ARM Unveils Internet Of Things Starter Kit

Steve McCaskill,
ARM mbed IoT Starter Kit 1

British chipmaker teams up with IBM to get developers online faster than ever before

The Internet of Things (IoT) just got a whole lot easier for bedroom developers to work with following a new partnership announced today by ARM.

The British manufacturer has teamed up with computing powerhouse IBM to launch a ‘starter kit’ for developers looking to launch apps and services on the IoT.

The kits will go on sale later this year, although there’s no news on cost just yet, with ARM only confirming that they would cost ‘less than $200 (£130)’ through selected distributors.

mbed IoT Starter Kit 3Mister maker

The ARM mbed IoT Starter Kit (pictured left) features an ARM mbed-enabled development board from Freescale, powered by an ARM Cortex-M4 based processor, together with a sensor IO application shield.

The company says it expects the kits to make it easier to test smart home, smart city and other “internet of things” prototypes.

“Securely embedding intelligence and connectivity into devices from the outset will create cloud-connected products that are far more capable than today,” said Krisztian Flautner, general manager, IoT business, ARM.

“Smart cities, businesses and homes capable of sharing rich information about their surroundings will be critical in unlocking the potential of IoT. The ARM IoT Starter Kit will accelerate the availability of connected devices by making product and service prototyping faster and easier.”

mbed IoT Starter Kit 4The Starter Kit, jointly developed ARM and IBM, offers Ethernet connectivity, with possible future versions also being looked at for cellular, Wi-Fi and Thread.

IBM is providing backing via cloud support through the IBM IoT Foundation service, launched last year. Using the kits, customers can quickly and easily connect their development board with the service and start experimenting with sensor data streamed from the device, which is streamed in real-time.

“The Internet of Things is about bringing the physical and digital worlds closer together, to allow businesses to better understand and interact with what is happening around them,” said Meg Divitto, vice president for IoT, IBM.

“In order to make this work for businesses, it needs to be simple to connect physical devices into the cloud, and to build applications and insights around them. IBM Bluemix and the new ARM mbed starter kit are designed to substantially enhance that effort.”

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