JavaScript microcontroller you can program wirelessly - Puck.js

Many companies have designed their own Bluetooth beacon mostly to find objects such as your keys or pets. Puck.js is also a Bluetooth 4.2 LE beacon, but has many more features including compatibility with the upcoming Bluetooth 5.0 standard, and some GPIOs programmable with JavaScript (Espruino implementation), and corresponding visual programming editor.

Puck.js beacon supports Google’s Eddystone and Apple’s iBeacon to advertise itself to other devices, as well as Web Bluetooth currently supported by Chrome, but with other browser soon to follow. The beacon also supports both slave and master modes. You can program the device by going to Espruino website with Chrome browser, connecting your Puck.js, and start programming by dragging blocks around, or directly using JavaScript, using one of ~100 example projects or from scratch.

Puck.js is a Nordic nRF52832 SoC beacon that can be programmed via Javascript. The Open Source JavaScript interpreter Espruino is installed in the beacon that allows the user to program what ends up in the advertising data based on the board’s NFC, temperature and magnetometer sensors. The 4 leds and 6 GPIO can also be controlled. Being advertising-data programmable it will support Eddystone, iBeacon or any other custom protocol you might wish to invent.

The hardware, software, libraries and documentation are all Open Source that future-proofs any ideas based on this beacon should the developer be no longer be able to support the product or if your design needs to move outside the original hardware and software scope.

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Node.js Vs MicroPython for IoT

Here are the major differences between Node.js and MicroPython for IoT.

Node.js

1- Node.js built to handle asynchronous I/O from the ground up that make it good choice for IoT.

2-Dependency resolution with npm is so much better. Although if you have to develop and run the code in both Windows and Linux in rare cases you may see some quirks.

3- Right now there are two new micro-controller boards seeking funding for Node.js - one on Kickstarter ( Espruino), and the other on Dragon Innovation’s new crowdfunding platform(Tessel ).

4- Other framework and boards includes The Thing System , Node Red, noduino, and DeviceJs.

MicroPython

1-Circuit-level control is possible with MicroPython.

2- MicroPython has special commands that interface directly with assembly. Specifically, the assembly accessible to MicroPython is the ARM Thumb-2 instruction set. As an example, the command "mov(R1, 0xff)" would move the hexadecimal number "ff" to register-1.

3- MicroPython natively supports the Pyboard (https://github.com/micropython/pyboard). The Pyboard uses the STM32F405RGT6 MCU (MicroController Unit) which uses the ARM Cortex M4 core. The hardware is 32-bits and runs at 168MHz. The Pyboard supports I2C, UART, SPC, and GPIO.


4-MicroPython is used in the WiPy (http://wipy.io/). The WiPy is an Internet-of-Things (IoT) development platform which is a circuit board with a Wifi chip. Developers can easily program the WiPy and upload new code via Over-The-Air (OTA) updates. The WiPy uses the TI CC3200 MCU (Cortex-M4 @ 80MHz), has 256 kilobytes or RAM, and supports WiFi-Direct. The WiPy can be used to make various wireless devices. The WiPy can also be interfaced with the Pyboard or many other motherboards and circuits via its GPIO pins, I2C bus, or SPI. WiPy's manufacturer is Bestronics (http://bestronics.eu/).

5- Right now LoPy seeking funding on Kickstarter, It is a MicroPython triple-network dev platform which doubles up as a LoRa Nano gateway and Arduino IDE compatible as stretch goal. It include a dual processor (each core running @ 160 MHz) + WiFi + BLE radio System on Chip, network processor handles the WiFi/BLE connectivity and the IPv6 and IPv4 stacks and main processor entirely free to run the user application along with the LoRa stack.

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Node.js - Ideal choice for IoT

There has been a lot of talk lately about the rising popularity of Node.js, but no one expected it would grow this quickly. Built on Google’s V8 open source JavaScript engine, Node.js is known for its speed, scalability and efficiency—making it great for developing data-intensive, real-time applications, that of course, makes Node.js well-suited for the IoT, which is reliant on data-intensive, real-time devices and applications.

Devices within the IoT, such as sensors and wearables, generate large floods of requests. Node.js is well-suited for managing these requests via streams that can be processed and monitored very efficiently. Stream instances are basically Unix pipes. They can be readable, writable or both, and are easy to work with. Streams allow users to pipe requests to each other, or stream data directly to its destination. No caching, no temporary data--just stream from one place to another.

Riding on the widespread popularity of Node.js in combination with low cost prototyping hardware, a new set of projects have emerged letting client side web developers use their skills to start controlling elements in the physical world.

The Thing System

The Thing System is a set of software components and network protocols that aims to fix the Internet of Things. Our steward software is written in node.js making it both portable and easily extensible. It can run on your laptop, or fit onto a small single board computer like the Raspberry Pi.

Node-RED

A visual tool for wiring the Internet of Things, a creation of the IBM Emerging Technology Services team.

noduino

A simple and flexible JavaScript and Node.js Framework for accessing basic Arduino controls from Web Applications using HTML5, Socket.IO and Node.js.

DeviceJS

DeviceJS is a JavaScript based development platform for reacting to sensors and controlling devices. It’s built on top of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine, Node.js and a real-time JSON database. A DeviceJS application can run on a single device, or across many devices in different locations.
 
 

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Internet Of Things - Impact on our life style and wealth

The Internet of Things is a growing network of everyday objects from industrial machines to consumer goods that can share information and complete tasks while you are busy making other plan. Our Bikes, our homes, our audio system and even our city streets will be connected to the Internet, creating a network of objects that is called the Internet of Things, or IoT for short. 

The IoT is creating a new world, a quantifiable and measurable world, made up of millions of sensors and devices that generate incessant streams of data and can make more timely and better informed decisions. This new connected world brings with it fundamental changes to society and can be used to improve our lives and our businesses in many ways. But how it impact our day to day life?, how does it work? And  Is IoT a new source of wealth creation?

How Internet of Things impact our day to day life?

In our day to day life prospective, IoT devices can be classified in three categories: 

• Wearables
• Smart home devices
• M2M devices

Wearables are the devices that people carry with them, which usually connect via Bluetooth or WiFi to a smart phone, and from there to the Internet. This category includes devices such as smart watches, fitness bands and devices to help people to live more ’mindfully’ – increasing the wearer’s awareness of how well they sleep, how much they move around, monitoring their vital signs, tracking their exercises, tracking their gadgets etc. 

Smart home devices are also part of the IoT and usually connect to the Internet via ZigBee or  low power wireless communication and the home router. These include all domestic devices, from lights and light switches to motion sensors, thermostats, door locks and automated curtains. The smart phone also becomes an online dashboard and control device for Smart Home applications via its WiFi connection to the router.

The third category, M2M (Machine to Machine) devices, comprises devices that are directly connected to the cellular network and internet, such as vehicle that can report their location (in case of an accident or theft), vending machines that can alert when their stocks are running low, industrial machines that can predict their fault very early stage and alert before failure etc.

How does Internet of Things work?

Whatever the type of IoT device, it consist of a sensor, a micro-controller and a real time operating system running on micro-controller. Sensor will sniff a wide variety of information ranging from Location, Weather/Environment conditions, Grid parameters, Movement on assembly lines, Jet engine maintenance data to Health essentials of a patient. Microcontrollers and RTOS together create a IoT Gateway, that enables companies to seamlessly interconnect industrial infrastructure devices and secure data flow between devices and the cloud. 

At device end various range of hardware boards, like PanStamps, Raspberry Pi, and Pinoccio, different RTOS like Contiki, TinyOS and Kura, many communication technologies like Zigbee, 6LoWPAN, and WiFi and protocols like CoAP and MQTT are playing vital role to put these device online. On the other side at cloud end various type of infrastructure are there to provide a middle layer for IoT devices and real world, currently REST API is the best choice as a middle layer. Mobile Apps and Web Applications are working as presentation layer, providing UI to control and access IoT devices.

Is Internet of Things a new source of wealth creation?

Cisco estimates that 50 billion devices and objects will be connected to the Internet by 2020. Yet today, more than 99 percent of things in the physical world remain unconnected. The growth and convergence of processes, data, and things on the Internet will make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before. This growth creates unprecedented opportunities for industries, businesses, and people, but the real benefits of the Internet of Things will not, however, be realized until leading companies develop the next generation of applications that address specific business needs.

The IoT can potentially transform nearly every industry-locally and globally. It is creating new opportunities for business in four main ways

• Advance business models:  The IoT will help companies create new value streams for customers, institute processes that speed time to market, triage market performance, and respond rapidly to customer needs. Uber is one of the example of such a business model.
• Real-time critical information:  With IoT, organizations can capture more data about their processes and products in a more timely fashion to create new revenue streams, improve operational efficiency, and increase customer loyalty, e.g. vending machines that can alert when their stocks are running low.
• Diversification of revenue streams:  The IoT can help companies create new services and new revenue streams on top of traditional products, e.g smart shopping malls and their automated inventory management system.
• Efficient and intelligent operations:  Access to information from autonomous end points, as today’s smart grid already supplies to utility companies, will allow organizations to make on-the-fly decisions on pricing, logistics, sales, and support deployment, etc.

With policies to encourage interoperability, security, and property rights, the Internet of Things can begin to reach its full potential, if leaders truly start embracing data-driven decision making.

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