Enhanced technologies speed-up mass deployment of IoT devices

“ARM mbed partners now have access to the fundamental building blocks to develop and securely deploy IoT devices at any scale,” said Krisztian Flautner, General Manager, IoT business, ARM. “Since the launch of the mbed IoT Device Platform last year, we have focused our efforts on providing the mbed Partnership with the tools to scale deployments from a single cloud-connected sensor to a host of more intricate devices that enterprise-grade IoT solutions demand.”

The latest ARM mbed products will accelerate the deployment of IoT devices and provide enhanced features that enable more scalable and secure devices:

mbed Device Connector allows developers to connect devices within prototype deployments, build secure web applications quickly and easily integrate them with cloud solutions. Available at connector.mbed.com, mbed Device Connector is free for developers to use on up to 100 devices, handling up to 10,000 events per hour.

mbed OS Technology Preview version is the latest iteration of the modular, efficient OS for ARM Cortex-M based MCUs. Built to enable the IoT to scale, developers can take advantage of product innovations including mbed TLS, the first native OS support for Thread and basic manageability of devices.

Businesses deploying IoT applications need to address all aspects of connectivity, security and productivity. To accelerate this, ARM has also created two new reference platforms as part of a roadmap of mbed Reference Designs that will help developers cut the time from prototype to final device design with the use of open-source resources. The mbed Zone at ARM TechCon 2015 will show demonstrations of the first two designs:

mbed Wearable Reference Design, featuring an efficient wrist-based connected device capable of delivering a fully interactive user-experience while achieving a battery life of around eight weeks.

mbed Smart City Reference Design aimed at infrastructure monitoring and smart industrial applications using Sub-GHz 6LoWPAN & CoAP mesh network protocols for large numbers of devices. This supports quick deployment, configuration and management of routers and end devices compatible with a variety of backhaul technologies in industrial applications that will reduce the bill of materials for end devices.

"ARM is enabling developers to prototype complex end point interactions while simultaneously creating allied web services in the cloud," said Paul Teich, principal analyst, Tirias Research. "mbed Device Connector can be used for free with up to 100 devices, handling up to 10,000 events per hour, and this will allow developers to take products to a fairly advanced stage before they need to decide on their next step. This is going to have an effect on the rate of innovation as it reduces the risk for everyone.”

Since ARM shared its vision for the mbed IoT Device Platform in Oct. 2014, there has been a groundswell of partner support. In the past year alone: 

More than 55 partners have joined the mbed Partnership Program and 20 of them will be attending ARM TechCon 2015. All of these partners are investing significant resources to support the mbed IoT Device Platform, with around 250 dedicated engineers now involved. The mbed community has grown to more than 150,000 developers.

ARM is supporting platform growth with new mbed software, hardware and developer tools, all built to the industry’s latest open standards for connectivity and security, including the first OS offering native support for the Thread connectivity standard.