and Internet-of-Things devices. And here at the LX Group we have end-to-end experience and demonstrated results in the entire process of IoT product development, and we’re ready to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, telephone 1800 810 124, or just keep in the loop by connecting here.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in IoT embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

802.11ah – WiFi HaLow for wireless networking solutions

In order to continue maintaining wireless standards to meet contemporary and future needs – the Wi-Fi Alliance has announced Wi-Fi HaLow, the Alliance’s branding for their work developing and promoting wireless networking solutions based on the IEEE 802.11ah standard.

The IEEE 802.11ah standard is a new extension of the very popular and widespread IEEE 802.11-2007 wireless networking standard, providing a new physical layer and MAC layer specification for Wi-Fi networks that can operate in the sub-gigahertz bands at around 900 MHz.

Because of the different propagation characteristics of radio waves at this frequency, this change significantly extends the range of existing Wi-Fi networks that currently operate in the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bands, and allows the radio to propagate through walls and obstructions much more effectively. This allows homes and buildings to be comprehensively covered with reliable Wi-Fi connectivity without using a large number of access points, with a probable need for only one access point per building for seamless, reliable coverage even in large buildings.

Having reliable wireless networking connectivity across a whole home or building with minimal infrastructure is particularly attractive for Internet-of-Things, home automation or building management applications, and these IoT applications are the main application area that 802.11ah networks are aimed at enabling. Wi-Fi HaLow opens up new use-cases for Wi-Fi, such as home automation, smart energy networks, wearables, consumer electronics, low-power sensors, and what the Wi-Fi Alliance refers to as the “Internet of Everything”.

IEEE 802.11ah has rebuilt and optimised the physical layer and the MAC layer from the ground up, although the higher network layers remain more consistent with existing versions of the 802.11 standards.

These changes provide extended range, strong improvements in power efficiency, more scalable operation, and an enhanced link budget compared to 2.4 GHz systems. At the same time, however, 802.11ah aims to leverage the established Wi-Fi and IP networking ecosystem where possible, for easy configuration, easy pairing to access points or mobile devices, and connectivity into existing networks and the Internet.

802.11ah supports 4, 8 or 16 MHz of bandwidth, allowing higher data rates depending on the allocated spectrum that is available in different regions, with the low-bandwidth 1 MHz and 2 MHz modes being mandatory and globally interoperable for all devices where this lower bandwidth is realistic. For example, 26 MHz is available in the 900 MHz band in the United States, making these higher-bandwidth modes accessible.

The standard aims to offer a minimum of 150 kbps of throughput with 1 MHz of bandwidth used, or as much as 40 Mbps with 8 MHz of bandwidth. This is obviously less than what we expect from traditional Wi-Fi networks, but the favourable combination of moderate bandwidth, moderately low power consumption and long-range propagation make 802.11ah an attractive competitor with other technologies such as IEEE 802.15.4/6LoWPAN in building automation and IoT applications.

These lower-bandwidth nodes are well suited to low-cost battery operated sensor devices in IoT applications, where a relatively low data rate is required. No power amplifier is required for “home scale” transmission distances, and the minimum data rate of 150 kbps means that IoT sensors transmitting short, lightweight messages can remain in a sleep state most of the time – and wake up for a short period to transmit a burst of sensor data, lowering average power consumption and offering maximum battery life.

Average power consumption in this type of application is also reduced by using more efficient protocols at the MAC layer, such as smaller frame formats, sensor traffic priority, and beaconless paging mode. The MAC is also optimised to scale to thousands of nodes by using efficient paging and scheduled transmissions.

As with existing 802.11 Wi-Fi devices, the work of the IEEE and the Wi-Fi alliance ensures that 802.11ah devices will be interoperable across all the different hardware vendors, with a strong open standardisation process that brings in participation from many industry representatives and stakeholders.

With its focus on embedded and IoT applications such as home automation, 802.11ah is not intended as a general-purpose high-speed wireless networking solution for the home or office. It is likely to deliver significantly reduced speeds compared to familiar 802.11 networks, with speeds in the low tens of megabits per second. This is perfectly sufficient for the typical kinds of intended applications with an IoT focus, however.

The 802.11ah standard is intended to be an attractive competitor to Bluetooth in IoT and consumer electronics applications, offering longer communications range than either Bluetooth or existing Wi-Fi, but with a significantly reduced power consumption compared to familiar 802.11 Wi-Fi solutions on the market at present.

As this technology becomes more available in the market, it’s likely that it will begin to supplant Bluetooth in certain consumer electronics applications, as well as supplanting other wireless standards such as existing Wi-Fi and 802.15.4 networks in the Internet-of-Things domain where relatively long-range communication with a large number of low-bandwidth devices is required.

Here at the LX Group we have end-to-end experience and demonstrated results in the entire process of IoT product development, and we’re ready to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, telephone 1800 810 124, or just keep in the loop by connecting here.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in IoT embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Atmel’s new low-power ATBTLC1000 chipset for the Internet of Things

Atmel has recently launched a new wearable computing development platform aimed at energy-efficient IoT and wearable computing applications, just in time for the influential 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

This ultra-low-power platform, based on the ATBTLC1000 system-on-chip, is a design-ready development board that showcases some of Atmel’s power-efficient, smart and secure devices for embedded wireless connectivity applications, as well as inertial and environmental sensors from Atmel’s technology partners.

The ATBTLC1000 SoC offers a complete hardware and software solution – making it easy to get started with the development of portable, battery-powered devices with Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth Low Energy 4.1) connectivity – serving application areas such as wireless data logging, wearable computing, and other popular and rapidly growing IoT markets.

Atmel’s new hardware platform is one of the smallest, most power-efficient Bluetooth Smart hardware reference platforms on the market aimed at IoT and wearable applications – and it’s very easy to get started using it for evaluation and hardware or software development, with everything you need to get started provided ready-to-go.

Atmel believes this development platform provides a hardware and software ecosystem that is easy to use out-of-the-box, helping developers accelerate their product development in emerging areas such as wearable computing, personal healthcare and fitness logging devices, Bluetooth Smart IoT applications and other markets.

All of which could benefit from the powerful combination of wireless Bluetooth Smart connectivity, a powerful ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller, on-board temperature, humidity and pressure sensors, a six-axis inertial measurement unit, and very efficient use of battery power.

Atmel’s Wearables Demo platform integrates the Atmel Smart SAM L21 ultra-low-power microcontroller, which uses an ARM Cortex-M0+ core, alongside Atmel’s ATBTLC1000 system-on-chip which gives the system wireless connectivity using Bluetooth Smart.

The platform also includes a capacitive touch sensor interface, hardware cryptographic and security capabilities, and a set of sensors from Atmel’s partner Bosch Sensortec. The sensors provided on the board include a BHI160 6-axis inertial measurement unit, measuring acceleration and rotation in three dimensions, and a BME280 environmental sensor which provides temperature, humidity and barometric pressure measurements.

All these hardware features are integrated into a very small reference board with dimensions of only 40 by 30 millimetres, making this reference design particularly attractive for developers working on size-critical applications such as portable and wearable devices.

Of course it’s still a valuable development platform for all kinds of IoT applications requiring Bluetooth Smart connectivity or as an evaluation platform for the ATBTLC1000 or any of the other devices featured on the board, even if the application you’re working on is not size-critical.

Atmel’s new ATBTLC1000 Bluetooth Smart chipset is available packaged in a tiny 2.2 x 2.1mm Wafer-Level Chip Scale Package, making it 25 percent smaller than the closest competing Bluetooth Smart device on the market. This enables designers to create ultra-compact designs for the next generation of Bluetooth-connected wearable devices, Internet-of-Things products and industrial applications.

Furthermore, power management is a highlight of the new platform – the Atmel Smart SAM L21 microcontroller at the heart of Atmel’s Wearable Demo platform is claimed to be the lowest-power ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller on the market, and this is combined with the industry-leading energy efficiency of the ATBTLC1000 Bluetooth Smart system-on-chip.

This makes it a perfect foundation for battery-powered IoT and wearable computing applications where strong energy efficiency and battery runtime is important but the performance of a 32-bit ARM microcontroller is also desired.

The SAM L21 has a current consumption as low as 35 microamps per MHz in active mode, and right down to 200 nanoamps in sleep mode. In fact, the power consumption of this microcontroller is so low that it can often be powered from a single lithium coin cell in some applications.

This device delivers an impressive score of 185 in the EEMBC ULPBench suite, which is an industry-standard benchmark of energy efficiency in low-power embedded devices, and this is the best score recorded for any ARM Cortex-M0+ device currently on the market.

This powerful, compact hardware platform is also backed up by a software ecosystem provided by Atmel, making it a complete development platform that allows you to very easily get started experimenting with and developing energy-efficient IoT and wearable computing applications that combine Bluetooth Smart connectivity with a powerful microcontroller, long battery life, and a range of sensors, all in a very small form factor.

To help you get started easily, the software development process is simplified through the use of Atmel Studio 7, Atmel’s flagship IDE for their microcontroller products. This platform is also compatible with Atmel START, Atmel’s intuitive new web-based development tool for software configuration and code generation, and Atmel also has a real-time operating system available for use with the ARM chipset.

We’re excited about the possibilities with this new chipset from Atmel – and with the Internet of Things and how it can be used to create new and innovative solutions to our customers’ requirements.

Here at the LX Group we have end-to-end experience and demonstrated results in the entire process of IoT product development, and we’re ready to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, telephone 1800 810 124, or just keep in the loop by connecting here.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in IoT embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

M2M connectivity made easy with Ericsson’s new Device Connection Platform

The Device Connection Platform from Ericsson is a cloud service for machine-to-machine and Internet-of-Things applications, which is specifically aimed at enabling telecommunications network operators to offer connectivity management to their business customers in the IoT/M2M sector.

This new platform enables mobile network operators to provide support services for a growing variety of IoT and M2M devices, as well as simplifying the process of large-scale IoT network deployment and reducing costs. Ericsson has recently acquired this M2M platform from Telenor Connexion, in an effort to build their technology and know-how in this growing sector. Telenor Connexion will become Ericsson’s first customer for the Device Connection Platform.

Ericsson’s DCP is a dedicated M2M/IoT platform aimed at enterprise IoT users that handles connectivity management, subscription management and integration with Operations Support and Business Support Systems. It also allows for automation of business processes between mobile operators and business enterprises.

The platform is sold as a cloud service, offering users the traditional cloud benefits of a low initial investment and a fast rollout – that can significantly reduce barriers to deployment of IoT/M2M solutions by cellular network operators and their customers, keeping the total cost of ownership down while maximising quality of service.

Ericsson’s platform supports network operators who are expanding their M2M and IoT business sectors by assisting with connectivity management across the whole device lifecycle, as well as assisting with the marketing of DCP-based services. Furthermore, the platform provides valuable functions such as subscription management, device management, and self-service Web-based administration portals for both operators and enterprise users. Ericsson’s offering is comprised of the basic Platform-as-a-Service functionality along with service portals and APIs for users.

By offering a range of APIs, Ericsson allows enterprise customers to integrate their back-end systems and processes with this M2M platform – allowing these back-end systems to access the data and capabilities of M2M/IoT networks.

Through a service portal, available at any time from anywhere, customers can access self-service functionality to manage and control their installed SIM cards, monitor operational status in real time, access analytics data, and perform other management functions.

Ericsson’s platform aims to make it more viable for device manufacturers, enterprises and service providers to deploy large Internet-of-Things solutions across geographical boundaries, and has already been implemented by some telecom providers abroad such as Orange, TeliaSonera and Bell Canada.

Multinational enterprises offering connected M2M/IoT services and devices to an international customer base are faced with a key challenge – how to provide an easily managed and seamless IoT solution for end users as they move between different providers and different mobile networks.

The fragmentation of mobile networks between different countries and different carriers is a major obstacle to global M2M deployments. However with Ericsson’s platform – the goal is for operators and their customers to enjoy a unified experience in large-scale mobile IoT deployments, including global use of a single SIM card, harmonised service levels and harmonised business processes, across multiple countries and multiple network operators.

Ericsson, together with the Global M2M Association – a cooperative effort between six international tier-one operators active in the M2M telecommunications market, have showcased their new Multi-Domestic Service at Mobile World Congress 2015.

The Multi-Domestic Service aims to address this issue of network fragmentation across different carriers and countries by delivering a single, consolidated M2M/IoT management platform, based on Ericsson’s Device Connection Platform. Three of the Global M2M Association’s members (Orange, Telia and Bell) have already started using the Device Connection Platform individually.

Orange Business Services have also recently announced that they have entered into a strategic agreement with Ericsson to use the Device Connectivity Platform. As with Ericsson’s other partners for this platform, their goal is to better serve the growing global M2M market and to respond to the need for multi-domestic connectivity with seamless user experience across different carrier networks in many countries.

As well as the cross-border mobile IoT efforts of the Global M2M association, the Device Connection Platform is also going to be adopted to support connectivity, security and device management by members of the Asia-centric Bridge Alliance of mobile carriers.

The Bridge Alliance aims to use the Device Connectivity Platform to lower the barriers to entry into IoT services for device OEMs and service providers across 36 different countries that are covered by the member companies in the alliance, with the goal of common end-user experience and back-end management.

Furthermore, the Bridge Alliance hopes to remove the need for complicated deals that businesses would otherwise have to negotiate with national telecommunications network carriers in each country they’re operating in, and enable them to create multi-national platforms and processes to support IoT services and devices that can seamlessly “roam” internationally and between different operators.

Considering the effort Ericsson has expended into the platform, along with the efforts of the Global M2M association – this new platform could be the solution to your M2M and IoT device needs.

Here at the LX Group we have end-to-end experience and demonstrated results in the entire process of IoT product development, and we’re ready to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, telephone 1800 810 124, or just keep in the loop by connecting here.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in IoT embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Amazon enters the Internet of Things with AWS IoT Platform

Not content to be the dominant player in the book retail and growing cloud storage market – Amazon Web Services have recently announced the newest addition to their popular suite of cloud computing services – the AWS Internet-of-Things platform. AWS IoT is a managed cloud platform for supporting large numbers of devices in Internet-of-Things applications and securely connecting them to each other, as well as to web applications and other AWS services.

AWS IoT can support a huge number of devices and messages, and it can reliably and securely process and route these messages to AWS endpoints and to other devices or services. It allows networks of IoT devices to maintain responsive connections to the cloud, and makes it easier to develop cloud applications that interact with IoT “things”. It receives messages from things and then filters, records, transforms, or routes these messages as needed.

The AWS IoT service provides an easy-to-use interface that allows applications running in the cloud and on mobile devices to access data sent from IoT devices, and to send data and commands back to those devices. This makes it easy to integrate your IoT devices and data with existing Amazon Web Services components including Amazon Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, Amazon Machine Learning, and Amazon DynamoDB. Using these services, you can build IoT applications, manage infrastructure and analyse your data.

Connected devices, such as sensors, actuators, wearables, smart appliances, and other embedded devices connect to AWS IoT securely, using either the HTTPS or MQTT protocols. AWS IoT provides authentication and end-to-end encryption throughout the entire platform, and data is never exchanged between devices and AWS IoT without without proper authentication and identity of each server or component in the network.

Using MQTT, the AWS IoT platform enables devices to communicate with the service through a publish-subscribe model. This means that a device, such as a smart thermostat, can publish its latest sensor readings and status updates to AWS IoT, and the server will push that data out to any subscribers to the thermostat’s MQTT channel. Any other application or device can be subscribed to the thermostat’s MQTT channel, such as a user-facing smartphone app or a home’s network-connected air conditioner.

Amazon makes it easy for developers to get started with AWS IoT by providing several SDKs. These SDKs help IoT developers to easily and quickly connect their hardware devices, applications and mobile devices to the AWS IoT platform. The Amazon IoT Device SDK makes it easy to set up devices that connect, authenticate and exchange messages with AWS IoT using either MQTT or secure HTTP.

With AWS IoT, you can filter, transform and act upon device data on the fly, based on business rules you define. You can update your rules to implement support for new devices or new application features at any time. The AWS IoT Rules Engine enables you to continuously process data from devices connected to AWS IoT, and filter and transform that data in whatever way you need. Using an intuitive SQL-like syntax, the Rules Engine can process data and deliver messages to your own Web services or third-party services, as well as routing messages to other AWS components including Lambda, Kinesis, S3 and DynamoDB.

For example, a rule may be configured as a trigger to start storing time-series data in DynamoDB when a sensor reading exceeds a certain threshold, or it may invoke Amazon’s Simple Notification Service to deliver push notifications to users.

This integration makes it easy to use the entire AWS ecosystem for further processing, analytics and storage of your IoT data. Furthermore, all internal message transport within the AWS ecosystem is not billed – moving messages between these services is free, regardless of the volume of data involved.

Pricing is based on the number of messages published to AWS IoT as well as the number of messages delivered by AWS IoT to devices or applications. (Traffic is measured in blocks of data, or messages, that are 512 bytes long).

The free AWS account tier allows you to get up and running to evaluate AWS IoT and other AWS components for free, with a limit of up to 250,000 messages published or delivered per month for 12 months.

Hardware support for the new AWS IoT platform is provided thanks to several hardware starter kits from partners including Broadcom, Intel, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. These starter kits include microcontrollers and sensors that are already tested and documented for easy integration with the AWS IoT platform – allowing you to easily get started prototyping and developing IoT applications.

With prebuilt hardware, the AWS IoT device SDK, and a simple getting-started guide included, you can get up and running quickly to see if the AWS IoT service is a good fit for your IoT needs. If you already have appropriate hardware, you can simply download the IoT Device SDK and programming examples from Amazon to get started.

Here at the LX Group we have end-to-end experience and demonstrated results in the entire process of IoT product development, and we’re ready to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, telephone 1800 810 124, or just keep in the loop by connecting here.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in IoT embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Introducing the Industrial Internet Consortium

The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) is an international non-profit organisation formed to accelerate cooperation around the development and widespread adoption of what they dub the “Industrial Internet”.

Founded in 2014 with AT&T, Cisco Systems, General Electric, Intel and IBM as the initial members, the IIC coordinates the development and promotion of the Industrial Internet concept, bringing together stakeholders in industry, government and academia in an open-membership organisation.

The “Industrial Internet” refers to the use of machine-to-machine communications and Internet-of-Things technologies in industrial applications, using interconnected machines and devices along with intelligent analytics to improve the performance and efficiency of industries – this focus on industrial applications is distinct from consumer-focused IoT technologies and services, which the IIC is not involved with.

For example, intelligent machines and devices in industrial processes can govern themselves, taking corrective action to avoid unscheduled breakdowns of machinery. Predictive analytics can be used to manage spare parts and prepare for maintenance and equipment failure in advance, minimising downtime.

Data from smart energy systems can be collected and leveraged to increase efficiency and decrease costs, and real-time data from connected systems can be used to increase efficiency in logistics and transport. These concepts are just a few examples of the benefits of Industrial Internet systems which the IIC aims to promote and to help standardise, delivering benefits across many sectors such as energy, manufacturing and transport.

The Industrial Internet Consortium itself is not a standards organisation, however it strongly advocates for open standards in order to ease the wide deployment of Industrial Internet technologies.

The IIC maintains active relationships with standards bodies, technology consortia and other organisations involved in the Industrial Internet, and the IIC’s Working Groups help identify the requirements for open interoperability standards, evaluate existing standards, and relate standards to their desired criteria for internet and industrial systems.

With a belief that organisations need to be able to more easily connect and optimise their assets and operations to drive agility in industry, the IIC believes that this need increases in importance as information and communications technology becomes more ubiquitous across all industrial sectors.

With an aim to bring together the organisations and technologies necessary to accelerate the growth of the Industrial Internet by identifying, assembling and promoting best practices – the group members hope to develop technologies and innovations that are safe, secure and interoperable as well as being based on open standards.

Furthermore, the consortium aims to identify desirable requirements for open interoperability standards and to define common architectures to connect smart devices, machines, people and processes, helping to accelerate uptake of Industrial Internet and big data solutions in industry, delivering increased efficiency and business value.

Rather than being a standards development organisation, the consortium was formed to bring together industry players – multinational industrial corporations along with academia and government – to accelerate the development, adoption and widespread use of Industrial Internet technologies, in part by influencing and cooperating with the development of standards by the standards-building organisations.

Specifically, the goals of the IIC are to drive innovation through the creation of new industry use-cases and test beds for real-world applications; to define and develop the reference architectures and frameworks necessary for interoperability; to influence the global standards development process for internet and industrial systems; to facilitate open forums to share and exchange real-world ideas, practices, lessons and insights; and to build confidence around new and innovative approaches to security.

By establishing a formal liaison with the Industrial Internet Consortium, companies and organisations can engage directly with their Working Groups and gain faster access to the development of standards and technologies helping to advance the Industrial Internet across a range of different industries and applications.

The consortium maintains a number of core Working Groups, such as the Technology Working Group, the Security Working Group and the Use Cases Task Group. The Use Cases Task Group identifies the architectural requirements and gaps that are yet to be filled in Industrial Internet applications and user scenarios.

The IIC’s Security Working Group was created to develop a common security framework and a rigorous methodology to assess security in industrial internet systems. This common security framework aims to identify and describe the consequences in security terms of connecting different security domains, such as industrial controls, analytics and cloud.

This focus on security with one of the core Working Groups reflects the high priority the consortium places on collaboratively building a safe, reliable and secure Industrial Internet.

The IIC Technology Working Group expects to ratify an Industrial Internet reference architecture this year, which will define functional areas and the technologies and standards for them, from sensors to data analytics and business applications, with a focus on open architecture. This will be published as a working technical paper, and will continue to be updated as it is applied and explored by consortium members.

IIC membership is open to all stakeholders interested in advancing the adoption of the Industrial Internet, including small and large technology innovators, vertical market leaders, researchers, universities and government organisations. You can learn more about the IIC through their website – http://iiconsortium.org/.

With experience in the entire process of connected product development for the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet, the LX Group is ideally placed to help bring your existing or new product ideas to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Low-power wireless home automation with the new NXP JN5169 series

The new JN5169 series of wireless microcontrollers from NXP is a range of low-power, high-performance RF microcontroller devices aimed at home automation and remote control, smart energy management, smart lighting and similar Internet-of-Things applications, particularly in consumer products as well as industrial environments.

These system-on-chip devices incorporate an enhanced 32-bit RISC processor and a comprehensive set of analog and digital peripherals along with an IEEE 802.15.4-compliant 2.4 GHz radio transceiver supporting the JenNet-IP, RF4CE and ZigBee Pro wireless networking standards. The 802.15.4/ZigBee network stack includes support for the ZigBee Light Link, ZigBee Smart Energy and ZigBee Home Automation profiles.

The JN5169 platform is Thread and ZigBee 3.0 ready, and it features a new toolchain for software development that offers extensive debugging capabilities while also allowing a reduction of up to 15% in compiled code size.

This family of devices have the ability to connect with up to 250 other nodes in a wireless mesh network, allowing them to be used in a variety of different mesh network and Internet-of-Things applications, from home automation and consumer electronics through to large-scale industrial applications.

There’s three chips in the new family, with different memory configurations to suit a range of applications – such as up to 512 kB of embedded Flash memory, up to 32 kB of RAM and 4 kB of on-board EEPROM. With up to 512 kB of flash on board, there is enough memory available to enable wireless over-the-air firmware updates.

This makes it easy to keep devices up-to-date with new features and security updates without the cost of additional external flash and without the need to replace or remove hardware devices in the field as new software updates are released.

The JN5169 is equipped with hardware peripherals to support a wide range of applications, including an I2C interface, an SPI port which can operate as either master or slave, up to 8 ADC channels with a built-in battery voltage monitor, a temperature sensor and support for either a 100-switch keyboard matrix or a 20-key capacitive touch pad.

The device also incorporates up to 20 digital I/O pins, a 128-bit AES security processor and integrated support for an infrared remote control transmitter, allowing remote control of devices such as air conditioners that use an infrared remote control.

Power use is incredibly low – the JN5169 series offers a very low receive current of just 14 milliamps, or as low as 0.6 micro amps in sleep mode – helping to keep standby power consumption low in household products such as smart lighting and to enable extended operation from small batteries in portable, battery-powered applications.

Furthermore, with a programmable clock speed capability – the JN5169 series can minimise power consumption in power-sensitive, battery-powered applications. Despite these strong energy efficiency features, an on-chip +10dBm power amplifier provides the JN5169 series with a transmission range that is double that of NXP’s existing RF home automation solutions, while drawing just 20 milliamps of current in transmit mode.

This is 40% lower than similar products currently on the market, according to NXP. Antenna diversity is also supported, maximising wireless performance and range while minimising energy use.

NXP is also offering a series of new reference designs for network-connected smart lighting solutions based around the JN5169, including white, tuneable white and RGBW colour-programmable Internet-of-Things lighting solutions.

These smart lighting reference designs are complemented by a range of other reference designs from NXP such as wireless switches, wall panel controls, smart plugs, IoT sensors and gateways, along with cloud services for controlling them that will be offered by NXP’s partners, making up a complete Internet-of-Things ecosystem.

Along with the use of the highly integrated JN5819 system-on-chip, these reference designs incorporate innovations such as the use of oscillator crystals rated for 85 degrees C rather than more expensive crystals specified for operation up to 125 degrees C.

Innovative hardware and software techniques incorporated in the JN5819 family allow the clock to be stable in high-temperature environments where these cheaper crystals are used. Design innovations such as these mean that NXP’s JN5169-based smart lighting reference designs have a reduction in total hardware cost of up to 25% compared to similar products on the market.

The JN5169 series also offers innovative solutions to the problem of setting up and commissioning IoT products in a user-friendly and secure way. These devices support near-field communications for device commissioning, making it easy and intuitive to provision new devices and set them up on the network with just a tap on an NFC-enabled smartphone or other device.

Using NFC connectivity for device commissioning is convenient and it also offers security benefits, allowing devices to be easily yet securely paired without broadcasting network details over the air.

This new JN5169 chipset from NXP will offer a new dimension in wireless home automation, and here at the LX Group we’re ready to bring your products to life. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

IoTivity – a new Open-Source framework and standards for the Internet of Things

The almost-exponential rise of Internet-of-Things platforms has led many observers and marketplace participants to consider if there are too many disparate or incompatible systems being released, and thus are starting to consider an open-source IoT platform as an option to allow for third-parties to integrate their own products into these new platforms.

Therefore the launch of IoTivity – a new open-source software framework and standards project is of great interest to the IoT community. IoTivity aims to enable seamless device-to-device interoperability to address the needs of the growing Internet of Things industry.

This means promoting and certifying open standards among IoT device manufacturers, allowing billions of IoT consumer products from a wide variety of vendors to be compatible and interoperable with each other.

After launching last year with promises of tackling the problem of device-to-device discovery and communication between consumer IoT products from different vendors, the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) has recently launched the initial version of their IoTivity standard and its open-source reference implementation. IoTivity is sponsored by the OIC and hosted by the Linux Foundation.

The project will be governed by an independent steering group that liaises with the OIC, whose project charter is to develop and maintain an open-source implementation that meets OIC’s specifications and passes their certification process – which everyone can work off as an open-source reference platform.

IoTivity aims to be a way for connected IoT products to share information on what they are and what they can do, enabling interoperability of devices from different manufacturers. For example, a smart IoT lamp that supports IoTivity may be able to tell an IoTivity-enabled TV that it is a lamp and it can turn on and off, and dim or change colours, in response to messages over the network.

The TV might therefore be able to use this information to automatically dim the lights when it is turned on. Devices can use this information to provide notifications or communicate information via “output” devices, to control other devices, or to use information collected from sensors and “input” devices.

IoTivity is intended to play a middleware role, somewhere in between the network or radio hardware in a device and the higher-level user applications that control a device. It’s designed to work smoothly and interconnect IoT products and devices in a way that “just works” for consumers – and without adding a lot of extra burden to software development for device manufacturers.

Consisting of both a standard that will be implemented in the firmware and software of IoT devices, and a testing and certification process that allows consumers to choose devices with confidence that their IoT products from different vendors can work together.

In the next few months the OIC aims to finalise and release a version 1.0 standard specification, and at the same time as this official release of the specification the IoTivity project will release a full open-source codebase which is a reference implementation of that specification (rather than the preview release previously available).

The founders of the OIC believe that an industry-standard specification, a reference software implementation, and a commitment to open-source are necessary to drive true interoperability across the growing IoT industry.

With this in mind, the IoTivity software framework is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license. The founders also believe that true innovation can happen most effectively when multiple parties come together to develop the source code in an open way, under an open-source governance process, which is why the Linux Foundation is involved.

Interested developers can get started learning about IoTivity today, by downloading and exploring the current IoTivity preview release. IoTivity is open to everyone, and OIC membership is not a requirement to participate in this open-source project. However, interested companies and developers working with IoTivity and interoperable IoT solutions are encouraged by the OIC to consider if membership in the consortium is right for them.

The IoTivity framework consists of four key components – including device and resource discovery, where IoTivity supports multiple discovery mechanisms for devices and resources both in proximity and remotely, and data transmission – where IoTivity supports interoperable information exchange and control between devices based on a messaging and streaming model.

IoTivity’s data management component supports the collection, storage and analytics of data from various resources across the IoT network, and IoTivity device management aims to provide a one-stop-shop that supports the configuration, provisioning and diagnostics of IoT devices on the network.

This allows a vast number of sensors and “things” to be easily configured, set up on the network and connected to each other, in a way that is easy for all users including home consumers.

The IoTivity framework APIs expose the framework to developers, and are available in several languages and for multiple operating systems. These APIs are based on a resource-based, RESTful architecture model, and API references are available for each release along with additional information on the IoTivity website and Wiki.

IoTivity aims to operate across all operating systems and network protocols, eventually, with current APIs, examples and support documentation available for Ubuntu Linux, the Arduino platform and the Linux-based Tizen operating system for consumer appliances.

Over the next few months, the IoTivity will offer great promise for an open-source Internet-of-Things – and success will be predicated on the amount of industry take-up. However IoTivity is only one of many platforms that you can harness for IoT product success.

To meet your IoT goals, the LX Group team can help you take your Internet-of-Things idea from the whiteboard to the white box. Getting started is easy – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Reduce M2M resource requirements with Lightweight M2M

The Lightweight Machine-to-Machine Enabler (LWM2M) is a new standard for the management of devices in machine-to-machine and Internet-of-Things applications. LWM2M is particularly aimed at resource-constrained end-node devices in applications such as Wireless Sensor Networks as well as Machine-to-Machine applications where bandwidth is constrained – for example where cellular connectivity is used to network remote devices.

Many devices in the growing industrial and commercial M2M and Internet-of-Things markets require some device management – devices need to be remotely switched on and off, woken up and put to sleep, sent remote requests for sensor data transmission, configured, provisioned, or remotely updated with new firmware.

In short, these devices call for protocols and services to effectively support them with device management, service enablement and application management. The design goal of LWM2M was to create a mechanism that is not only suitable for relatively powerful devices like smartphones or Wi-Fi routers, but also caters to the needs of more constrained devices – end-node IoT devices with low-cost hardware, with very limited memory or CPU capability, or devices that run off batteries with very low power budgets.

LWM2M is being developed by the Open Mobile Alliance – a collaboration of many companies working in the M2M service provider, software, hardware and system vendor space. For example ARM and Sensinode are just a couple of the companies involved in the Alliance.

As LWM2M is built on top of open standards defined by groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, it allows for interoperability between different devices and manufacturers, avoiding lock-in to proprietary standards.

For example, the LWM2M protocol stack is built on top of the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), which is an open IETF standard, as the underlying transfer protocol that is carried over UDP or SMS. CoAP is optimised for communications in resource-constrained or bandwidth-constrained network environments, which makes it well suited to Internet-of-Things applications, enabling the use of low-cost microcontrollers in prolific network-connected devices.

The decoupling of machine-to-machine products from their proprietary, vendor-specific management systems through the adoption of open interfaces and open standards can, theoretically at least, also accelerate innovation in the M2M/IoT markets both on the device side and on the server side.

In essence, LWM2M is a communications protocol running between LWM2M software clients running on all sorts of embedded end-node devices and LWM2M servers running on the M2M management platforms for these devices. The LWM2M protocol includes robust security of all communications between the client and the server using Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS), which provides a secure channel between the LWM2M client and the server for all messages interchanged.

The DTLS security modes supported by LWM2M include both pre-shared-key and public-key modes, providing support for robust security across both more capable embedded devices as well as very resource-constrained devices where public-key authentication is not practical.

LWM2M supports UDP binding with both CoAP and SMS, meaning that communication between the LWM2M server and the client can happen over SMS or CoAP, and low-cost basic cellular modems that can communicate over SMS without Internet connectivity can be used to build LWM2M networks.

This also means that LWM2M-equipped networks can be deployed almost anywhere in the field, without the need for modern Internet-capable telco mobile network infrastructure – the network only needs to be able to support SMS messaging.

LWM2M provides an extensible object model that enables application data exchanges in addition to the core device management features such as firmware updates and connectivity monitoring.

A RESTful style of architecture is applied to this, where the items to be managed on a remote device are considered “resources”. Uniform Resource Identifiers, or URIs addresses these resources on the network, which are much like the familiar URLs used on the Web.

Built-in resource discovery is supported using the CoRE Link Format standard, making the discovery of new resources on the network relatively easy. Related resources are grouped together into Objects, and this helps to cut down on processing overhead as the M2M client and the server on the platform side have a common understanding of what a certain resource actually is, by understanding the properties of an object that it is a part of – for example the manufacturer’s name, the type of network the device is currently connected to, the signal strengths of the cellular connection it uses, or other relevant properties.

Though the LWM2M specification comes with a set of predefined objects and resources, the set of objects is extensible. This means that other organisations and users can define new objects that are most suitable for their products and services in their particular corners of the M2M market.

The Open Mobile Alliance provides their LWM2M DevKit in the form of an add-on plugin for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, which is an implementation of the Lightweight M2M protocol, which enables you to directly interact with a LWM2M server from the Web browser on your PC.

This allows developers and users to easily get started, to interactively explore and comprehend this new protocol for machine-to-machine communication.

However if you are interested in upgrading existing products or developing new M2M-capable devices that could benefit from this new lightweight M2M initiative, getting started is easy. We invite you to join us for an obligation-free and confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.

Security concerns with consumer IoT devices

With the increasing popularity of Internet-of-Things connected products, security of these devices and their networks is a growing concern.

Let’s consider potential security vulnerabilities that can exist in Internet-of-Things appliances, and how these security threats may be mitigated. Security is a particular concern in the context of home automation devices and Internet-of-Things connected appliances in the home because hardware and/or software vulnerabilities in these devices have the potential to affect the security of homes, buildings and people.

Security vulnerabilities in these connected devices, such as home automation hubs, could potentially allow attackers to gain control of door locks or other actuators, access video cameras or otherwise compromise physical security.

Recent research from security firm Veracode has found that many of today’s popular “smart home” devices have security vulnerabilities, which are open to exploitation. The researchers examined a selection of typical always-on IoT home automation appliances on the market in order to understand the real-world potential impact of security vulnerabilities in these kinds of products.

The products that were studied by the researchers included the MyQ Internet Gateway and the MyQ Garage, which provide Internet-based control of devices such as garage doors, power outlets and lighting, the SmartThings Hub, a central control device for home automation sensors, switches and devices such as door locks, the Wink Hub and Wink Relay networked home automation products, and the Ubi home automation gateway.

These devices are just a representative sample of today’s popular “Internet-of-Things” appliances in the consumer market.

The Veracode researchers didn’t look for vulnerabilities in the firmware of the devices they looked at, but instead analysed the implementation and security of the communication protocols they use.

The researchers looked at the front-end connections, between the users and the cloud services, as well as the back-end connections between the cloud services and the devices themselves. They wanted to know whether these services allowed communication to be protected through strong cryptography, whether encryption was a requirement at all, if strong passwords were enforced and whether server TLS certificates were properly validated.

Researchers found that of the six products examined, only one enforced the strength of user passwords at the front end, and one of the products did not enforce encryption for user connections.

This research also looked at the back-end cloud service connectivity in these products, whether the devices used strong authentication mechanisms to identify themselves to cloud services, whether encryption was employed and whether safeguards were in place to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and if sensitive data was protected – for example by hashing clear text passwords and transmitting only the crucial data needed across the Internet service.

What they found was a general trend towards even weaker security, with two of the products tested not employing encryption for communications between the cloud service and the device.

It was also found that one of the devices did not properly secure sensitive data, and man-in-the-middle attack protection was lacking across all the devices tested, with the exception of the SmartThings Hub, either because TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption was not used at all or because proper certificate validation was not used.

This research suggests that connected products, marketed as appliances for the household consumer, have been designed with the assumption that the local area networks that they’ll be installed on are secure.

However, that seems to be a mistake since we know that if there’s anything worse than the security and user configuration we see with these new connected products, it’s the security of WiFi routers.

Researchers find serious vulnerabilities in consumer routers and their firmware routinely, and many of these have the potential to enable attackers to perform man-in-the-middle attacks on data going out to the Internet or to other devices on the LAN.

A quick search online and you can find default passwords for many IoT devices – often left unchanged or unable to be changed by users – and the security features in place are often very limited. User instruction and education can play a large part in minimising potential problems here – for example, choosing strong passwords, both for the Wi-Fi router as well as for devices connected to it, and regularly checking for and installing firmware or software updates provided by vendors.

This study is a good reminder to users to keep their networks secure by using strong passwords and security settings, across their PCs, phones or other devices, wireless access points and routers, as well as smart IoT devices. Furthermore, the research team also explored device debugging interfaces and services that run on these IoT devices which aren’t intended to be accessed by end users.

The team only investigated interfaces that are accessible over a network, whether over the local area network or through the Web. For example, attacking a device through a hardware interface, plugging a JTAG probe into a smart light bulb, is not considered to be a significant security threat compared to network-connected services.

This research explored whether access to these hidden services was restricted to users with physical access to the device, if open interfaces are protected against unauthorised access, and whether open interfaces are designed to prevent an attacker who gains access to these interfaces from running arbitrary code on the device.

The Veracode research found that the Wink Hub runs an unauthenticated HTTP service on port 80 that is used to configure the wireless network settings, the Wink Relay runs a network-accessible ADB (Android Debug Bridge) service, the Ubi runs both an ADB service and a VNC remote desktop service with no password, the SmartThings Hub runs a password-protected telnet server and the MyQ Garage runs an HTTPS service that exposes basic connectivity information.

It is simply assumed that all these things are secure because the wireless LAN they’re on is secure, but this is commonly not true and these networks are secured poorly or not at all. For devices with exposed ADB interfaces, this can provide attackers with root access and can allow them to execute arbitrary code on the device.

At this point the casual observer may consider all these new consumer IoT-based devices to be a security risk, however if developed by the right team nothing could be further from the truth. With a great design team and user education security can become a non-issue for the end user.

The easiest part is to find the right designers for your IoT-based product – and here at the LX Group we have the team, experience and technology to bring your ideas to life.

Getting started is easy – join us for an obligation-free and confidential discussion about your ideas and how we can help bring them to life – click here to contact us, or telephone 1800 810 124.

LX is an award-winning electronics design company based in Sydney, Australia. LX services include full turnkey design, electronics, hardware, software and firmware design. LX specialises in embedded systems and wireless technologies design.

Published by LX Pty Ltd for itself and the LX Group of companies, including LX Design House, LX Solutions and LX Consulting, LX Innovations.