To all the innovative developers out there, IBM, the software giant, has something in store for you. IBM on Monday announced a new development starter kit that will allow people to make their own connected/ IoT devices that too in a few minutes.
The ARM mbed IoT starter kit for IBM IoT foundation will allow hobbyists to make Internet of Things (IoT) products that are cloud ready and capable of transmitting and receiving data for alert or analysis. The starter kit will have ARM'S mbed Operation system and connect into the software giant’s BlueMix Cloud, which will help the users in the development of applications and services.
The kit has been especially designed for those who have little or no experience in the field of web or embedded development. The prototype designs available in the kit will assist hobbyists through the entire process of making a new device and then connecting it to the software giant's BlueMix cloud service.
According to the product's page on the ARM website, the ARM mbed IoT starter kit will get data from "the on-board sensors into the IBM cloud within minutes of opening the box."
According to data available from Verizon, there are almost 1.2 billion of Internet of Things devices already available in the market and this figure can touch a whopping 5.4 billion in a period of next five years. With its development starter kit, IBM and ARM are hoping to cash on this wave of mass adoption of IoT products.
The current situation of the IoT market is not that good. The market is highly fragmented with a variety of communication standards, hardware and operating systems in use. IBM and ARM have plans of bringing a level of consistency in software and hardware across internet of things devices.
The starter kit includes a board with a Freescale K64F Kinetis microcontroller, which further has an ARM Cortex M4 processing unit running at a whopping 120Mhz. The board is linked to IBM’s BlueMix cloud service with the help of an Ethernet connection. Other contents of the kit includes a Pulse-width modulation control line to receive digital signals, a five-way joystick, 1MB of flash storage, a 128 x 32 graphics LCD, accelerometer, temperature sensor, a speaker and potentiometers.
According to a statement by ARM, the starter kit currently has Ethernet for connectivity, but there's a possibility it may also include cellular or Wi-Fi in the near future.
No detail about the availability and pricing of the starter kit are available right now. Keep watching this space for more on ARM mbed IoT starter kit.
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