The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has the potential to revolutionize industries — to change how people work and how machines and humans interact — making companies more efficient and profitable bringing about what experts call Industry 4.0 (defined by cyber-physical systems created to make the transition of data monitoring, data processing and implementation to achieve deep interconnectedness of various systems through the manufacturing process).

IIoT will allow us to monitor and control machines, factories and infrastructure which will potentially have a similar impact on the world as the first Industrial Revolution did. IIoT, however, is still in its infancy, far from reaching the impact of the first Industrial Revolution.

Be that as it may, even now in its early days IIoT is not for multi-billion dollar global companies only. Even small enterprises can benefit. Sensor networks installed on existing equipment can generate data streams that can be used to improve process efficiency to create significant savings.

However, pressure to innovate, fear of being left by competitors, and the allure of new technologies can lead companies to rush into IoT projects before clearly framing problems and defining objectives first. This leads to many failures to implement significant improvements with clear ROI.

The opportunity for embedded developers is to find solutions that address connectivity and integration challenges on a case-by-case basis bringing appropriate solutions to customers.

The MikroElektronika Hexiwear IoT development kit is a solution to quickly test and deploy IoT. It is equipped with Bluetooth Low Energy it works with compatible iOS/Android apps and connects to the cloud. This allows developers to test, deploy and demonstrate proof of concept solutions rapidly and at low cost.

To meet the wide array of potential use cases, Hexiwear was made to be compatible with MikroElektronika’s click boards, which is a range of over 250+ add-on boards with all kinds of sensors and transceivers. From a plethora of wireless connectivity options such as WiFi, LoRa, GSM, 3G, to NFC, to a variety of optical, sound, gas, current and other sensors.

At successive phases of IoT deployment component availability becomes a critical factor. Hexiwear employs components that are readily available, even in small quantities.

Hexiwear is being demonstrated at embedded world 2017 at booths of DigiKey (A4-631) and NXP (4A – 220).

Srdjan Misic is MarCom Manager and MikroElektronika.