Bench Talk

Bluetooth® mesh networking promises to accelerate home automation design and deployment. This blog explores the basics of Bluetooth mesh and describes how Cypress is well-equipped with the products, development tools, and source code examples to help speed your design.

Humanity is proceeding with warp speed in the interaction between humans, robots, and even androids—robotic machines that resemble human beings.

Not much has been heard about IoT from Google after it acquired Nest (and its thermostat, smoke detector and Dropcam connected security cameras) but that came to an end in May. At the Google I/O developer’s conference, the company announced the Android-based Brillo operating system and the protocol Weave that will let Brillo-enabled devices communicate with each other. A developer preview of Brillo is coming in the third quarter and Wave in the fourth quarter. In case you’re wondering, Google chose the name Brillo as it’s a “scrubbed” version of Android. As Google always thinks big, the idea is that your “smart home” will be controlled by Android devices that talk to each other and have access to servers in the cloud.

For my senior project I am supposed to program an Android app that uses Bluetooth to communicate to a timing board. This sounds reasonable; I am an electrical engineer, we program apps all the time, right? Wrong, prior to being assigned this last semester I had no Object Oriented Programing (OOP) experience. I spent the Christmas break frantically trying to learn Java and start in on Android programming. By the end of the break I realized that there was no way for me develop a reliable app, keep up with my other classes, and go to work.

Android, iOS tablets, and smartphones revolutionized the idea of the User Interface (UI). These devices are intuitive, powerful, and omnipresent in our daily lives. So instead of reinventing the wheel for a slick UI to control your next OSHW project, why not simply build the interface as an app? Typically the answer is that creating apps isn't quite as simple as using apps.

Open source is part of some totally cool ideas. The NFC ring by Jon MecLear, funded by crowdsourcing, is one example of how technology migrates into every area of our lives. NFC stands for Near Field Communication. This ring looks like a wedding band. But think about how easy it would be to wear a ring that could replace the fob to unlock your car, automatically unlock your smart phone or tablet when you pick it up, and unlock your front door.