IoT World Forum

An introduction to IOT

Boston Limited are in attendance at the Internet of Things World Forum held in London 29th & 30th November, as part of our participation we have published a series of video's showcasing the Supermicro Internet of Things Demo Kit.

If you're not familiar, IoT or "The Internet of Things" is a term used to describe a network of seamlessly connected smart devices, enabling them to interact with each other directly without human intervention. This is often reoffered to as machine to machine communication or M2M for short.

These devices tend to be embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that allow them to collect and exchange data amongst each other for the purposes of logging, or potentially triggering automated actions based on pre-defined conditions.

A good example of an IoT application would be a smart thermostat - something commonly found in homes today. These typically can be controlled by your smart phone while on the move and away from home via a mobile app. It can be allowing you to switch on your heating when you are on your way home to make it warm for your arrival back or turn the temperature up or down at will. It can be configured too to work on a variety of sensors and inputs to make its own decisions. For example, if it detects your phone has left the house via it's GPS location, it can turn the heating down or off on the assumption you went out. Equally, it can check the weather forecast, or external sensors outdoors for your area to proactively turn the heating up when cold snap is coming, or down if today looks like a sunny day - saving you money.

SUPERMICRO E100-8Q IoT GATEWAY

The Supermicro E100-8Q is a compact, secure IoT gateway from leading server and embedded systems provider Supermicro. It utilises an Intel Quark SoC x1021 processor, with an ultra-low TDP of just 2.2W, making it perfect for power constrained environments. 512MB of onboard DDR3 ECC memory is include, an SHDC slot allowing up to 32GB of internal storage, 2 Mini- PCI-E slots and 1 Zigbee module socket.

Anything from 0 to 50 degrees Celsius environmental operating temperature are supported - allowing it to be used in the extreme environments that IoT is often deployed into.

The E100-8Q is designed to reside on the edge of a network allowing easy integration of smart sensors and devices over wireless connections such as LAN, WIFI and Zigbee. It is also built on an open architecture to ensure compatibility between systems and allow users to securely share and filter data for analysis.

It's perfect for all kinds of IoT deployments, allowing data to be collected from sensors attached to the general purpose IO connectors, Zigbee, Bluetooth or wireless interfaces, and then uploaded via either Ethernet, Wifi or 3G networks for analysis in the cloud.

Find out more about the Supermicro E100-8Q IoT Gateway

IOT DEMO KIT

Supermicro have kindly provided us with a demonstration kit to show some of the things that can be achieved with IOT. The kit consists of a E100 Supermicro IoT gateway connected to various devices though wireless connections.

There is a smart light bulb that can be switched on and off and have brightness adjusted. A Window / door sensor, and a siren. It's also connected to a relay which can used to trigger power sockets, which I this case are connected to three fans.

There is also Tablet included in the kit which is used to manage all the items via an application, this could be any tablet, smart device or web interface however.

USING THE DEMO KIT

Using the application installed on the tablet we can remotely switch the light bulb on and off or adjust the brightness of the bulb.

This is useful if you want to turn your lights on, but don't want to get up off the sofa, or if you're approaching home and want the lights on ready when you get back. Equally, if you're away from home and you want to deter burglars, you could turn your lights on and off randomly from your phone or tablet.

Next, the window / door sensor. We've configured this to automatically sound the siren when it is opened and this will also display an alarm warning on the tablets application. Great as a home security measure, no matter where you are you can be notified that somebody is trying to enter your property

Lastly, we have the power sockets and the temperature sensor. We've configured the temperature sensor to monitor when it reaches a certain threshold to perform an action and to alert us. In this case, at 40 degrees, the first power socket will come on, then at 45 the second and at 50 the third. Each of these power sockets is connected to a fan, but they could be connected to any device.

Then when the temperature goes down, the fans will automatically turn off. This makes it a simple way to control temperature of something, but the combination of sensor and triggered action could be configured to perform a plethora of tasks.

This simple demonstration can be applied to a variety of different use cases, from the home to industry - it's obvious IoT is going to make a huge impact to our everyday lives.