3TwoOne

3TwoOne is working with Dr. Roopak Sinha from the Auckland University of Technology in developing a smart room. The room consists of various sensors and actuators that are connected to the cloud. The project consists of: (1) Enabling off-the-shelf hardware (sensors and actuators) that are IP ready. (2) Using an open communication platform (e.g., Dweet.io) as a web-interface to the hardware. (3) Develop a simple middleware for communication with existing software. The above Figure depicts an example of the smart room. The middleware provides a flexible platform such that sensors and actuators can be added or removed easily. Stay tuned for more updates.

Are you working on a Home automation project?

Contact 3TwoOne to discuss your next project.

Case study: Smart room 3TwoOne is working with Dr. Roopak Sinha from the Auckland University of Technology in developing a smart room. The room cons...

Sigfox in New Zealand

Case Study: Temperature sensing edge node using the Sigfox network

Sigfox is a Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technology designed for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). It is now being deployed across New Zealand by the Thinxtra network and word-wide by various providers (see their coverage map). Following is what you need to know to get started.

Sigfox specifications for Australia and New Zealand:

Uplink 12 Bytes of payload per message

Downlink 8 bytes of payload per message

140 uplink messages a day (approximately one every six seconds)

4 downlink messages per day initiated by the edge nodes

Operating frequency 920.8MHz for uplink and 922.3MHz for downlink

Each device has a private key to sign messages

No collision avoidance mechanisms (sends by selecting a pseduo-random frequency)

$2-$32 per connection year (source: presentation from Thinxtra on 26-Oct-2016)

To get started with Sigfox you will need to acquire a Sigfox compatible hardware and a Sigfox subscription from your local provider. We have used the Sigfox module – Ti LaunchPad & BoosterPack. Follow the guide on the TI (Taxas Instruments) website (documentation) or ask your local Sigfox provider to setup the device on your subscription. Once it all setup you should be able to see your device on the Sigfox website as shown below.

Next, follow the Getting started tutorial to setup the device to support AT (ATtention) Commands via UART. This effectively allows you to treat the Sigfox device as a modem to the Sigfox network.

To control the Sigfox device you can now send simple commands over UART such as:

>AT$SF=9999,1
>OK

This mean send the hex values '9' '9' '9' '9' and wait for a downlink message. The messages page on the sigfox website should now display your message.

From our experiences we were able successfully connect to the Sigfox network within the Auckland CBD, Mt Roskill, New Windsor, and North Shore.

3TwoOne has integrated Sigfox into its tool chain. You can build your IoT application very quickly. Talk to us know to get started.

Working with Sigfox in New Zealand Sigfox in New Zealand Case Study: Temperature sensing edge node using the Sigfox network Sigfox is a Low-Power Wide-Area Network (...

3TwoOne brings the proven power of “Model Driven (Software) Engineering” (MDE) to general IoT and other applications. MDE is the “gold standard” today for the design and implementation of the most challenging, large scale, real-time software systems – including aerospace, military, automotive and critical industrial control equipment. MDE is the choice when the software simply must work reliably and predictably – typically via top-end design tools such as SCADE, at attendant high costs. In a real sense, 3TwoOne’s capabilities are comparable to top-end MDE, optimised for resource-poor IoT hardware. A qualitative comparison with prominent tools is presented below.

3TwoOne’s tool chain has a graphical interface, accessible for non-expert programmers, supporting rapid design and development from elemental hardware through to APIs, etc., for IoT and other software and firmware solutions - without line-by-line programming.

3TwoOne’s interface is web-resident and runs in any browser without requiring download of client software to developers’ machines. The techniques used are compatible with a tablet interface, which will be released in due course.

3TwoOne offers sophisticated, over-the-air “deployment” features – meaning that a physical connection is not needed between a developer’s design console and the target hardware. A connection to the Internet is required, while the developer’s console, and the target hardware can be geographically separated.

Useful applications can be designed, developed and deployed into operation in “minutes to hours”, as opposed to “days and weeks” for conventional methods, significantly reducing the cost and time to deployment.

3TwoOne incorporates special features to enable industrial users to upload legacy code into the 3TwoOne design environment.

The underlying robust compiler technology is copyright and tightly held, the product of ten years development as a research tool by the Precision Timed Systems Group at the University of Auckland.

No known competitor offers 3TwoOne’s breadth of capabilities. Furthermore, we have not yet been able to identify a group of tools that can mimic 3TwoOne. While “MDE” design and development systems of varying sophistication are indeed available, it is 3TwoOne that provides the suite of capabilities that enables developers of all abilities to rapidly develop and deploy applications that meet their requirements. Others are targeted at experienced developers, provide part of the tool chain only, are tightly locked to hardware with a limited range of capability and have other restrictions – including access costs – that are barriers to widespread use.

Surveying the landscape, it is important to stress that we believe the true competitor to 3TwoOne is “inertia” – let’s just stay as we are - together with a measure of “patch protection”. Skilled developers have learnt to code line-by-line, and to navigate the obscure deployment processes necessary with embedded systems today: “Why should I change, and increase competition for my job?” is an unspoken theme that came through our alpha trials with skilled persons. But managers and business owners, on the other hand, clearly see the benefits. This is common with disruptive change: there was little point in asking copy typists, for instance, if they valued the fact that the advent of word processing software would reduce the number of copy typist roles! But copy typists were the first users of word processing, and their experiences informed the systems we use today. That said, there is much activity in the IoT world. Offers such as ThingWorx (licensed e.g. by the telecommunications service provider Spark New Zealand) address IoT applications at the data integration and processing level (remote from the IoT Edges). 3TwoOne complements ThingWorx by, providing a fast, convenient way to assemble and process physical data that is interfaced to Thingworx and ThingWorx-like systems.

Thingworx offers an Application Program Interface (API) based development framework to assist expert programmers, and targets corporate users with a license model involving substantial up-front access payments. We believe this model is incompatible with high community engagement – enabling rapid growth – projected for IoT.

On the other hand, long-established tools such as Simulink and LabView have proven the utility of, and user appetite for, graphical, building-block design approaches for application development close to target hardware. Neither, however, aim to support IoT applications, or development and implementation of general software systems: the focus is upon simulation of physical or abstract (e.g. sociological, behavioural) phenomena etc., experiment control and data capture.

In this connection, Lego “Mindstorms” is an excellent example of the general appetite for building-block design for application development. Lego offers a variety of hardware units, linked to specific software “driver” modules; the driver modules can be linked together graphically in a way that mimics the physical connections made between Lego’s proprietary hardware units – enabling simple robotic systems to be put together for recreational or limited proof-of-concept engineering purposes. Mindstorm is, however, a closed, proprietary, platform dependant, “walled garden”, offer – with no known pretensions towards general use. By contrast, 3TwoOne enables simple and seamless integration of sensors, actuators, wireless technology and web services from diverse vendors, a capability that is essential for IoT applications – and is believed to be unique.

3twooneiot.blogspot.com