IoT Development Kits
Design Trends and the Transformation of Everything
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By Greg Toth for Mouser Electronics
IoT Dev Kits at a Glance
Design engineers can rapidly develop new Internet of Things (IoT) products and
systems through the new tools found in IoT development kits (dev kits), which are sets of hardware, software,
and firmware components that enable engineers to prototype and test their IoT applications rapidly. These kits
resemble typical microcontroller development and evaluation boards, but they focus more on the sensors,
actuators, and communications interfaces that we frequently find in IoT use cases.
Developers use IoT dev kits to create applications that access cloud computing
services where sensor data processing and storing occurs. They can also use IoT dev kits to create stand-alone
IoT applications. Some kits feature expansion connectors that allow developers to add new modules in a
mix-and-match fashion. Although IoT dev kits typically support software and firmware developments in C/ C++
programming languages, some of them work with other languages, such as Python or JavaScript.
Key Facts
- Gartner predicts that spending on IoT services will reach nearly $3 trillion by
2020.
- An IoT dev kit typically falls into one of three categories: Cloudconnection,
local network, or gateway (a system that connects legacy applications to the Internet).
- IoT dev kits often include components such as breadboards, jumper wires, expansion
boards, power supplies, batteries, sensors, and actuators.
Mouser Manufacturers Leading the Way
- ON Semiconductor recently released a modular platform, the Bluetooth IoT dev kit,
for developing and prototyping Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) IoT applications. At the 2018 electronica
conference, ON presented IoT demonstrations of battery-less and wireless edge nodes implemented with BLE.
- Seeed Studio created the Eagleye 530s Dev Kit for the Samsung ARTIK IoT platform
to enable developers to prototype and build with off-the-shelf sensors, voice recognition, relays, a Global
Positioning System (GPS), cellular connectivity, and more.
- Cypress Semiconductor recently announced two new dev kits for the PSoC 6 family of
devices that provide secure, low-power processing to a broad range of IoT applications at the edge.
See Also:
The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications has introduced a growing number of IoT dev kits that
provide new tools for design engineers working on IoT products and systems.
What Is an IoT Dev Kit?
An IoT dev kit is a set of hardware and software or firmware components that help design engineers create, test,
and evaluate new IoT designs using a combination of microcontrollers, sensors, actuators, and communications
interfaces. These kits are an evolution of the development/ evaluation board concept, which has long been used to
test and esvaluate microcontrollers and peripherals.
The main difference that IoT dev kits make is creating an increased focus on sensors (e.g., temperature and
motion), actuators (e.g., light-emitting diodes [LEDs] and displays), communications (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and
Long-Term Evolution [LTE]), specialty processors (e.g., secure elements and artificial intelligence [AI] engines),
and firmware for secure connections to cloud computing environments.
Some IoT dev kits have a fixed set of components. Others have modular designs that enable you to add components
using Arduino shields, vendor-specific expansion buses, or headers, which provide access to inter-integrated circuit
(I2C), serial peripheral interface (SPI), universal asynchronous receiver and transmitter (UART), analog-to-digital
converter (ADC), digital-to-analog converter (DAC), general-purpose input/output (GPIO), and other signals.
In addition to hardware components, many IoT dev kits include software/ firmware libraries to control peripherals
and provide different communication protocols, including Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
networking and wireless communication protocols. IoT dev kits are typically used during the prototyping and
proof-ofconcept phase of the innovation-toproductization life cycle and serve as educational tools to learn about
the IoT. When used during product development, these kits are typically stepping-stones to customize and optimize an
electronic design for mass production. They are generally available as off-the-shelf items that vary in cost
depending on the functionality and components included in each kit.
Technical Domains
IoT applications typically involve multiple domains, including hardware, sensing, signal processing, communication,
security, and data analytics. As a result, multiple engineering skills are necessary. IoT dev kits strive to
accelerate usage by providing end-to-end sample applications along with documentation and tutorials. Firmware
programming is typically done in C/C++ integrated development environments (IDEs), but some kits support other
languages, such as Python and JavaScript. Some suppliers offer free IDEs for their kits; others use licensed
development tools that you must purchase separately.
Selecting an IoT Dev Kit
IoT dev kits vary by supplier, and the primary differences involve the microcontrollers; sensors, actuators, and
specialty processors; communications interfaces; available software/firmware libraries; and the supported
programming languages. IoT dev kit choices are guided by an evaluation of kit features and functionalities that will
most effectively support the IoT application you want to develop. For example, if you’re developing a smart
home device with a Wi-Fi and smartphone (via Bluetooth) connection, an IoT dev kit that supports Wi-Fi and BLE
communications is a priority. Other selection criteria may be the number and variety of software/ firmware libraries
available to support your application’s development: For example, real-time operating systems (RTOS)
libraries, secure communications libraries (e.g., for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure [HTTPS] or Message Queuing
Telemetry Transport [MQTT]), device control libraries (e.g., for sensor input/ output [I/O]), wireless communication
libraries (e.g., for Wi-Fi, BLE, and Zigbee), and libraries for connecting to different cloud computing systems.
These libraries may be provided in source code or binary form and may be open source, closed source, or licensed by
the supplier.
An emerging area in IoT design is the inclusion of AI processing near the sensors, either directly at the sensor or
in a nearby IoT gateway. This inclusion enables faster and more complex local data processing, instead of sending
large volumes of raw sensor data over the Internet to a cloud computing back end. Some IoT dev kits directly support
AI applications by including specialized AI processing chips.
Cloud Connectivity
Many IoT dev kits offer cloud connectivity, either to a Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or IBM general-purpose cloud
platform or to an IoT-specific cloud platform such as Medium One or Particle. Many of these cloud platforms offer
low- or no-cost ways to connect a small number of devices.
Example IoT Dev Kits
Many IoT dev kits are available. On the next two pages you’ll find six that represent what’s currently
available and the functionality they include.
Greg Toth is an architect, engineer, and
consultant with more than 30 years of experience in sensors; embedded systems; the Internet of Things;
telecommunications; enterprise systems; cloud computing; data analytics; and hardware, software, and firmware
development. He has a BS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and an MS in computer
engineering from the University of Southern California.
