In recent weeks, Microsoft has distributed tens of thousands of vouchers for an Azure Sphere Kit from Avnet , one of the world's largest information and electrical engineering companies, in partnership with element14 , England.
In collaboration with Maker communities, the campaign also includes several tutorials and contests around the Azure Sphere Dev Kit.
For instance, in community challenges such as element14's sensor technology or Hackster.io's "security", high-quality non-cash prizes such as HoloLens 2 devices or Surface products can be won.
Nonetheless, the fun of the new world of IoT should be the focus of all this.
The heart of the board, the SoC, is an ARM-based MediaTek MT3620AN. In addition to a 500 MHz Core Cortex A7 with a full 4 MB SRAM ( Wiki ), it also has two 200 MHz Cortex M4F cores each with 64 KB SRAM.
The applied sensors include an accelerometer, a gyroscope, as well as ambient light, temperature, and air-gap sensors for experimentation.
The existing microUSB connector serves as a power supply as well as to connect to a computer via which the initial configuration and debugging takes place during development.
An integrated dualband Wifi chip for 2.4 and 5 GHz channels enables access to the Internet.
More detailed information in English is available at element14.com.
Azure Sphere, Azure Edge, IoT What?
Microsoft is always striving to expand the portfolio of the Azure ecosystem. This happens not only on the software side with new services and platforms, but also on the hardware side.
Without appropriate training here the end is quickly reached in the terrain of the understanding horizon. For this reason, now an attempt to explain certain concepts.
This is Azure Edge IoT ( Docs ) for the software side. This is a software stack based on the container virtualization Docker. With this not only data can be collected, but at the same time also by different methods such as among other things by artificial intelligence analyzes "on the edge of the IoT terminal border" directly on the device to be created. This avoids unnecessary traffic towards the Azure cloud. With encapsulation in a container, Azure Edge IoT can run on any virtualizable device and is not tied to either the processor architecture or the operating system.
Azure Sphere ( Docs ), on the other hand, is a highly secured hardware and application platform, built around the tight integration of specially certified ARM-based microprocessors (MPU) and controllers (MCUs), a custom Linux kernel, and a minimalist Linux kernel continuous security updates over the Internet.
These devices should be as inexpensive as possible in the purchase as well as maintenance, in order to roll them out in the largest possible quantities. These devices usually serve as a pure data collector and link between the sensor and Azure (IoT Edge).
With Windows 10 IoT ( Docs ), however, more "encapsulated devices" are equipped, which offer greater functionality, including on the basis of UWP applications. For example, return deposit machines, gas stations or thin clients. Thus, this operating system family defacto is the successor of Windows CE.
All these devices can be managed and controlled via the Azure IoT Hub ( Docs ) on the Web, which in turn can connect to other Azure services such as Data Lakes, Functions and so on.
For any questions or corrections please leave a comment below this article.
If you do not have this, you can go here for evaluation and development via a Microsoft Office Developer account. It is advisable to use a completely new Microsoft account (MSA) as a basis.
Once this hurdle has been climbed, the following facility is relatively straightforward. By installing the Azure Sphere SDK ( Docs ), the terminal command azsphere is available. If necessary, the firmware of the Developer Kit can be updated and the device can be "claimed" with it. This means that the device is now permanently connected to the AAD tenant and deposited in Azure. This is part of Microsoft's strong security concept of the IoT ecosystem.
After that, as long as the device is still connected via USB to a Windows 10 computer. The wifi of the SoC can be configured by the same command line command.
Once this step is completed, you can start experimenting and experimenting with the Azure Sphere Dev Kit!
The Azure Sphere SDK installed in the first section also includes templates for Visual Studio projects in addition to the command line tool already in use. One of them is called "Blink". This can be done immediately and play on the via USB-connected board.
If everything is compiled, transferred and executed without any problems, an LED on the board will not flash too much to overlook. Success!
From here on, nothing stands in the way of the pure enjoyment of the development. The Developer Kit Board already brings several other sensors, LEDs and free GPIO pins to experiment with.
In the Repostory tscholze / c-azure-sphere-blink on GitHub a slightly extended C-program can be found, which successively lights up each of the three colored LEDs once.
To cope with the actual field of application of such devices, one could, for example, send the internal temperature sensor to an Azure Hub instance, check for limits there and, if a maximum is exceeded, send the command to the device to display an LED.
A connection from, for example, an Arduino and Microsoft Web Services is also mentioned here as a viable solution.
For those who want to immerse themselves in the emerging and exciting world of the Enterprise IoT Cosmos, the Kit and Azure Sphere is one of the best entry points in the world. The mostly good and understandable documentation takes many hurdles.
In collaboration with Maker communities, the campaign also includes several tutorials and contests around the Azure Sphere Dev Kit.
For instance, in community challenges such as element14's sensor technology or Hackster.io's "security", high-quality non-cash prizes such as HoloLens 2 devices or Surface products can be won.
Nonetheless, the fun of the new world of IoT should be the focus of all this.
Content of the kit
In addition to several accompanying materials on paper, which should make attentive to the above actions, and eye-catching hazard statements that the device was not approved by the FCC, only the 33x22x3 millimeters comparatively small board and a Mirko-USB cable are included Dev kit included.The heart of the board, the SoC, is an ARM-based MediaTek MT3620AN. In addition to a 500 MHz Core Cortex A7 with a full 4 MB SRAM ( Wiki ), it also has two 200 MHz Cortex M4F cores each with 64 KB SRAM.
The applied sensors include an accelerometer, a gyroscope, as well as ambient light, temperature, and air-gap sensors for experimentation.
The existing microUSB connector serves as a power supply as well as to connect to a computer via which the initial configuration and debugging takes place during development.
An integrated dualband Wifi chip for 2.4 and 5 GHz channels enables access to the Internet.
More detailed information in English is available at element14.com.
Azure Sphere, Azure Edge, IoT What?
Microsoft is always striving to expand the portfolio of the Azure ecosystem. This happens not only on the software side with new services and platforms, but also on the hardware side.
Without appropriate training here the end is quickly reached in the terrain of the understanding horizon. For this reason, now an attempt to explain certain concepts.
This is Azure Edge IoT ( Docs ) for the software side. This is a software stack based on the container virtualization Docker. With this not only data can be collected, but at the same time also by different methods such as among other things by artificial intelligence analyzes "on the edge of the IoT terminal border" directly on the device to be created. This avoids unnecessary traffic towards the Azure cloud. With encapsulation in a container, Azure Edge IoT can run on any virtualizable device and is not tied to either the processor architecture or the operating system.
Azure Sphere ( Docs ), on the other hand, is a highly secured hardware and application platform, built around the tight integration of specially certified ARM-based microprocessors (MPU) and controllers (MCUs), a custom Linux kernel, and a minimalist Linux kernel continuous security updates over the Internet.
These devices should be as inexpensive as possible in the purchase as well as maintenance, in order to roll them out in the largest possible quantities. These devices usually serve as a pure data collector and link between the sensor and Azure (IoT Edge).
With Windows 10 IoT ( Docs ), however, more "encapsulated devices" are equipped, which offer greater functionality, including on the basis of UWP applications. For example, return deposit machines, gas stations or thin clients. Thus, this operating system family defacto is the successor of Windows CE.
All these devices can be managed and controlled via the Azure IoT Hub ( Docs ) on the Web, which in turn can connect to other Azure services such as Data Lakes, Functions and so on.
For any questions or corrections please leave a comment below this article.
Nothing works without Azure
As the name suggests, Azure Sphere-based devices will not work without Azure. The commissioning and administration of these devices requires a special Azure Active Directoy (AAD, Docs ) account . As with the contribution to the Excel logger, this is only possible with a work or school account. An MSA (@outlook.com) as well as an Office 365 home subscriber are not sufficient .If you do not have this, you can go here for evaluation and development via a Microsoft Office Developer account. It is advisable to use a completely new Microsoft account (MSA) as a basis.
Once this hurdle has been climbed, the following facility is relatively straightforward. By installing the Azure Sphere SDK ( Docs ), the terminal command azsphere is available. If necessary, the firmware of the Developer Kit can be updated and the device can be "claimed" with it. This means that the device is now permanently connected to the AAD tenant and deposited in Azure. This is part of Microsoft's strong security concept of the IoT ecosystem.
After that, as long as the device is still connected via USB to a Windows 10 computer. The wifi of the SoC can be configured by the same command line command.
Once this step is completed, you can start experimenting and experimenting with the Azure Sphere Dev Kit!
First run own program
The more system-oriented C programming language is considered by Microsoft to be the standard for developing applications for Azure Sphere Devices.The Azure Sphere SDK installed in the first section also includes templates for Visual Studio projects in addition to the command line tool already in use. One of them is called "Blink". This can be done immediately and play on the via USB-connected board.
If everything is compiled, transferred and executed without any problems, an LED on the board will not flash too much to overlook. Success!
From here on, nothing stands in the way of the pure enjoyment of the development. The Developer Kit Board already brings several other sensors, LEDs and free GPIO pins to experiment with.
In the Repostory tscholze / c-azure-sphere-blink on GitHub a slightly extended C-program can be found, which successively lights up each of the three colored LEDs once.
To cope with the actual field of application of such devices, one could, for example, send the internal temperature sensor to an Azure Hub instance, check for limits there and, if a maximum is exceeded, send the command to the device to display an LED.
Is it suitable for Maker?
Due to the compelling connection with Azure and the paid services there is at least for the hobbyist maker probably Windows 10 IoT Core the better and easier choice when it comes to operating systems from Microsoft.A connection from, for example, an Arduino and Microsoft Web Services is also mentioned here as a viable solution.
For those who want to immerse themselves in the emerging and exciting world of the Enterprise IoT Cosmos, the Kit and Azure Sphere is one of the best entry points in the world. The mostly good and understandable documentation takes many hurdles.
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