Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Others Put Power of IoT in Developers’ Hands

by Jeffrey Burt

During IDF, Krzanich showed off Edison, a development platform for building smart systems that leverages Intel’s Atom and Quark chips as well as integrated dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth. Products based on Edison, which will sell for $50, should come to market by the end of the year.

Soon after unveiling the Quark family of small, energy-efficient systems-on-a-chip in 2013, Intel rolled out Galileo, a development board based on Quark designed to encourage developers to use Intel Architecture in their wearable and IoT systems. Intel has since released the second generation of Galileo.

Also at IDF, Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, announced Analytics for Wearables—or A-Wear—a software development kit that includes Intel software and tools and Cloudera management technology.

Broadcom’s WICED (pronounced “wicked”) Sense development kit for IoT hardware and software was launched in August and includes the BCM20737S Bluetooth system-in-package module, five micro electro-mechanical systems and the WICED Smart software stack that is compatible with Bluetooth 4.1.

Qualcomm in September announced an IoT developer kit that combines the company’s QCA4002 or 4004 platforms with a Freescale microcontroller and support for the AllSeen Alliance’s AllJoyn open source code for connecting connected devices and systems.

MediaTek in September was the latest tech vendor to introduce a kit, in this case the LinkIt Development Platform, aimed at the DIY space for the IoT and wearables and based on the company’s Aster MT2502 chipset.

For the last three years, LittleBits has been making it easy for anyone to build an electronic device. In July, the company launched CloudBit, a module that officials say can turn any object into a connected device.

The company’s two new development kits are designed to make it easier to include environmental and biometric sensing for such applications as home security systems, smoke detectors and weather stations.