IoT News of the Week for July 9, 2021

Solid-state lighting moves a bit further: Amber, a startup building solid-state silicon to control lighting, has signed a deal with Infineon to commercialize its next-generation lighting controller, Amber (which I profiled last year). Amber’s technology results in a smaller form factor for electrical infrastructure such as circuit breakers or switch boxes. But it’s pretty novel, which is why it is working with chip vendor Infineon on components and microcontrollers that will augment Amber’s device and make it faster and easier to get a test board out to developers trying to build test products. Infineon is also evaluating the use of Amber’s technology in its own products. (EE News Europe)

View buys IoTium for securing smarter buildings: View, which started out as a company making responsive windows that would darken in the face of high temperatures indoors or too much sun outdoors, has purchased an IoT security company. View has gradually expanded its mission to cover more and more building management services, and as such purchased a six-year-old startup called IoTium, which makes cloud-based software to help manage the security of devices as they join a network. The smart building space is heating up as employers bring people back to work and want to ensure their safety post-pandemic. With this deal, View is adding the capabilities it needs to compete. (View)

Vilo is offering mesh Wi-Fi for $60 a three-pack: This is news y’all are going to be interested in. Vilo is a Wyze-like company that just launched a three-pack of mesh Wi-Fi devices for $59. The cheaper price means you don’t get Wi-Fi 6, and it’s only dual-band instead of tri-band (it’s missing one of the 5GHZ channels). But it does have extra ethernet ports on the back, which is nice for us smart home geeks who have to connect some of their devices via Ethernet. There’s also an app that offers basic features such as guest networks and notifications about devices on the network. See what y’all think. (The Verge)

Anyone can now build smarter sensors using Qeexo and STMicroelectronics sensors: This is a cool example of ML at the edge. Chip vendor ST Microelectronics is working with Qeexo, a startup that builds software to easily train and generate machine learning algorithms, to ensure that its sensors will easily work with Qeexo software. Qeexo had one of the most impressive demos I’ve ever seen, and from this deal I’m hoping that ST Micro saw the value in the platform and soon others will see it as well. I managed to use Qeexo’s software to easily train a sensor to differentiate between a few different sounds after playing them and between a few different motions. This will become a powerful developer tool. (Qeexo)

When it comes to building IoT systems half of companies DIY: Half of enterprises rely on their own IT departments to build out planned IoT systems, according to a study published this week by Newark, an Avnet company.  This surprised me, given how much is involved in building connected systems. But even if half are DIYing, there are still half that outsource some part of their development to professionals. Another surprising bit of this survey was that after security concerns, the second most common reason companies were slow to deploy IoT in their operations was a lack of a business rationale. I guess people aren’t sold on predictive maintenance or asset tracking? (Newark)

Using wearables for continuous monitoring is coming: Fitbit devices were used to discover that, months after developing COVID-19, patients’ heart rates remained elevated. I’m more interested in the benefits of medical research and new understandings of disease based on wearables than I am in long-COVID, but this study addresses both topics. We had one of the study authors on the podcast last April talking about the program and what it might mean when wearables can provide continuous health monitoring. It will open new doors into managing chronic disease and help doctors and public health officials allocate resources, track illness, and more. I’m really excited to see these ideas validated. (NYT)

Um, here are 1,200 IoT startups in one industry landscape: Oh look, it’s a map of IoT startups that is overwhelming and not that helpful. Maybe it will be useful for you? (IoT Analytics)

We need to regulate technology before it becomes invisible: This is my penultimate column in IEEE Spectrum, so these alerts to check out my column there will soon be a thing of the past. But while they’re still here, why not wander over and check out my thoughts on why we need to regulate technology before it becomes invisible? (IEEE Spectrum)