Seedling Internet of Things (IoT) and Wearables Platform

Transcription

1 Seedling Internet of Things (IoT) and Wearables Platform WHITE PAPER Hitseed Oy Version

2 HitSeed Introduction HitSeed Oy ( was founded and incorporated in 2012 in Finland to focus on accelerating connected hardware development and market entry. Our clients range from startups to large enterprises that want to develop connected products combining hardware, software, design and connectivity. We help these companies with our unique roster of industry and startup experts with unprecedented track record in the related industries. This network combined with tools like generic platforms, community collaboration and outsourced manufacturing will turn emerging growth opportunities into hit products and the future success stories. Although HitSeed has worked with a number of companies in Finland and abroad with their first products entering the commercial stage, it has simultaneously conducted an extensive internal R&D effort and has changed its focus from coaching and consulting into providing tools, services, and solutions for HitSeed s partners. At the core of this direction is a market- leading hardware+software platform, Seedling, that is primed for wearables and IoT devices. To demonstrate the capabilities, HitSeed has built on Seedling a reference product for smartwatches called Wristol. HitSeed is currently in client discussions regarding Wristol as well as considering its next steps with Seedling in the IoT Domain. HitSeed s key milestones this far are described in the following figure. Figure 1. HitSeed key milestones during HitSeed status as of June 2014 is the following: Wristol SmartWatch is ready as a first product story for Seedling. Beta release demonstrating our thinking and assets in industry verticals like Fitness and Gaming, Ecosystem collaboration with IOS and Android, proximity interaction including IoT, advanced user interface (UI&UX), wearable specific use cases, design, and partnering.

3 Set of applications and Smartwatch industrial design to be used as a basis for commercial wearable implementations. Seedling Business platform is ready for partners and new product concepts. Focus on providing our partners the best possible hardware and end- to- end platform for developing wearable and IoT products. Initial release focuses on wearables. Updated frequently to provide the best possible generic hardware for various needs. Operating model differentiators via our HW@Internet speed approach; Agile partnering, speed of development, fast development cycles, product & production focus. Product differentiators: Best- of- breed and open tools, optimized Microcontroller- based hardware, full- scale UX, agile development, extremely low power consumption, cost advantages. HitSeed Core Team Our core team has an extensive experience related to startups, business development, M&A, product development, hardware, mobiles, IoT and software. For example, we have helped companies in hardware creation questions from the Silicon Valley to China and ranging from small startups to largest players in their own industries. We are also founding members of the Ell- I Co- Operative ( i.org) that focuses on developing an Open Source hardware and software platform for intelligent Power- over- Ethernet (PoE) devices. In addition to our core team, we have a very wide partner network of individual experts and companies for different various specialized tasks related to HW and product development. Our core team is as follows: Mr Sami Jokela Managing Partner. 18 years of technology, venturing, business development and management consulting experience in Europe and in the Silicon Valley. 25 years of hardware and software experience. Has established multiple high technology and media ventures. PhD in C.S. / Strategy. Mr Pertti Kasanen Partner, CTO. Over 15 years of software, high technology and internet service entrepreneurship. Deep expertize in designing and building complex end- to- end systems involving hardware, software and cloud. M.Sc in C.S.

4 Mr Teemu Toroi Partner. 14 years of high technology consumer electronics and management consulting experience in high tech, media and industrial segments. Has founded a venture capital company as well as established and sold several high technology ventures. M.Sc in Engineering Physics. Mr Kalle Kivekäs Partner. Focus on HitSeed s Sourcing services. 15 years of high tech industry engineering and strategy development experience. Seasoned Sourcing and Supply Chain Executive. D.Sc. in Microelectronic Circuit Design. Mr Antti Hannula Partner. A serial entrepreneur with a solid track record in software industry. Several years track record in crowdinvesting. M.Sc in C.S. Wristol Smartwatch reference product Wristol SmartWatch is a reference product based on the HitSeed s Seedling wearables and IoT platform. The goal for Wristol is to demonstrate the capabilities of Seedling in wearables as well as to provide a generic reference design and end2end platform for HitSeed s partners to enter the wearables business. HitSeed is currently discussing with a number of potential partners regarding the use of Wristol for their own products, including a customer pilot with the international ICT integrator. This includes both international companies that are leaders in their industries as well as some of the startups we have found most promising as our partners. In addition to the Seedling HW + SW platform, Wristol consists of a SmartWatch industrial design, graphical user interface as well as a set of core applications. Next figure describes the core value proposal for Wristol. Figure 2. Value proposal for the Seedling reference product, Wristol smart watch.

5 Key features of the Wristol are described in the following figure. Figure 3. Wristol smartwatch key characteristics Wristol reference applications are design to provide a core set of applications for different potential smartwatch domains such as sports, proximity control, mobile companionship, IoT, and leisure. The following table describes the Wristol reference applications available now. Application Clock & Compass Pedometer with pulse measurement Speed Reader / Write Gaming Spotify client Local weather Display speed blox Touch screen drawing Rationale Core functionality Fitness/health vertical use case. Showcases advanced MPU & P2P integration with peripherals & IoT use UX innovations. Full- speed reading and typing on small devices. Gaming vertical opportunity. Demonstrating also developing speed. E2E integration with mobile and Cloud. Integration with IOS and Android Ecosystems & apps. Developer productivity by using Javascript like tools Performance demonstrator Build to demonstrate the touch screen quality. Shows also draw a message capability. Mobile client & cloud Remote control, Notifications integration, proximity, IoT demonstrators,.. Table 1. Value proposal for the Seedling reference product, Wristol smartwatch.

6 Seedling platform Seedling is a first of its kind solution and an optimized platform for wearables and IoT devices developed by HitSeed. It enables launching connected hardware business with minimal custom effort from concept to a commercial product. The key differentiator for Seedling is the use of microcontrollers instead of microprocessors while still providing high performance, connectivity, full graphical user interface, and capacitive touch. It also provides a very agile and extendible tools&architecture for different hardware (e.g. new sensors) and software variants. Through the microcontroller, our other main components, and our lean and optimized software platform, Seedling offers a combination of cost efficiency, power optimization and platform flexibility that cannot be achieved with existing, computer- based derivatives like Android or Linux devices (next figure). The Seedling hardware solution can be packaged into a range of designs for industrial and home automation, smart watches, sports sensors and further. Figure 4. Seedling platform positioning in the cost & performance vs. power consumption scale. Seedling platform consists of: 1) A hardware solution, including Seedling hardware board based on microcontrollers, a developer extension board to allow new sensors and other components to be prototyped, and a set of flex adapter boards for different displays (next figure) 2) Software platform including FreeRTOS- based operating system and adaptation and device drivers to the Seedling hardware as well as corresponding system architecture and core user interface and communication mechanisms

7 3) Seedling reference applications for mobiles (IOS, Android), IoT communication gateways and cloud to provide Bluetooth- based companionship with mobile functionality and for cloud- based data processing e.g. for IoT sensors, and 4) Software development tools including GCC and Eclipse - based open source developer tool chain with on- board debugging, and Seedling platform libraries for application development as well as in- depth developer documentation. Figure 5. Seedling HW platform and typical developer setup including Seedling expansion boards and display flex adapter boards as well as a debugger connection With our Seedling offering HitSeed or HitSeed s partners are fully equipped to develop wearables and IoT- products. The following figure describes the typical growth path for HitSeed s clients using Seedling. Figure 6. Developing Wearable and IoT products using Seedling

8 Differentation IoT hardware platforms can currently be divided into two categories. The first category is based on microcontrollers, which are inexpensive, consume only little power, but also have had rather limited computational power. Therefore microcontroller- powered devices have typically had only very constrained user interaction capabilities, restricted often to just a few buttons and indicator lights. Also connectivity has typically been very limited. The second IoT category is based on computers using full- blown operating systems running on microprocessors. Compared to microcontroller based platforms, microprocessor based platforms are more capable and have more computational power, but pay a steep price in terms of complexity, cost and power consumption. Seedling IoT platform is a microcontroller based platform, which intends to disrupt the microprocessor based IoT market from below. The latest microcontrollers have high enough performance to replace microprocessors for many use cases as their computing power is on the same level as mid- 1990s PCs. For example, microcontrollers are able to drive with excellent performance small color displays with capacitive touch input, or pre- process sensor data needed e.g. in household appliances, sensors, and industrial controls. Therefore, in many cases Seedling based IoT platform could replace microprocessor based IoT solutions with similar performance, but significantly lower unit costs. In addition, low power consumption enables totally new use cases, because usage time with a battery is potentially several times longer than on microprocessor based solutions, leading potentially into a fully mobile, fire- and- forget type of device types not possible before. From the industry standards perspective IoT solution market resembles the PC market in 1980s. There are several standards, and all components are not compatible with each other. Building IoT solutions requires lot of tailored work,

9 including time- consuming hardware modifications. Dominant designs are only emerging. The purpose of the Seedling IoT platform is to provide a generic connected hardware platform for products while moving the innovation effort to take place on the software layer. The intention is to create a versatile hardware platform for many different purposes. It has enough computational power and memory for most use cases, and use case specific sensors can be connected with minor modifications and without hardware re- design. This lowers costs and risks, but most importantly it reduces time- to- market, as cycles in software development are significantly than for hardware. Hardware development takes typically from 12 to 24 months, and requires significant development resources and a wide range of expertize. Instead, software development takes only weeks or even days. If IoT deployment times can be cut from 1-2 years to months, it provides faster iterations and a significantly improved productivity boost, as benefits kick in earlier. Also the deployment project costs are significantly lower. This means that Seedling IoT platform would be disruptive both technologically and by providing a faster and more cost- effective model for IoT development. Our software development tools are also free as opposed to the typical embedded software tools with hefty licensing costs. Adding all the benefits together, we estimate initially that the total cost of a Seedling based IoT solution might be only one tenth of the total cost of a comparable traditional IoT solution. Further information We are actively looking for new collaboration partners for Seedling, Wristol, and beyond. For inquiries and further information, please contact Sami Jokela Managing Partner, HitSeed Oy sami.jokela@hitseed.com