5 Best IoT Kits that could speed up your prototyping development
IoT developer kits are hardware kits that are designed for the rapid development of IoT solutions. Developer kits bundle a microcontroller or single-board computer and compatible components that you can use to prototype your IoT devices. IoT developer kits often include components such as breadboards, jumper wires, expansion boards, power supplies, batteries, sensors, and actuators.
For this blog, I have chosen 5 IoT developer kits to discuss and to get you started with prototyping for IoT applications:
- Grove Maker Kit for Intel Joule
- Renesas S5D9 IoT Fast Prototyping Kit
- Seeed Studio BeagleBone Green Wireless IOT Developer Prototyping Kit
- Grove IoT Commercial Gateway Kit
- Grove Starter Kit for IoT based on Raspberry Pi
Grove Maker Kit for Intel Joule
This incredible kit that can help you get started with Intel Joule easy and fast, the Grove maker kit for Intel Joule.
Joule is the most amazing board that Intel published for IoT project in 2016. With the embedded Linux system and rich hardware, Intel Joule can be the best choice for developers to improve their project and publish the prototyping to the market without much effort.
The Grove maker kit for Intel Joule is the best kit for fast building prototype based on Joule. The kit contains a grove bash shield for Joule, with which you can easily add the 13 grove modules that we specifically selected for Joule. If you have the Intel Joule on hand and plan to build a prototype fast, please don’t hesitate to choose the Grove maker kit for Intel Joule.
If you would like to know more, you can check its documentation and get one at Bazaar.
Renesas S5D9 IoT Fast Prototyping Kit
The S5D9 IoT Fast Prototyping Kit is the first co-branded MCU development kit targeted for rapid IoT prototyping. Powered by the Renesas Synergy S5D9 MCU – ARM Cortex M4F @120MHz with integrated 2MB flash and 640KB SDRAM, the kit includes an extra 256Mbits serial Nor QSPI flash; acoustic, motion, pressure, temperature and humidity sensors; a 10/100Base-T Ethernet port; a USB 2.0 Full Speed port as device and 5V power input; three colored LEDs (Red, Yellow, Green); a 10-pin JTAG; and two Grove and one PMOD expansion connectors.
It includes all the integrated functionality, plus sufficient expansion capability, to allow the user to start IoT prototyping. The kit has been validated and supported by Renesas IoT Sandbox. Renesas IoT Sandbox allows the user to rapidly create IoT applications using cloud services and real-time workflows by aggregating all event data from any source, whether it’s sensors, mobile apps, or an existing cloud, and performs real-time processing to extract intelligence or implement automation.
All functions needed for development are incorporated, from connecting to the cloud and processing device data, to IoT-centric libraries with analytics functions for predicting trends and detecting anomalies. With Renesas IoT Sandbox, you can focus on application logic while the IoT Sandbox quickly extracts intelligent insights to power your applications.
Simply create a free Renesas IoT Sandbox account and connect the S5D9 IoT Fast Prototyping Kit to Renesas IoT Sandbox. You can quickly turn your big IoT ideas into a prototype.
You can download the board design files here and get one at Bazaar.
The Seeed Studio BeagleBone Green Wireless IOT Developer Prototyping Kit for Google Cloud Platform
Since the advent of Internet of Things(IoT), developers all feel an urge to build a thing or two to introduce the IoT capabilities into their business or operating environment. Unfortunately, the lack of accessible hardware elements and reliable development platform has long been an issue.
Now none of these will come across your path as Seeed has worked with Google and BeagleBoard.org to bring you a perfect solution – an IoT developer prototyping kit for Google Cloud Platform. The kit collects various types of sensors and actuators that are seen being used in many internet-equipped devices. All the sensor and actuator modules feature in plug-and-play and are fully compatible with the new BeagbleBone Green Wireless Board, which is the fundamental element in this kit, it includes:
- Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) added on the original BeagleBone Green
- A fully Open Hardware design as with previous
- Two integrated Grove connectors for agile prototyping without any soldering or breadborading
- Onboard SD card slot for storage extensions
- Built-in PRU real-time co-processor that is well suited for certain industrial protocols
- Up to 65 digital I/Os and analog-to-digital converters that are key for IoT prototyping situations
The kit also comes with a Grove base cape that can be attached directly onto the BeagleBone Board Green Wireless to provide you the real plug-and-play experiences with the Grove modules.
You can check more on the getting started guide and get one at Bazaar.
Grove IoT Commercial Gateway Kit
Intel and Microsoft have partnered to create a kit for rapid prototyping commercial gateway scenarios. Using an Intel® NUC as the gateway hardware ensures that you have all the horsepower needed to connect new as well as legacy devices, perform edge analytics, translate protocols, and filter data. Use the Microsoft Azure IoT Gateway SDK to easily ingest data into the Microsoft Azure cloud once it’s been processed on the gateway. All of this runs on Wind River, a hardened and industry-trusted IoT operating system.
You can check more on the getting started guide and get one at Bazaar.
Grove Starter Kit for IoT based on Raspberry Pi
Building an IoT project on your Raspberry Pi has never been an easy task for many developers. This is due to the messy hardware connections involved, and complicated software programming. Grove Starter Kit for IoT based on Raspberry Pi works with Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Core and Microsoft Azure.
The GrovePi+ cape included in the kit is fully compatible with your Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi 2 that both run Windows 10 IoT Core. With the easy-to-use Grove system, you are now able to connect up to 15 Grove modules to your Raspberry Pi simply through the Grove interfaces on the GrovePi+.
In addition to the high performance sensors and actuators, the kit contains a 5 inch HDMI Display and a RGB LCD with a backlight. The Grove Starter Kit for IoT based on Raspberry Pi is a powerful platform on which to begin your exploration on the Internet of Things.
These kits provide a cross-section of IoT developer kit capabilities. There are many excellent IoT developer kits on the market right now that you can leverage to accelerate your IoT development.
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Are these boards still a good choice? I have only used Raspberry Pi so far and looking forward to try few things with a new IoT kit.
Yes/no. Sorry, I only have time for a brief answer.
1) No. The Joule was discontinued. Intel abandoned this area.
2) This is not an SBC, it’s lower level logic MCU board, but if we still have them in stock it’s a quality processor to play with. Renesas is well known in the auto industry.
3) Yes. This is a solid platform. The chip may EoL in the next couple of years, but we will upgrade to a similar chip which is compatible. Very good option.
4) Yeah, but not sure what version of Nuc they are on. You should research a bit IMO.
5) Yes. Should work with the current Raspberry Pi 4. Solid option. If you want to play with the Pi, get this, or make your own ‘kit’. We have several kits on our website for the R Pi 4.
Thank you for the answer! Will search more on the website to find a suitable board or a complete kit.