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September 3, 2021September 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

OpenRemote fully open-source IoT platform targets OEMs and DIY projects

OpenRemote claims to be a 100% open-source IoT platform suitable for DIYs as well as OEMs. The asset management platform can help with the tracking of vehicle fleets, energy systems, or crowds, help to build smart cities, smart buildings, smart airports, and more. While most cloud IoT platforms rely on open-source tools, the software hosted on the providers’ servers is usually closed-source as we’ve seen in our comparison between Microsoft Azure IoT, Balena, and Particle, but OpenRemote is different will the full stack being released under an AGPLv3 open source license. OpenRemote 3.0 software is comprised of four main blocks: The Frontend is comprised of Consoles (native iOS and Android apps), Web components and Templates, as well as a System Administration interface used to create dashboards and control panels. Manager – headless Java application to capture the current asset states and includes Asset Management, State & Historical Data, Event Processing […]

August 24, 2021September 2, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 35 Comments

Coin cell-powered OpenThread sensor board can send data every 20 seconds for three years

Monkey Store’s Thread Sensor Tag is a pressure, humidity, temperature, and light sensor that connects to the OpenThread network, and is capable of transmitting MQTT/UDP data every 20 seconds over a period of around three years from a single coin cell battery. As a reminder, OpenThread is an implementation of the Thread IoT network protocol that was unveiled in 2016 by Nest Labs (now Google/Alphabet). This has not been widely used so far, but we did write about MKR SharkyPro development board with OpenThread support via STMicro STM32WB5MMG wireless module earlier this year, and Monkey Store is telling us both Google and Apple are working on devices with support for the IoT protocol. Thread Sensor Tag specifications: Wireless module – Minew MS88SF2 based on Nordic Semi nRF52840 multi-protocol 2.4GHz wireless Cortex-M4 microcontroller Sensor VEMLS6030 I2C light sensor MS8607 pressure, humidity, and temperature sensor I/Os – 7x through holes with Tx/Rx, […]

August 6, 2021September 3, 2021 by Saumitra Jagdale - No Comments

Microsoft Azure IoT, Balena, Particle, or Toit – Choosing the Right IoT Development Platform

With the ongoing fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), IoT technologies are playing a major role in automating industrial processes. Integrating existing systems with IoT results in an intelligent solution that focuses more on providing better adaptability and resource efficiency. If you start building such systems from scratch while ensuring reliability and other factors, it will surely take a lot of research and time. This is where an IoT development platform steps in to save your time and makes things a lot easier. The main idea behind these platforms is to avoid reinventing the wheel and to provide standardized functions and features, so you don’t waste your time implementing something that someone has already done for you. You can collect data, control and manage apps and connect to their cloud services for better machine-to-machine communication. This article will look at some modern IoT development platforms and finally compare them to help […]

May 10, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

HybridOS is an open-source operating system designed for smart IoT devices and cloud computing environment

As I wrote about the “Summer 2021 of Open Source Promotion Plan” earlier, I noticed a new open-source operating system called HybridOS described as “totally new” and designed for “smart IoT devices and cloud computing environment”. It’s actually more of an ecosystem than an operating system, as it offers three main components with a device side running on devices running Linux kernel or another POSIX-compatible kernel, a server side running on servers in the cloud, and a client side to manage the cloud and devices from Windows, Linux distributions, iOS, or Android. HybridOS Device Side relies on several open-source projects including: hiWebKit, the HybridOS derivative of WebKit: hiACEJS, the HybridOS derivative of OpenHarmony ACELite hiViewRenders, the renderers for hiview tag of hiWebKit hiShell, the app running environment (the shell) Various Graphics stacks including hiMesa, the HybridOS derivative of Mesa hiCairo, the HybridOS derivative of Cairo: hiDRMDrivers, DRM Drivers for HybridOS […]

January 20, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Valetudo is a cloud-free web interface for robot vacuum cleaners

Valutedo cloud-free vacuum cleaner web interface

In my review of Kyvol Cybovac S31 LDS smart robot vacuum cleaner, I noted that app permissions meant both the map of your house and GPS coordinates may be sent to the cloud. But it was pointed out to me that earlier LDS robot vacuum cleaners from Roborock/Xiaomi were supported by Valetudo project that removes the need to connect to the cloud, and implements a mobile-friendly web interface as well as MQTT support for integration with Home Assistant or Node-RED. The project is not a custom firmware for the robots, and instead, the stock firmware is patched with Valetudo which developers describe as an “alternative App implementation + mock cloud which runs on the robot itself.” The good news is that you don’t necessarily need to teardown your vacuum cleaner to root it and install Valetudo, but it will depend on the model, and manufacturing date/firmware installed. The less good […]

December 12, 2020December 12, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

LwM2M v1.2 M2M & IoT device management protocol adds support for HTTP and MQTT, LwM2M gateways

Lightweight M2M (LwM2M) is a REST-based protocol from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) for M2M & IoT device management that defines the application layer communication protocol between an LwM2M server and an LwM2M client running on an IoT/embedded device. While LwM2M v1.0 was published in early 2017, we first covered the new protocol a year earlier as Imagination Technologies released the source code for the LwM2M stack running on MIPS Creator Ci40 development board. Since then we’ve mostly seen the LwM2M protocol supported in cellular LTE IoT modules including Quectel BC66 and u-Blox Sara-R410M, as well as the now-defunct Samsung Artik WiFi IoT modules. LwM2M v1.0 was followed by v1.0.1 and v1.0.2 for bug fixes, and v1.1, but OMA has now announced LwM2M v1.2 protocol that adds the following new features: New transports for LwM2M: MQTT and HTTP Optimizations for the bootstrapping and registration interfaces to reduce the amount of […]

July 28, 2020July 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

M.2 and Half-size mPCIe Cards Support Real-Time Ethernet and FieldBus Networks

Hilscher cifX M.2 and half-size mini PCIe cards powered by the company’s NETX 90 network-on-chip multi-protocol Cortex-M4 SoC bring real-time Ethernet and FieldBus to compatible systems. The tiny cards are designed for PC-based devices such as IPC’s, HMI’s and robots, and support various firmware for PROFINET IO-Device, EtherNet/IP Adapter, EtherCAT Slave, or OpenModbus/TCP. The company claims its cifX M.2 (A+E key) and half-size mini PCIe cards are the smallest multiprotocol PC cards on the automation market with a size of 22×30 mm and 30×26.8 mm respectively. The cards also support extended temperature from -20°C to 70°C and offer one hardware platform for all real-time Ethernet slave protocols. Besides PROFINET IO-Device, EtherNet/IP Adapter, EtherCAT Slave, and OpenModbus/TCP, Hilscher will provide support for CC-Link IE Field Basic and Ethernet POWERLINK Slave in new firmware available in Q4 2020, and OPC UA and MQTT functionalities are planned for future releases. The cards are […]

July 27, 2020July 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Now Supports Tasmota Firmware, Home Assistant, Zigbee2Tasmota

Sonoff Zigbee Bridge & Tasomota Home Assistant

Sonoff ZBBridge (aka Sonoff Zigbee Bridge) WiFi to Zigbee gateway was launched a few months ago for $16.90 plus shipping, and it’s now also listed on Banggood for $17.99 shipped. It allows users to control Zigbee devices connected to the gateway using the eWelink mobile app used with other Sonoff devices. But many people like to run Tasmota firmware on their Sonoff devices since it’s open-source and provided more flexibility such as integration with Home Assitant or Domoticz. There was already support for Zigbee in Tasmota at the time but only for Texas Instruments SimpleLink CC253x Zigbee MCU’s, and Sonoff ZBBridge is made of an ESP8266 WiSoC and a Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 Gecko Series 2 Cortex-M33 Zigbee microcontroller. So I just suspected that eventually, Sonoff Zigbee Bridge could support Tasmota open-source firmware but that would take some time… It took about four months. Not too bad. It started in the […]