IoT news of the week for July 21, 2023

Actility acquires startup to shrink data sent over LPWAN networks: Actility has acquired a startup called Acklio, which makes a technology used to compress the data used to send data on LoRa networks. Acklio’s technology compresses the IP header that gets sent with each packet of data. Since the goal of Low-Power Wide-Area Networks is to ship small amounts of data at low power, anything that helps make the transferred data smaller is good. (Actility) — Stacey Higginbotham

Hack your toothbrush? I really loved this write-up on how an electric engineer tried to hack his Philips Sonicare toothbrush and toothbrush heads. The brush head communicates over NFC with the toothbrush body and tracks how much time the head is spent brushing so it can notify the user when it needs to be changed. And it has surprisingly good security. (The Twenty Percent) — Stacey Higginbotham

Splunk offers OT hardware and services: At its user conference this week, Splunk released a series of new products, including a physical hub that sits between the OT and IT networks bringing data from operational technology devices into the IT network. The Splunk Edge Hub also handles some data processing locally, which will save on computing costs and reduce latency. The Edge Hub can collect logs from a programmable logic controller and other SCADA equipment using MQTT, SNMP, OPC UA, and Modbus. Splunk also announced new AI services that will help companies take their OT data and parse it more easily for analysis using pre-trained models that Splunk has built. What’s happening here is that Splunk, long a company that has focused on getting logging data to IT developers in an easy-to-use format, has now turned its sights to bringing the embedded and OT world into its purview. This is a significant expansion of Splunk’s role, and likely a necessary one because the OT world has to become more agile as it looks more like the IT world. (Splunk) — Stacey Higginbotham

Helium finds new customers: Maybe they’re not Lime electric scooters, but the Helium Foundation has announced new customers for its decentralized LoRa network including Weather XM, Qnected, and Kitchen OS. WeatherXM, a decentralized weather network, will use Helium’s connectivity to share data from sensor devices to the cloud; Qnected, meanwhile, is measuring air quality in Bulgarian elementary schools. KitchenOS is using Helium’s network to monitor the temperature of food items across the supply chain. (Helium Foundation) — Stacey Higginbotham

Impinj wins patent lawsuit and releases new chips: I don’t think RFID chips count as part of the IoT, as they don’t connect directly to the internet, but since I cover sensors that go through a hub rather than connect directly to the Internet, my logic is clearly flawed. So I’m going to tell y’all that Impinj has released new RFID chips this week that offer better reliability and a 30% reduction in power for use in tracking assets. The company also recently won an $18.5 million patent infringement lawsuit against NXP, so things are looking up for the company. (Impinj) — Stacey Higginbotham

Sigfox has joined the LoRa Alliance: Unabiz, which now owns the Sigfox brand and alternative LPWAN technology, has brought Sigfox into the LoRa Alliance. This is something that wouldn’t have been possible before Unabiz purchased the rival LPWAN’s assets out of receivership and created a unified home for multiple LPWAN technologies. But with this move we’re seeing the multiple LPWAN technologies become easier to deploy under a single management platform. That’s great. (RCR Wireless) — Stacey Higginbotham

Google Home is front and center…if you have a Pixel: Similar to Apple iPhones, Google’s handsets are getting one-touch access to the Home app. And by Google’s handsets, I mean Pixel phones only. The new Google Home Panel is available on Pixel phones through the Home icon on the handset’s lock screen or from the pulldown Quick Settings menu. It’s a shame that some Google-specific features land on Pixel phones first, or even exclusively, instead of arriving on all Android devices simultaneously. (9to5 Google) — Kevin C. Tofel

Here’s another HomeBridge hub option: Have you ever heard of Umbrel? I hadn’t until this week, when I read this article explaining the capabilities of this Raspberry Pi-powered server. Its latest trick is what got my interest: Umbrel now supports HomeBridge. Umbrel is a complete home server option with an App Store for simple installation of other services, such as Pi-Hole, NextCloud, and Plex. So while you could always put HomeBridge on a Pi, Umbrel can act as a server for those other services, too, which makes it a little more interesting. If I’m going to run a PC of any kind, even a small one like a Pi, I prefer it to be more than a one-trick pony. (9to5 Mac) — Kevin C. Tofel