Author
NXP
At NXP, innovation is always now, but our focus is always the future. Our dedicated team of experts is united by a passion to make everyday life more remarkable through technologies that continually redefine life as we know it.
- Smarter Worldブログ
- Two Must-Have IoT and Wearables Development Platforms
Two Must-Have IoT and Wearables Development Platforms
IoT and Wearable Development Platforms powered by NXP designed for rapid prototyping and faster productization in fast paced IoT era
The world is getting more and more connected, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is playing a big part in changing the way we live with applications such as the smartwatch and smart home automation. IoT brings convenience to our finger tips, while making our lives safer and more efficient. By 2020, it is estimated that some 30 billion devices will be connected by the IoT. To keep up with these evolving technology trends, consumers are constantly seeking the next new IoT innovation.
Even though the IoT market is growing rapidly, today, time and costs associated with product development can make it extremely difficult to go from prototyping to production. The biggest challenges faced by companies dealing in IoT product development include:
- Developing first proof of concept
- Avoiding longer than expected product development process and reducing the cost of product development
- Getting to production
Generally, development tools are not designed to be production ready, making the process of prototyping, product development and getting to production even more difficult. The market is looking for innovative solutions to solve the business and technical challenges associated with IoT product development. At NXP, we’re working to the biggest IoT product development challenges by changing the way IoT product development is done with Hexiwear and WaRP7 development platforms.
The ability to prototype product concepts quickly and efficiently is an increasingly important benefit for IoT product developers, offering faster evaluation of product iterations during the product development cycle. Hexiwear enables rapid prototyping with optimized, production-ready hardware designed by IoT experts, an end-to-end open source software package to deliver data from sensors to the cloud and expandability with plug-n-play sensors, actuators, communication interfaces and human machine interfaces. Hexiwear comes with access to hardware design files and a bill of materials to let product developers efficiently move from prototyping to production.
Hexiwear is an open source platform that combines the style and usability of high-end consumer devices with the functionality and expandability of sophisticated engineering development platforms, making it the ideal form factor for IoT edge node and wearable markets. It is developed by MikroElektronika in partnership with NXP, and features the low power, high performance Kinetis® K6x microcontroller based on the ARM® Cortex®-M4 core and the Kinetis KW4x multimode radio SoC supporting Bluetooth Low Energy. The hardware features include 6 onboard sensors and a color OLED display, rechargeable battery and external flash memory.
The Hexiwear platform is expandable with up to 200 click boardsTM to choose from, including add-on sensors, actuators, communication interfaces and human machine interfaces. Hexiwear is one of the most flexible platforms supported by ARM® mbed™ with extensive embedded peripheral drivers and application code libraries for sensors, display, connectivity and power management. Hexiwear is also compatible with FreeRTOS, the Kinetis Software Development Kit (SDK) and Kinetis Design Studio IDE and provides open source access to peripheral drivers and extensive application code. Hexiwear is supported with its own application for Android and iOS.
See for yourself what developers are doing with Hexiwear, visit the recent Hexiwear Design Contest hosted by Hackster.io to check out over 60 unique projects that were submitted. The breadth of IoT application ideas will inspire many new designs! You can learn more about Hexiwear and get your own at nxp.com/nfc!
If you are looking to develop products that require more processing horse power, the WaRP7 development platform changes the way you design IoT and wearable products and reduces time to market. WaRP7 includes optimized hardware and a compact form factor that allows you to develop on a solution which is close to your end product. Developers get access to all of the design files, schematics and bill of materials with WaRP7. The Linux source code is also open and available at Git hub. Open source design allows you to use the device as a starting point and innovate without licensing restrictions, enabling you to focus on product differentiation. WaRP7 is built to meet the needs of a broad range of applications including smart home products, fitness trackers and wearables.
WaRP7 is based on the i.MX 7Solo applications processor from NXP which features an advanced implementation of the ARM® Cortex®-A7 core, as well as the ARM® Cortex®-M4 core. The unique heterogeneous multicore architecture enables low-power modes that are critical to most IoT and wearable designs, and provides the power to drive a higher level operating system and a rich user interface. WaRP7 is highly integrated with sensors and connectivity capabilities; including NFC, Bluetooth®, Bluetooth Smart and Wi-Fi®, it also includes onboard external LPDDR3 memory. WaRP7 offers rich multimedia capability with access to a MIPI-DSI display port, an onboard camera and audio features. It also includes a rechargeable battery and power circuitry.
WaRP7 eases development efforts for software developers with access to Linux and support for extensive UI capabilities and connectivity stacks. WaRP7 is truly expandable with the MikroBus™ expansion socket exposing users to over 200 compatible click boards™.
WaRP7 is designed by Premier Farnell, and is supported by an extensive development community. You can learn more about WaRP7 and get your own at NXP WaRP7.
