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New innovation on mbed OS based IoT products putting the human experience front and centre at MWC Shanghai

The sixth MWC Shanghai will open from June 28th ~ July 1st, 2017 with the theme of THE HUMAN ELEMENT. ARM will showcase how leading brands in China and across the Asia Pacific region are spearheading IoT innovation and commercial IoT devices at the event.

ARM executives, including Michael Horne, deputy GM and VP of Marketing and Sales for IoT, will be available in person to discuss this momentum of exciting products at MWC Shanghai 2017.

Much has been discussed around the potential of IoT in shaping sectors around smart cities, energy management, industry 4.0 through operational efficiency but as part of the industry showcase, MWC Shanghai marks the time when we can start seeing how commercially available IoT devices are bringing the human element in the centre of our experiences with brands. Three key trends stand out:

1. Secure voice-enabled AI in the home 2. Acceleration for applications driving personalised experiences in retail 3. Certified stacks are ready for products where experiences depend on connectivity

Secure voice-enabled AI in the home

The quest for new and unique customer touch-points has been the holy grail for consumer goods companies since the dawn of e-commerce. IoT allows brands to move to fulfilling consumer needs in real time, or even in a pro-active manner by anticipating customer needs or wishes . However, customer satisfaction doesn’t necessarily come with bombarding potential goods and services to a consumer’s needs and hence with mobile, digital commerce trends have looked for moments that shape ‘commerce as conversation’.

One of the most exciting opportunities enabled by IoT is offering these moments through intelligence and particularly voice-enabled AI in the home, where such conversations are most prevalent.

47% of all voice-AI capable devices by 2021 are expected to be in Asia Pacific (Ovum, 2017).

The trick is in identifying this opportunity, and what is needed to make it successful, early. Leading brands such as Baidu and RDA are forming a strong ecosystem of devices that offer consumers peace of mind with robust security and connectivity while still being able to differentiate on affordability and functionality.

Meet DuerOS, championing Chinese voice AI-capable device ecosystem in the home:

IoT enabled devices using mbed OS 5, Baidu’s DuerOS ecosystem offer one-stop intelligent voice interaction solutions that take advantage of the most efficient compute processing, built-for-IoT security features and quicker time to market.

“By leveraging the robust connectivity and security features of ARM mbed IoT Device Platform in Baidu’s DuerOS product, Baidu will be able to provide smart home AI devices to millions of households by the end of 2017.”

- Xingfei Ge, Deputy General Manager, Baidu Duer Business Unit

“Our ARM mbed OS compatible RDA 5981 WiFi MCU platform supports OEMs to shorten the time to market requirements for IoT device development and manufacturing. By providing a rich set of expansion interfaces, RDA 5981 finds popularity among OEMs in the fast growing applications such as smart buildings and consumer electronics. We anticipate shipping 20 million pcs over the next year.”

- Shuran Wei, CEO of RDA Microelectronics

Transforming retail experiences

Since the advent of e-commerce, retail growth has become closely linked with how consumers can access goods and services with increasing convenience. Today, our most trusted interactions are delivered through smartphones and mobile devices. To drive meaningful and more satisfying interactions, the growth of IoT Beacons is offering new opportunities to retail.

IoT Beacons are expected to grow at over 24% year over year, capturing a sizeable share of the global retail IoT market that is expected to grow to USD 94.44 billion by 2025 (Grand View Research, 2017).

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is expected to enable the fastest growth in retail:

Driven by beacon technology for pre-tailing, payments, and post-payments operations, the stage for lots of applications driven on BLE beacons is set.

Developers can capitalize on this growth by taking advantage of the robust BLE support in ARM mbed OS 5, and ARM mbed for Eddystone released by Google.

“By utilizing ARM mbed IoT Device Platform, Minewtech has been able to rapidly develop BLE beacons targeting smart retail applications. The expected commercial deployment from Minewtech over the next 12 months is over 100,000 mbed BLE beacon devices to be deployed globally.”

- Dragon Long, Co-Founder and Vice President of Minewtech

“By utilizing ARM mbed IoT Device Platform, Thundersoft, an ARM mbed partner since 2014, has developed IoT applications for healthcare, building automation, logistics and retail monitoring, targeting an estimated $80 billion total market size. Thundersoft has deep embedded system integration expertise combined with ARM mbed’s rich IoT technology features brings much value to our customers.”

- Larry Geng, CEO of Thundersoft

Creating new experiences with connectivity innovation

Pace is key to capturing the opportunity in high growth markets for IoT. Products that are based on interoperable, open standards based, certified and supported connectivity stacks can reduce time to market significant for components and end products. Whichever market you want to aim for, the journey to production devices is made easier with two critical elements:

Latest certified stacks for connectivity – like, the certified mbed OS Thread 1.1 specification which eases device certification, and

Ease of using the same application between devices using different connectivity through a choice of supported platforms and modules.

This is allowing visionary companies building on ARM mbed OS 5 to rapidly create new IoT solutions that transform the human experience in more markets in exciting ways.

Multi-vendor choice for the connected device ecosystem:

Choice spanning modules, 85+ supported silicon platforms and interoperable components are all key to getting end-products quickly to market. These have huge potential to extend the human experience beyond home and retail.

“HUAWEI OceanConnect and ARM mbed OS are working together to build an edge-cloud collaboration platform. We are committed to the openness and standards to accelerate innovation in IoT systems. HUAWEI is focus on connected car, smart city, smart home, utilities and other fields to promote technology and business prosperity. Expected in 2020, HUAWEI, ARM and third party partners will join forces to build ten million of connections and more than $1 billion in total market size.”

- Jin Guo, OceanConnect IoT Platform Director, HUAWEI

Interested in keeping in touch with the latest commercial IoT devices? Find out more about the latest ARM mbed OS 5.5 and join the wave of successful IoT devices commercially available. Follow @ARMmbed or via the hashtag #ARMmbed on Twitter.

Bee Hayes-Thakore is director of marketing programs for IoT at ARM.

#commercial iot devices #oems #iot products in market #baidu #voice ai #google eddystone #iot beacon #retail iot #time to market #successful products #mbed os #china #mwc 2017 #huawei #thundersoft #minewtech

Register now for a webinar by The Thread Group

Now that Thread 1.1 is readily available for product development, I’m getting a lot of questions about how to learn more about it and start writing applications.

On Tuesday, 9 May 2017, at 8:00AM Pacific Daylight time, The Thread Group will host a webinar entitled “Learn How Thread Delivers Value to You and Your Customers”, covering everything you need to get up to speed. - How Thread fits with other wireless connectivity technologies - Why Thread was created - What benefits Thread brings to developing IoT solutions - How to get started now

Grant Erickson, President of The Thread Group, will host the event, joined by Sujata Neidig, VP Marketing, Thread Group. The event is free! To register today click here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/612692241690045187

How to update a billion devices in field?

It’s time again for the world to gather at Hannover Messe (April 24-28), where the theme of the Digital Factory will see businesses from around the world explore the challenges and opportunities that Industrial IoT (IIoT) brings. For the first time, ARM experts will be there, showcasing how our unique mbed Cloud technology can enable secure device management to drive down costs in the industrial operations that increasingly utilize IoT products. Stop by the ARM reception desk in Hall 8, Booth #E31, or schedule your meeting today.

In the last 12 months, we have seen a transformation in how the IoT is viewed by business: More than 50 percent of senior leaders report that IoT is an important part of their business strategy, and many companies are now rolling out IoT services.

In the next five years the European IIoT market is expected to be worth $629 billion. To unlock this potential, ARM has developed technology that will reduce the cost of scaling-out secure IoT systems.

One of the major challenges facing IoT deployment is addressing the operational needs of devices through their lifecycle, particularly in ensuring that devices have the correct software installed, that firmware is protected against security vulnerabilities, and that as new devices are installed, application and functionality updates are managed.

Understanding the last mile: Will the update reach?

In the industrial context, a remote device may be embedded in a harsh environment where access is limited. It may be buried next to a mast in a weatherproof case; it may require technicians to travel hundreds of miles to repair. These devices may be deployed across a diverse network topology at the edge. Mechanisms designed for previous networked equipment may even be too constrained for IoT devices. When we discuss the needs of teams responsible for managing and updating IoT devices, the success and return on investment of IoT deployments depends on addressing questions like:

How can I update my devices?

What happens if a thunderstorm hits?

What if there is a power outage part way through the update that corrupts info on the device?

ARM will showcase how easy it is to administer secure, reliable, fail-safe updates with the new mbed Cloud device management solution. Most solutions allow developers to bring their own mechanism to build firmware and software updates into IoT deployments. mbed Cloud Update delivers all of the required components in a simple service to make secure remote updates possible.

Secure: Offering authenticity, integrity and confidentiality protection

Fail-safe: Update campaigns protected during power failures and no rollback

Campaign tracking: Accurate campaign tracking reducing maintenance costs

Conditional control: Rules to avoid interrupting critical device operations

Moving trust closer to the edge brings cost savings

ARM mbed Cloud Update works in conjunction with a device-side secure bootloader that OEMs can use to ensure that the firmware update being administered is validated and authenticated before it is loaded on the device.

Security is a cornerstone of mbed Cloud Update and the enhanced service secures delivery of firmware over multiple infrastructures and protocols, which is essential for connected industrial operations. As security elements are independent of transport protocol, the service supports a wider range of protocols. It also supports caching in the cloud environment. This enables users to bring update capability across a range of networks whilst saving money and improving flexibility. The service will also support encrypted update packages. This can be used to protect IP or to observe security licensing restrictions.

Further, updates across large deployments scaling millions and billions of devices can take a long time. Thunderstorms may not always be the culprit, but power fluctuations or power outages through long update campaigns are all too common. mbed Cloud Update is designed to support practical considerations for remote throttling and rollback protection preventing devices from being accidentally or maliciously rolled back to an older, more vulnerable firmware version.

Look for tried and tested pathways to production

Lower costs are realized by reducing field call-outs for devices that haven’t updated as desired in the campaign. Being able to troubleshoot devices can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for each time someone has to be sent into the field to access devices. Blueprints and approaches for such update campaigns are well established and can be tuned to address IoT requirements with the right partner and ecosystem to accelerate efforts.

At Hannover Messe, we will showcase how mbed Cloud Update can offer a simple, easy-to-implement service that brings fail-safe, reliable and secure updates to your Digital Factory’s connected operations. Join us.

Bee Hayes-Thakore is director of marketing programs for IoT at ARM.

#hm17 #iot #mbedCloud #iotnews #IOTSecurity #ARM #update #fota

ARM mbed OS is Thread-certified!

Here’s some great news about Thread, the low-power, secure, mesh networking specification that uses IP protocols.

On February 9, the Thread Group announced availability of the first four Thread-certified software stacks and officially opened the product certification program. This announcement culminates three years of intense collaborative development by Thread Group members and launches a new era of low power, IP based mesh networking. Manufacturers are already submitting products and components for certification as the Thread Group prepares to release the Thread 1.1 specification to the public. Here at ARM, we’re pleased to offer one of the first four Thread-certified stacks.

These exciting announcements triggered a flood of inquiries about Thread technologies, testing, and certification. As ARM’s representative on the Thread Group Board of Directors, and Secretary of the group, many of these questions land on my screens. In this blog, I’ll answer the ones most frequently asked. You will find more information about the Thread Group at threadgroup.org and mbed.com.

· What are these “stacks” and why is “certification” of these stacks so significant? A Thread stack is a layer of software that implements the Thread 1.1 IP based mesh network specification. “Certification” means that the stack has passed Thread’s conformance tests in a mixed network environment with other stacks and radios. Thread could have taken the easy path and started product testing with a single reference implementation. Instead, the group certified four stacks simultaneously across four platforms, thereby ensuring that four different development teams agree on how to interpret the specification while confirming multi-vendor interoperability. This approach also validated Thread’s automated test tools and scripts, thereby minimizing product certification time and cost for member companies.

· Can I begin developing a Thread based product right now? How do I get started? Yes! Thread-certified stacks are available today from ARM, NXP, Open Thread, and Silicon Labs. Information about Thread in mbed is here and all Thread certified stacks are listed here. To help get you up to speed quickly, the Thread Group is hosting a Technology Workshop at Google on March 27. We’ll provide a technical overview of Thread, detailed development information from each stack vendor, previews of application layer protocols that can run on top of Thread, and other information you’ll need to get your product running and certified. Registration information for the workshop is here.

· Do I have to start from scratch? No. The ARM stack is delivered as part of mbed OS so you can start developing software applications right away without tinkering around with OS integration. The Thread Group also provides members with access to a smart phone based commissioning tool for device onboarding so you don’t have to write that code. Members also get access to the test harness and scripts, enabling in-house conformance and interoperability testing before submitting your product to the independent lab for certification. This accelerates certification and reduces cost.

· Do I need to be a Thread Group member in order to start developing a Thread product? No. You can start right now with any of the four certified stacks. Have fun! However, you will need to join the Thread Group in order to get all the Thread tools, certify your product, receive the Thread logo, and benefit from Thread’s IP policy.

As a founding member of the Thread Group and contributor to the specification, ARM is very proud to see Thread-based products interoperating with one another and in the queue for certification.

If you’re interested in developing with Thread, please contact threadgroup.org and join us at Google on March 27 for the Thread Technology Workshop.

We also have just released mbed OS 5.4, that also includes flexible filesystem support, a bootloader and firmware update framework. Find out more about this release here.

Lighting the path to production for connected buildings with mbed OS 5.4

One in five companies has begun rolling out Internet of Things (IoT) services and products, and half of those surveyed say IoT will be an important part of their business strategy. That’s according to the latest Economist Intelligence Unit IoT Business Index, published in February this year. These are significant percentages, and they signal that IoT is starting to emerge from the boardroom and now being integrated into businesses and industries. This is evident in the ARM mbed ecosystem, with several commercial shipping products already based on mbed OS 5, and more in engineering sample and volume testing phases of their design and certification. The latest release of this OS, mbed OS 5.4, delivers new features to enable developers to tackle some of the key challenges they’re facing in applications such as connected buildings.

Further, the report highlights that transformation is in motion in IoT in 2017: New networks and connectivity coming to wide-scale deployments are a major visible signature of this change. Several analysts, including ABI Research, have examined the range of protocols within IoT and their observations resonate with the above: "Moving forward, it might not be a case of either Bluetooth or ZigBee or Thread, but rather utilizing a combination of these technologies in a single device." These in turn place strong requirements on the part of the device product development.

Through mbed OS 5.4, developers now have the choice, from cellular, Wi-Fi, 802.15.4, BLE, Thread or sub-GHz 6LoWPAN. The mbed OS team also recently demonstrated early features of NB-IoT connectivity at Mobile World Congress in February 2017. As multiple protocol connectivity also impacts storage requirements, mbed OS 5.4 adds flexible filesystem support to address the needs of IoT applications requiring storage within the end node.

Smart buildings, smarter inhabitants

A study by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and United Technologies found that cognitive functions improved with better indoor environmental quality and ventilation. These included a 50 percent increase in focus, doubling in crisis response, and a tripling in information usage and strategic thinking scores. Hence, it may not be surprising that addressing the needs of buildings’ occupants is the highest priority for smart building technologies.

Connectivity enhances a building’s responsiveness to internal changes as well as resilience against external challenges. Today, high performing buildings are expected to respond to a myriad of stimuli from the internal environment (changes in lighting, temperature, humidity, CO2, ventilation and occupancy levels), requirements of information technology (structured and unstructured data from the cloud and on premise computers) and demands from operational technology (signals from elevators, security apparatus and heating and cooling systems).

The Thread Group has recently opened testing and product certification for devices taking advantage of Thread connectivity. It results from the first set of software stacks also completing interoperability testing. This enables developers to start creating applications aimed at residential buildings. ARM mbed OS 5.4 makes the recently certified mbed Thread 1.1 stack freely available to developers, and includes solutions for building both end nodes and border routers based on Thread. A Linux-based Access Point to connect Thread networks to the cloud that utilizes the Thread border router is also available. Developers interested in learning about building smart connected lighting can find out more here.

Bringing smart lighting in to the spotlight

OpenAIS, a consortium of Europe's largest lighting manufacturers, recognizes the vast opportunity for developers to drive differentiation and innovative user experiences in commercial building lighting products and services. OpenAIS is creating a standard for Internet-connected lighting with a defined system architecture and open interfaces. Funded by the European Union, this initiative will deploy mbed OS in its demonstration system showcasing both Ethernet and Thread connectivity for smart lighting with leading lighting systems and controller manufacturers, opening a vast volume of devices for developers to build IoT applications.

The advantages of mbed OS 5.4 apply to more than just smart lighting. A connectivity demonstration using the LoRa stack that has been integrated into mbed OS 5 will be displayed, alongside with demonstrations for a number of different connectivity protocols, at the ARM booth (Hall 3, booth 342) at Embedded World in Nuremburg (March 14 to 16), illustrating the flexibility of our solution. Make sure you drop by!

Bee Hayes-Thakore is Director of Marketing programs for IoT at ARM.

#mbedOS #embedded world #Release News #thread connectivity #developer #lora #connectivity #IOTSecurity

ARM mbed at Embedded World 2017: Enabling a truly secure IoT

Visitors at Embedded World 2017 in Nuremburg will have the chance to hear from two of mbed's security experts, Peter Aldworth and Milosch Meriac, as they each tackle one of the most vital challenges faced by every industry adopting IoT: how to enforce strong, reliable security that spans from the chip, all the way to the Cloud.

The importance of strong entropy for IoT device security

Peter Aldworth will be speaking during the Exhibitor's Forum (with free attendance for anyone with an exhibition pass), presenting his case for strong entropy as the most vital cornerstone to ensure true end-to-end security, from silicon to services.

To that end, his presentation covers the theory of strong entropy and its relation to security, as well as the important considerations for designers of IoT. Key takeaways include how device security must be implemented to support Transport Layer Security, TLS, and positions hardware entropy sources (e.g. True Random Number Generators, TRNGs) as recommended for IoT devices.

High-End security features for low-end microcontrollers

Milosch Meriac's technical session will be presented on Day 1 of the conference. In his talk, he will present components for enabling highly granular and yet lightweight system level security features used in combination with new ARMv8-M cores.

Although connected microcontroller systems are ubiquitous, the security measures found on these systems commonly lag behind mobile application processors and desktop CPUs by more than twenty years. The result of this shortcoming is that potential remote attackers can have an easy game to escalate application bugs to system privileges. Once malware becomes resident, the system turns irrecoverable.

High-end embedded systems security solutions enable fine-grained access control and process separation by implementation of the 'Principle of Least Privilege'. Usually such security measures are implemented using memory management units (MMU). The MMU hardware allows the OS to control, on a fine-grained level, which peripherals or memories are accessible in which context. The equivalent hardware security components to MMUs on microcontrollers are memory protection units (MPU).

Recent embedded operating systems for microcontrollers are starting to use MPUs for implementing spatial and temporal process isolation, but commonly at very high costs in terms of call-latencies and loss of real-time properties. The new ARMv8-M security architecture enables high-end hardware security features for microcontrollers that, until now, have only been available to high-end mobile applications and desktop CPUs.

In his presentation, Milosch will introduce examples to show how an OS can utilize ARM TrustZone technology, MPU and AMBA AHB5 to implement process isolation, without impacts to real-time capability of the system. His talk will also address accelerating common security requirements for features like dynamic secure memory allocation during runtime, flexible inter-security domain communication and peripheral-protection - all on a per-process level on MMU-less microcontrollers.

In addition, he'll present how TrustZone technology enables secure boot and allows microcontroller systems to recover even when part of the system is being attacked and compromised.

To learn more, visit Peter and Milosch's session during EW 2017 or visit the ARM booth in Hall 3 at Stand 342.

OMA LWM2M: Breaking down the silos that limit IoT at scale

Thanks to everyone for the huge interest in the LwM2M webinar we hosted on February 13th. The timing was excellent as version 1.0 of the LwM2M specification was just finalized and published so we were able to share the most recent developments with our attendees.

We often hear concerns from our partners as they grapple with scaling out their IoT deployments, as they find that silos within IoT have created vendor lock-in issues, stunting their potential growth.

IoT is still at an early stage and, as often happens in other industries, there are a lot of proprietary developments. With the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) LightWeight Machine-to-Machine (LwM2M) and our ARM mbed Cloud IoT device management solution, we want to open today’s narrow IoT silos. A device management standard offers a number of possibilities: first, you can take a LwM2M compliant IoT device from vendor A and connect it to a cloud provider B. Second, you can switch from cloud provider B to cloud provider C, if you are unhappy with the offered service. Third, you can see all the details of the technical specification and even participate in the development of the standard. Finally, with more companies participating in the design, testing and implementation, the quality tends to be better, which cannot be underestimated in context of security.

Within the mbed partner ecosystem, we share a strong vision for the future: To securely deploy commercial IoT devices at scale, to be harnessed by the broadest possible range of enterprises. To deliver the true potential of IoT, we need any device, connected over any communication network, to interact securely with any cloud application platform and be targeted by any developer.

The LwM2M protocol provides a common standard for controlling constrained and low power devices in a network agnostic way, securely facilitating the remote management and enablement of devices. When implemented, it hides device and network diversity from cloud developers, presenting a consistent RESTful interface. Built on proven IETF standards, such as CoAP and DTLS, the LwM2M protocol defines an extensible resource and data model for devices. All of these features make LwM2M an ideal basis for the mbed Cloud services.

The OMA standard provides a foundation for the following aspects of mbed Cloud:

Securely managing the lifecycle of each device in large scale IoT deployments: From manufacture, to bootstrapping into an active deployment, managing IoT device/service trust relationships and removing devices from service when necessary.

Collecting data from devices to enable their behaviors to be analyzed and quantified.

Sending data and control commands to devices.

Triggering and managing remote Firmware over-The-Air (FoTA) updates.

With the completion of version 1.0 of the LwM2M specification, our work is not finished. We are working with the OMA towards the upcoming testfest (see http://openmobilealliance.org/event/oma-testfest-event-hosted-by-smith-micro/), and will continue to help drive this standard forward, addressing the future needs of secure IoT deployment management and prioritizing interoperability, efficiency and increased developer productivity.

Want to know more? Here are some resources for further information:

Request a copy of Hannes’ LwM2M whitepaper

LWM2M version 1.0 release

View the Webinar recording and Q&A: Device management with OMA LWM2M protocol

View the Slide deck

Thread Group opens testing to members, accelerating development of products

Guest blog by Bill Curtis, secretary at Thread Group and Senior Director Software Technologies NBV at ARM:

Here at ARM, we are very excited about this week’s announcement from the Thread Group. Simultaneous availability of conformant Thread 1.1 stacks from multiple suppliers, including ARM, will jump-start development of new products for the connected home. Product categories include lighting, climate control, appliances, energy management, security, or any other “thing” in the home. Thread fills a big gap in the industry by making these products more secure, easier to use, and easier to connect using open Internet protocols.

This means that consumer electronics companies can begin development right now using Thread stacks from ARM, NXP, or Silicon Labs. In addition to these stacks, Thread members have access to automated tools that greatly accelerate testing and certification throughout the product lifecycle. These tools include a test harness with a large set of scripts to confirm proper operation in accordance with the Thread 1.1 specification. Developers can integrate the test harness with automated test systems so that regression testing can be automated.

Since founding Thread with six other companies in 2014, ARM has made major contributions to the specifications, automated test tools, and verification process. We are very pleased to include our fully conformant Thread 1.1 stack as an integral part of mbed™ OS 5.2. “Conformant” means that ARM’s software passes Thread’s automated test procedures. Stacks from NXP and Silicon Labs also pass the same tests, thereby inspiring confidence in the validity and stability of the Thread 1.1 specification.

You can find more information about Thread here and mbed OS here.

Read the full announcement release here.

ARM mbed Cloud is here!

ARM mbed has today announced our new IoT device management solution, mbed Cloud. mbed Cloud simplifies the connection of any IoT device to the cloud in a secure and efficient way, allowing a service provider to easily manage devices and unlock their full value throughout their lifetime.

The Internet of Things revolution is here and now connecting billions of devices worldwide, with more joining the party every day. For us at ARM, it is evident that many more devices are coming and for all of the right reasons.

Connectivity: A plethora of wireless connectivity options are widely available and the next wave of low cost wireless technologies is already in sight, including cellular networks tuned for IoT such as LTE Cat M and LTE-NB, low powered mesh networks like Thread, 6LoWPAN and BLE, as well as Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWA networks) such as LoRa. Some of those connectivity technologies provide a low bandwidth connection.

Cost: Market adoption of IoT devices and technologies has driven module prices to the lower single digit range. The use of unlicensed spectrum has reduced the ongoing connectivity costs.

Low power: Power efficient connectivity solutions are paving the way for new use cases that call for dispersed, zero maintenance devices.

Connecting and serving all of those devices is an opportunity and a challenge accepted by ARM! The mbed Cloud is ideally placed to address this set of challenges caused by the scaling out of IoT deployments.

The mbed Cloud is an end-to-end offering, with a holistic approach to IoT. It aims to expedite the development of secure, standards-based innovative devices and cloud applications.

A device in the IoT world needs to be updated and secured throughout its lifecycle. mbed Cloud tackles common device management needs with an IoT angle, serving small and constrained devices with optimized network utilization and easily handling low-powered and battery operated devices.

mbed Cloud also addresses the more challenging needs that require intimate knowledge of security, device software and hardware architecture. In addition, it offers an IoT-specific focus, with features like identity management, remote over-the-air software update, production line tools and management of secure assets and smart supply chain rights delegation.

mbed Cloud services - Connect

mbed Cloud Connect is a powerful command and control service between devices and mbed Cloud. It offers reliable, as well as secure, delivery of device data to be managed and used in your IoT application. It is at the heart of mbed Cloud and is based on a set of industry standards building blocks, optimized for IoT devices and networks.

Large networks of IoT devices will have devices coming from multiple suppliers. mbed Cloud’s use of standard application level protocols[1] is the key to preventing vendor lock-in (a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs).

mbed Cloud communicates with the devices using OMA Lightweight M2M, the protocol and its building blocks are:

- OMA Lightweight M2M (LWM2M) - an application layer communication protocol between a LWM2M Server and a LWM2M Client optimized for IoT devices. The protocol makes use of a light and compact building blocks and an efficient resource data model.

- Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) IETF RFC 7252 a specialized web transfer protocol for use with constrained nodes and constrained networks.

- Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol IETF RFC 6347, enabled by mbed TLS, provides communications privacy for datagram protocols. The protocol allows client/server applications to communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery.

mbed Cloud services - Provision

mbed Cloud Provision provides secure management of device assets. Ordinary people simply call these “secrets”.

Secrets are handy when new devices come to life on the production floor and when they’re powered on for the first time. mbed Cloud Provision assigns a secure identity to the device and creates trust between mbed Cloud and the device. That trust is a key enabler for multiple services throughout the device lifetime.

mbed Cloud Provision will enable the following type of services:

- Services that are based on sensitive data coming from the device that should be shared with a data consumer (which is not the service provider).

- Activation of services or features that have an associated cost across the device lifecycle.

Some examples of possible services:

- Advanced inventory management - Supply chain simplification by SKUs reduction, through features enablement after shipment instead of on the production line.

- Sensitive data management - Secure locking of sensitive information (Personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive personal information (SPI)) on the device, all the way to the cloud and on the cloud. Once on the cloud, restricted access to the sensitive information.

In the wise words of Stephen Covey: “Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication …and all relationships.”

mbed Cloud services - Update

IoT devices have a long product lifetime of up to 20 years. To enrich those devices and unlock additional business potential and address defects in the device, you must replace the device software. Remote over-the-air software update is the only cost effective way to distribute and install new software.

mbed Cloud Update provides a fail safe and secure software update mechanism. The service includes an end-to-end update orchestration managing and monitoring the update process. Updates can be performed over-the-air, over USB or by a cable updates. The Update client is pre-integrated to leading IoT OS’s.

Want to find out more about how mbed Cloud can help you to scale your IoT solutions to the next level? Sign up to receive more information about mbed Cloud.

mbed Cloud is one part of the overall secure, scalable IoT strategy at ARM - read the full news brief for further detail!

[1] Lower level protocols as messaging protocols (e.g. MQTT) do not prevent vendor lock-in.

Last day to register for mbed Connect (plus mbed demos, sponsored sessions and more)!

We’re fast approaching our first developer summit, taking place Monday the 24th October in Santa Clara, CA. The last few tickets are still available so be sure to secure your attendance today!

Presenting the latest mbed demos at mbed Zone during ARM TechCon

There have recently been quite a few new developments in the mbed IoT Device platform, including the latest version of mbed OS. While mbed developers have been enjoying these new functions and features, internally we’ve been working on fine-tuning our example deployments and creating ground-breaking IoT solutions.

All these engineering efforts will become reality at the mbed Zone (Booth #612) during ARM TechCon 2016, where attendees can check out working example deployments and some seriously innovative demos.

The mbed OS 5 demo will show a wide range of connectivity options, including GSM, 6LoWPAN and BT among others.

We’ll also be showing our indoor connected lighting demo which is running mbed OS and connecting via mbed Device Connector with a web app built for controlling the lights. Another demo monitors a refrigerated food delivery network to minimize waste and spoiled food via sensors connected over WiFi to the cloud. We also have a range of partners showing their own demos, built on mbed.

mbed Connect and ARM TechCon: We will be hosting a variety of sessions

Both programs are packed with informative technical sessions, including an entire mbed Connect track devoted to IoT security, covering the creation and management of secure devices and how mbed enables end-to-end security through a device’s lifetime.

At ARM TechCon, Senior director of mbed OS, Simon Ford will be presenting a deep dive into mbed OS 5 and providing an update on the latest mbed OS release, a platform OS designed for Cortex-M microcontrollers, including updates on the new RTOS kernel, connectivity standards and integrated security and services of the platform. He’ll also share a view of the diversity of hardware supported and what it takes to bring new platforms to mbed OS.

Director of cloud services, Alon Shamir will be speaking about secure device management with mbed and IoT cloud services and how we’re addressing IoT's diverse array of connected "things," from cost-optimized low energy sensors to security sensitive devices, while easily integrating with pre-existing 3rd party cloud solutions.

Senior Principal Engineer, Hannes Tschofenig will cover device management in his talk about LWM2M and discussing his newly-published whitepaper, which will be available online early next week.

Principal Security Engineer, Milosch Meriac will also present on practical real-time operating system security for the masses and will show how spatial isolation process memories using the ARM v7M Memory Protection Unit (MPU) works.

A wide array of other mbed experts will also be presenting so check out the full TechCon program.

Visit mbed Connect 2016: The first mbed developer summit

We’re pleased to announce the full program for mbed Connect US, with keynotes, technical sessions, guest speakers and hands on workshops for everyone.

Keynotes: The future of IoT and mbed

"Accelerating innovation, productivity, and value with IoT" will be presented by Michael Horne, VP Commercial Operations & Marketing at ARM.

Where are we heading as we shape the future of IoT? Join Michael as he delves into the challenges of complex and fragmented deployments as enterprises move past a "start small, think big" mind-set around IoT. He'll be discussing these barriers to innovation in IoT and how to build strategies for the future.

"Building the next generation IoT for a global ecosystem" is presented by Dipesh Patel, EVP Incubation Businesses at ARM.

Developing IoT solutions to address real problems faced by organizations may bring huge benefits but also creates some serious challenges. Dipesh will speak about how to scale out your IoT deployments while also prioritizing security throughout the device lifecycle and network connectivity, all the way to the cloud.

Guest speakers from across the mbed Ecosystem

We will also be offering a series of guest speakers across three technical tracks, with experts from NXP, Spirent Communications, Comtech and Multitech addressing a wide variety of hot topics in IoT.

With less than three weeks to go, tickets are quickly disappearing, so make sure you secure your spot as soon as possible!

View the full program here.

The little board with big possibilities – exploring the BBC micro:bit

We've been involved in the BBC micro:bit programme for 18 months and we're excited that there are now more than 700,000 children in schools across the UK learning to code with their micro:bits. These pocket-sized boards were designed to unleash some serious creativity and we're already seeing new innovative creations come out of the classrooms. The BBC's main site is at http://www.microbit.co.uk, and there are some fantastic high-level editors there that are, like the hardware itself, built on top of mbed.

As well as the fantastic response to the programme, we've had a lot of interest in how people can progress from those visual editors and use C/C++ on their micro:bit, so we recently took the time to put together a few video tutorials for some easy programs that can help anyone get started using mbed. Check them out below!

micro:bit hello world

Discover the easy way to get started with your micro:bit! This demo runs you through the first steps you need to follow to start programing. Learn how to import and run the “Hello World” program, which scrolls a message on the board LEDs.

micro:bit accelerometer

The micro:bit accelerometer program reads the physical position of the board then translates the x and y positional values as an LED lit up on the display.

micro:bit heart proximity

By experimenting with two micro:bits for this project, you can use the radio TX /RX libraries that are part of the micro:bit DAL to display a proximity meter in the shape of a heart on the micro:bit LEDs, which empties or fills depending on how close the two boards are to each other.

If you're interested in a little bit of the history of the micro:bit, you can see the original blog post we wrote a year ago when the project was announced. https://developer.mbed.org/blog/entry/bbc-microbit-mbed-hdk/

More Resources:

https://www.microbit.co.uk/

https://developer.mbed.org/platforms/Microbit/

https://developer.mbed.org/teams/microbit/

mbed Round Up – July 2016

We’re rounding up the most recent highlights from the ARM mbed team, including a bunch of developer blog posts, a couple of new mbed Enabled™ Platform introductions and an event recap!

Building with BLE

Wirelessly updating your technology is a key requirement for many IoT devices. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is one communication technology that is geared at supporting these resource constrained devices.

We recently received an event report by the mbed team from the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in Austin, TX, where they set up an interesting interactive beacon demo to show off the capabilities of BLE. Attendees picked up a beacon programmed to display their name then, by combining a couple different technologies, the team were able to manipulate the screens on multiple participating ecosystem partner’s booths on the show floor and have it greet attendees by name as they walked by.

Want to strap a beacon to your cat and try this at home? You can get the demo source code at http://www.mbed.com/s/DAC16 and get started! Or read more about the build in this blog post.

New mbed Enabled Platforms

We’re excited to welcome a couple new mbed Enabled platforms to an already long list of mbed compliant hardware.

The Vekatech produced VK-RZ/A1H starter kit uses the ARM Cortex-A9 processor and provides a slew of on-chip functions and interfaces, making it a powerful platform for a wide range of tasks.

The CoCo-ri-Co! module from Elektor has also been welcomed into the mbed Enabled family. It’s a completely open source digital potentiometer module that allows developers to add a rotary control to any project.

Recent dev blogs

A new Bluetooth library: SimpleBLE Post-mortem debugging with ARM mbed Now available: Secure WebSockets and MQTT over TLS libraries Building your own LoRa network

ARM TechCon 2016

This year’s ARM TechCon will be held in Santa Clara, CA on October 25th-27th. Naturally, the mbed team will be in place to meet and greet participants, so if you’re interested in attending, make sure it’s marked on your calendar! The Super Early Bird ticket sale ends July 8th so be sure to register today and get a discounted price on your pass.

#IoT #mbed #BLE

mbed Round Up - April 2016

The start of 2016 has been a great couple of months for ARM® mbed™ from Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany to the release of the BBC micro:bit to school children in the UK and now to the mbed OS and mbed Client 16.03 releases. Here we have rounded up some of the best highlights of 2016 so far.

mbed OS and mbed Client 16.03 Releases

The current and most up-to-date versions of mbed OS and mbed Client have been released!

mbed OS 16.03 offers the latest features for mbed OS and associated tools. Focusing on improving the core tools, underlying technologies and testing. Full release notes.

mbed Client 16.03 introduces enhancements in the form of new APIs, new functionality and latest bug fixes. Full release notes.

Micro:bit Rollout

The rollout of the BBC micro:bit began last week, with the device being handed out to thousands of 11-12 year old school children across the UK. The micro:bit is enabled by ARM mbed hardware and software development kits and compiler services. Additionally, it contains an ARM Cortex®-M0 based Nordic nRF51822 MCU featuring Bluetooth 4.0. Find out more about the BBC micro:bit here: https://developer.mbed.org/platforms/microbit/

Also, a bit of fun with Jonny Austin (technical lead for ARM mbed on the BBC micro:bit project) juggles three micro:bit devices to show how fun applications can be created with the technology.

Wearable reference design

The mbed Wearable Reference Design has been released and the downloadable design resources can be here. The watch started its life as an research and development project to prove mbed was suitable for low power wearables – we certainly achieved this with 2+ months battery life and decided to open source the design files to show what is achievable when using products from the mbed ecosystem. Basing new wearable designs on this project will allow OEMs to produce new products in weeks rather than months.

SX Create Workshop 2016

This year mbed took part in SX Create which is a part of the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas. Interactive is the technology part of SXSW, the largest music festival in the world. At the event Jan Jongboom and Austin Blackstone hosted a workshop, ‘Build IoT: Making Music on a Microcontroller,’ where participants had the chance to combine music with microcontrollers, by exploring how sound is created, playing with buzzers and using accelerometer data as input for algorithms. Also, a connection with mbed Device Connector was made, allowing everyone to send their creations to and from the cloud. Excited? Grab a NXP FRDM-K64F dev board, a buzzer and some piezo pads, and head to https://github.com/janjongboom/sxsw/blob/master/instructions.md for the complete workshop content, including instructions and all code!

Recent Blogs

Innovating for success with the mbed Wearable Reference Design

IoT Opportunities in Smart City applications at Embedded World 2016

Debugging a crashed device with CMSIS-DAP

A disco effect: Looping and wait() in mbed OS

#mbed #bbcmicrobit #sxcreate #wearables

Innovating for success with the mbed Wearable Reference Design

The mbed partnership is bringing together key tools that will allow a quicker route to differentiated products that can successfully drive great user experiences/ succeed in the market

A few years ago, we set out to explore new concepts and technologies around wearable devices that could contribute to the internet of things. We took our first working prototype and showed it running mbed OS and connecting it to cloud services at Dreamforce 2015 and several of you got to see it in full action at ARM TechCon 2015.

We gained first hand experience of the realities of building complete and complex physical products and understand the challenges one must consider. Then, we set ourselves some stretch goals: that it would last months on a battery, connect and interact with all your devices seamlessly and enable new forms of trusted interactions. Today, the mbed partnership has openly offered the software, electronic and mechanical design resources to the mbed developer community in form of the mbed Wearable Reference Design.

Design for a market of huge growth

In a report from earlier this week from Research and Markets, wearable devices with embedded sensors to monitor bodily activities - blood pressure, body temperature and heart rate, is driving the healthcare industry through remote data access.

Global Wearable sensors market is estimated to be worth USD 4.71 billion in 2015, and is expected to record a CAGR growth of 25.7% during the period of 2015-2020.

However, those watching the market growth keenly, are concerned about the need for differentiated products that would define the success of next generation user experience. Even WIRED commented in their 2016 CES coverage _“HERE’S A HANDY tip for following the wearables trend in 2016: just assume every company on the planet is making one. Most will be identical in every way, shape, and form.” _The resources made available here are aimed at unlocking this potential for faster differentiation in products and applications.

mbed partnership’s tools for innovation

So, let’s take a closer look at the mbed Wearable Reference Design resources

**Mechanical **– Component files, manufacturing documentation and any design files to make the product. You can use these files to replicate our device design, or as a starting point for modification into the form factor that suits your product. The flexibility of the software and electronics resources means that you can have a wildly different mechanical design for your product.

**Electrical **- The watch includes four boards; the main board is the most complex design in the mbed Wearable Reference Design and is manufactured using rigid-flex technology. It contains an ARM Cortex®-M3 processor, various radio communication interfaces and a number of sensors.

This can be customized through the choice of features by enabling or disabling the components. This added flexibility means you can create multiple different products using the same design.

**Software **– The software is a collection of mbed yotta modules. As you already may be familiar in mbed OS 15.11, yotta modules are single function, but can be used in combination to build new wearables from scratch by combining supported components and peripherals. This allows the to rapidly prototype new hardware peripherals by changing a single line in a JSON file!

Offer outstanding battery life

Battery life remains one of the biggest customer pain points for wearables, particularly around smart watches. We set out to build an extremely power-efficient design, offering a battery life in months. mbed’s Zach Shelby is still running his at 11 weeks as he headed to Embedded World 2016! If you are at the show, don’t miss out – go find out his current battery life at Hall 5, Booth 335. As is usual, battery life depends on MCU peripheral usage and careful management of software resources – hence, can allow significant energy savings when the peripherals are changed.

Wireframes, meet wearables

Successful product campaigns launch these days with their software ecosystems at the same time as software applications and UX bring out the value of the sensors for the consumer. To support this, mbed partners Silicon Labs has announced their Thunderboard Wear.

Drive disruptive experiences

The wearable market is driven due to the rising awareness of health and fitness, where sensor tracking and fusion play a major role. The wearable-as-notification-machine idea is one of the most popular use case for sensor fusion applied to healthcare across the mass market. This is where the combination of different capabilities can be a very powerful tool.

Amongst the software libraries, you will find example applications for basic functionality and continue to work with our partners to offer technology demonstrators that will open up new pathways to innovative products. Take for example, Myotest who brings specialist expertise in sport science and biomechanics bridging raw sensor signal processing to extract meaningful insights.

Myotest’s renowned step analysis library is bundled into the watch-demo libraries. Using accelerometer signal the library is able, amongst other things, to reliably count steps and automatically differentiate between walking and running. This solution can be easily integrated into fitness devices. The example application is just a start, building on the automatic run detection Myotest offers new running measurement standards to the market and compelling features for end users.

Consider through more accurate motion sensing and tracking, more sophisticated capabilities such as fall detection and alarm triggering can be actioned. This can be applied to a number of target audiences – to protect the aged from incidents; for remote employee safety monitoring; etc. The possibilities are outstanding!

So, what will you design and disrupt? We’d love to hear about how you plan to use the mbed Wearable Reference Design.

Bee Hayes-Thakore is an engineer by background and looks after marketing programs at ARM mbed

#IoT #wearables #smart watch #fitness band #ARMmbed #innovation #design files #emb2016 #embedded world

IoT opportunities in Smart City applications at Embedded World 2016

Only a few hours to go till we unpack our ARM mbed Internet of Things (IoT) demos at Embedded World (EW) on the ARM booth in Hall 5 stand 338. What is really impressive this year is that visitors at the show will see the diversity of solutions now offered by the mbed Partnership. At the ARM booth itself, our focus is showing how connected networks of sensor nodes can make construction environments and tools smarter. When one thinks of IoT, construction isn't the foremost runner in terms of the industry that can be revolutionized through connectivity. Contrary to this initial notion, connected sensing in physical environments can allow multiple ways in which efficiencies can be derived, across vast areas, where connectivity to the internet is a challenge and could represent a risk prone environment for those working in it. In many ways, construction environments are a good sampling of the challenges in Smart City IoT.

Read on to find out more about these demos and what else we will be on display at the ARM booth at EW.

mbed based LoRa Building Safety is a demo we assembled with our partners at IBM and MultiTech to show how IoT can be used to improve safety in harsh environments. This demo consists of a hard hat fitted with an accelerometer and LoRa radio connected to a MultiTech conduit, feeding data in to IBM Bluemix for analysis and visualisation. If the hard hat experiences a knock above a specified threshold it raises an alarm for other construction workers to help their colleague. LoRa was chosen for this environment due to its long range indoor and outdoor capabilities while only requiring a small battery. Other sensor options are available depending on the environment conditions, such as temperature, noise, air quality or chemical exposure can be appropriate for different use cases.

The sensor employed for this is the Seeed Studios 3 Axis digital accelerometer with I2C Grove connector. It’s connected to the FCC certified Multitech mDot LoRa module which connects to the Multitech Conduit gateway running Linux-Yocto and Node.RED. Data is then sent to the cloud using the MQTT protocol then analyzed and presented using IBM’s Bluemix.

mbed Enabled Smart Construction is a demo of a commercially available product being deployed that was based on our smart city reference design. The team at Converge took the mbed Smart City reference design featuring 6LoWPAN, to develop a product that is able to inform construction companies when concrete is strong enough to enable further construction. Concrete monitoring is a cost intensive, manual task which impedes work on a site for days and tends to be tremendously inaccurate and only done by analogous sampling and slump tests. By using IoT for this task it reduces the continuous task of manual measurements by the workforce while also reducing overall project cost. This solution is now built in to various large construction sites across London by Laing O'Rourke, UK’s top concrete manufacturer.

How does it work? The K64F running mbed OS reads a temperature sensor at the end of a long wire which can be lowered deep in to a concrete cylinder. Data is then sent over 6LoWPAN from the Atmel radio shield to a gateway located somewhere onsite which contains the other part of our reference design – the Atmel 6LoWPAN Gateway. Data then continues its journey to the mbed Device connector over IPv6 Ethernet CoAP where the nodes can be remotely managed. Using a REST API the Converge Webapp registers for updates and processes the temperature data ready for display and alerts to be sent to the construction team when the concrete is mature enough.

mbed will also be shown in other parts of the booth, for example the IoT Subsystem for ARM Cortex-M processors is a demo showing mbed OS running on the new ARM test chip consisting of a Cortex®-M3 and Cordio® radio IP. This demo shows the TRNG sending random numbers over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to a nearby smartphone. Full details and photos are available on the blog here.

Many more demos will be shown by our mbed ecosystem partners across the show floor. Why not take a walk over to…

· Silicon Labs (booth 4A-128) who will be showing off the Thunderboard Wear development board derived from our mbed Wearable Reference Design.

· ST Microelectronics (booth 4A-138) will have many mbed demos on show including a Bluetooth beacon scanner built from a Nucleo-F401 development board and BLUNRG BT-LE shield and demonstrations of secure microcontrollers supported by mbed .

· u-blox (booth 5-158) will be happy to give a demo of their ODIN-W2 module that includes WiFi and Bluetooth and the new Bluetooth Low Energy NINA-B1.

· OnSemi (booth 5-178) will be demonstrating mbed OS and the 6LoWPAN networking protocol stack running on NCS36510, a low-power system-on-chip with 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4-2006 hardware accelerated MAC and transceiver.

When it comes to the end of the day and you are struggling to find a taxi why not meet the team at Semtech (booth 2-631) who have fitted the city’s taxis with LoRa radios and also giving away demo kits for you to get involved.

Don’t forget to check out the embedded wall on the ARM booth which is rather impressive with over 70 different ARM based development boards on display. While there are more than 70+ boards in the ARM ecosystem that we would have liked to showcase, it’s all we had space for. If you know of any other ARM based boards we have missed off the list get in touch and enter our daily competition to win a selection of development kit here.

See you at the show.

Debugging a crashed device with CMSIS-DAP

When it comes to programming microcontrollers, the one scenario that you never want to face is a device that suddenly hangs. It's already very frustrating while you're developing software, and tracing down these bugs can be very time-consuming; it's even worse when the device is already deployed in the field. Replicating the exact conditions in which the device failed can be almost impossible in the lab, especially when the failure manifested itself months after deployment.

Fortunately mbed-enabled hardware ships with CMSIS-DAP or its successor DAPLink, which allow you to directly hook into devices using the built-in USB ports (on developer boards), or a debugging probe like SWDAP. CMSIS-DAP is responsible for mounting your mbed OS board as a mass-storage device for easy flashing, but it can also be used to dump the RAM and ROM of a running device, enabling you to do post-mortem debugging on a hanging device.

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