IoT news of the week for March 8, 2019

5G comes to connected cows: What a clever effort by 5G RuralFirst. The project, which is being led by Cisco, the University of Strathclyde, and other UK partners, is creating 5G test regions while also highlighting some of the benefits 5G will bring to various industries. In this case, it’s doing so through a mobile app called Me+Moo, which allows you to monitor actual cows wearing “IoT collars and leg sensors” so you can see what the cows are up to when nobody is looking. It’s a bit of a game and a bit of a 5G IoT demo, not to mention a smart marketing effort. (5G RuralFirst) — Kevin Tofel

Speaking of 5G…The words 5G were everywhere last week at Mobile World Congress, but there were also big IoT news events such as the launch of Microsoft’s new Hololens for industrial use cases. And analyst Chetan Sharma was there to observe the lines, the interest, and the small and large trends at the show. He wrote up a summary that should be a must-read for anyone who cares about connected devices from when you should buy a 5G phone to what’s happening in edge computing. (Chetan Sharma) — Stacey Higginbotham

Comcast purchased a security company for the IoT: Along with RSA, the security conference, we’re getting a lot of security news. Comcast said it purchased BluVector, a company that makes security software to protect machines. This fits with Comcast’s larger vision for the connected world, where threats can target a multitude of connected devices and adapt. BluVector’s software aims to prevent this. I’ve so far been impressed with Comcast’s security efforts on the home front, and as it expands into corporate IoT networks and wireless networks it’s clearly building out the capabilities it will need to compete. (LightReading) — Stacey Higginbotham

Mocana raises $15 million for IoT security: Mocana, which has a pretty compelling IoT product to secure industrial devices has raised $15 million to continue marketing and building its products. The company has a protocol that creates secure links between devices on a network and I’ve been impressed with it in prior briefings. Maybe it’s time to give them another call. (PEHub) — Stacey Higginbotham

Samsung acquires Whisk: Samsung may soon integrate recipes and food-related commerce deeply into its appliances. Whisk makes a back-end software platform that recipe sites use to manage their e-commerce efforts. This sort of technology when applianced to a refrigerator or stove, might allow you to order groceries for the recipe you plan to make that night or replace ingredients with voice or a touch as you use them. (The Spoon) — Stacey Higginbotham

There’s a new Sonos One (but still not with Google Assistant): Sonos updated its smart speaker product with a second generation of the One. Yes, it’s confusing. The Gen 2 Sonos One adds an updated processor, more memory, and a Bluetooth LE (BLE) radio and is priced at $199, the same as its predecessor. The BLE support isn’t for smart home usage, so this isn’t a hub. Instead, the setup software relies on BLE to simplify the setup process using a phone. You still get Amazon Alexa and AirPlay 2 with this updated Sonos One, but no Google Assistant just yet. That’s still slated for sometime this year. (Sonos) — Kevin Tofel

Frito lay replaces a $300,000 machine with a sensor: This deep dive into Frito Lay’s journey into factory automation using sensors and AI is so fascinating. It does a good job explaining exactly what Frito Lay has historically done, which was pretty darn impressive, and charts how it is adding more capabilities by automating some of the older pattern-matching software it had. It then talks about how it took the learnings gleaned from measuring potato chips with a laser to determine their weight and decided to apply that to the potatoes. This allowed it to replace a $300,000 potato-weighing machine with a sensor. So cool. (Automation World) — Stacey Higginbotham

Want to see the future of IoT security? This deep dive explains what we’ve been doing to secure devices and where companies such as ARM and Rambus are taking us with integrated device-based security schemes. It also covers network security concepts such as device isolation and data tracking. The article is technically deep and full of scary stats. IF you know nothing about IoT security (or even just a little) reading this will give a solid crash course.  (Semi Engineering) — Stacey Higginbotham

Wyze Cam is getting Google Assistant integration soon: It’s no secret we love those inexpensive little Wyze cameras, which (like Sonos) work with Alexa but not Google Assistant. Based on this video I found this week — it was actually recorded a few weeks ago — the Wyze folks are nearly ready to offer Google Assistant integration, saying it should arrive before the end of March. Hit the 7:10 mark to hear that for yourself, and then stay tuned until the end for a brief demo with a Google Home Hub. (Wyze) — Kevin Tofel

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active will measure your blood pressure: The latest smartwatch from Samsung is now available, and reviews hit the web this week. Aside from the typical health- and exercise-tracking features, Samsung says its new wearable will be able to measure your blood pressure. There’s no special sensor included for this; instead, the same LED used to track your heart rate will also provide your BP. Samsung teamed up with USCF for the My BP Lab app, which is where the data will be stored. How accurate is it? It’s too soon to say because the feature won’t launch until later this month. But if you want a BP monitor on your wrist, and you use an Android phone, the $199 Galaxy Watch Active may be worth the look. (Engadget) — Kevin Tofel