IoT news of the week for July 30, 2021

Silicon Labs has completed its divestiture of the automotive division: In April, chipmaker Silicon Labs said it would sell its infrastructure and automotive chip division to Skyworks for $2.75 billion in cash. Silicon Labs initiated the transaction so it could focus solely on providing radio and microprocessors for the IoT. The company’s IoT business comprised 58% of last year’s revenue while the infrastructure and automotive business comprised 42%, but the growth in the IoT business represents a greater opportunity, according to CEO Tyson Tuttle. Also this week, Tuttle said he plans to retire in January 2022, and Matt Johnson, the current president, will step up and take on the role starting that year. To hear Johnson on the Skyworks deal, check out this podcast from April. (Austin American-Statesman)

Batteryless IoT sensor company Everactive raises more money: This is a big week for low-power chip startups. First Wiliot scored $200 million, and now Everactive has raised an additional $16 million from 3M, Ericsson, and Armstrong International, a thermal utilities company. Like Wiliot, Everactive has turned its chip-based low-power sensing tech into a full-on service, providing the software, the sensor, and the insights for customers that want to monitor their equipment without changing out batteries all the time. I love these startups because without them, we’re stuck with a much more limited IoT, one constrained by wires or constant battery changes. (Everactive)

Smart sensing for better building ventilation: Air quality monitoring company Airthings has signed an agreement with Edwards, a division of Carrier, to provide indoor air quality monitoring for commercial buildings. Edwards will resell Airthings’ business software service along with its fire and safety products. The Airthings for Business product lets building facilities operators monitor, visualize, and control indoor air quality. The deal also sends Airthings data into Carrier’s Abound in-building data platform. With businesses focused more on proper ventilation in the wake of the pandemic and another summer of wildfires, solutions like Airthings are going to proliferate. In Europe and in Asia, indoor air quality has been a much more active market, but we’ll see more attention to it here in the U.S. as well. (Airthings)

Smart underwear gets Health Canada’s approval: Underwear that monitors patient ECG data has been approved by Health Canada and is in line for FDA approval in the U.S. While the undergarments from Myant’s Skiin brand are approved for tracking ECG data, they can also provide other information such as heart rate, heart rate variability, and core body temperature. Myant also plans to add sleep tracking and location tracking to the garments. The sensors are embedded in the fabric of the bra and T-shirt and connect with a removable puck for the electronics and radio. (Wearable Technologies)

Siemens and Dow create a chemicals manufacturing testbed for digital twins: Process manufacturing is a huge industry that covers everything from oil refining to making the filling for Twinkies. And for years the sector has been highly automated, with companies such as Honeywell and Emerson providing connected sensors and controllers to manage the various processes involved. As the focus on IoT has increased, process manufacturing companies are now trying to use data not only to make new chemicals or products but to monitor the machines as they make those chemicals or products. To make manufacturing more efficient, companies are trying to build digital replicas of the manufacturing process and the machines governing that process. The partnership between Dow and Siemens is designed to show that digital twins can be created, but also that they can provide value that justifies the effort of building them in the first place. (Venture Beat)

Will attention-based neural networks enable computers to see as humans do? This is a fascinating piece because it’s a reminder that computers ultimately process information differently from the way we do, and those differences are usually obfuscated by clever marketing teams and a lot of computing power. But this story argues that teaching computers to change the way they analyze an image could require less computing power and result in a computer vision algorithm that uses less power. I love this stuff! (EETimes)

Where is Thread on Eero’s routers? A few weeks ago, Kevin enabled the Thread radio in his Eero Wi-Fi 6 routers, excited to see how it would affect the Thread-capable devices in his home. But when viewing the Thread network diagrams (the Eve app provides a great one!), nothing actually changed. We now have an explanation from a product manager at Eero as to why, and who also says that Eero will start announcing specific products that will use Eero’s Thread radio in the coming weeks. He adds that if you’re building a connected Thread device and want it to work on Eero to reach out to him. (Reddit)

Hear about how hackers are going after industrial controls systems: If podcasts are your jam, check out this interview with Armis CISO Curtis Simpson, who talks about how hackers are devoting more attention to hacking industrial operations. While once a focus of nation state-style attacks, the rise of ransomware and potential for profit is attracting others to the field. (Threatpost)