Microsoft Azure Cloud IoT Sensing Platform from STMicro for Beginners and Experts Alike

STMicroelectronics is launching SensorTile.box. Uniquely, the company is marketing the device to everyone from expert designers to young people. The intentions is to help do-it-yourselfers discover the power of IoT and quickly understand how they can readily collect and send sensor information to the cloud.

The flexible IoT Plug and Play module connects effortlessly with Bluetooth® Low Energy to a smartphone, letting users watch the sensors function as a pedometer, environmental monitor, asset tracker, or as other instruments.

For more experienced designers, SensorTile.box offers developer and expert modes that help build advanced applications with a graphical wizard or by programming custom embedded code.

STMicroelectronics will showcase SensorTile.box as a new demonstration platform for Azure IoT Central. The company says the IoT sensor platform simplifies connecting smart devices to the cloud for data capture and analysis.

STEVAL-MKSBOX1V1 (SensorTitle.box)

"SensorTile.box is uniquely flexible. It can be configured for users of any skill level to support learning, prototyping, or even as a module within a commercial end-product. Now IoT Plug and Play certified and compatible with IoT Central, it connects out-of-the-box with Azure IoT to further extend opportunities for learning and new-product development," Andrea Onetti, General Manager of ST's MEMS Sensor Division said.

"SensorTile.box will be showcased as a demonstration platform for Azure IoT Central, which aims to help everyone understand the benefits of IoT and the cloud and show them how easy it is to connect," Tony Shakib, Principal Group PM Manager, Microsoft IoT Business Acceleration at Microsoft Corp. added.

SensorTile.box combines ST MEMS devices for motion, context, and environmental sensing in a robust 57mm x 38mm x 20mm IP54 plastic container.

The company plans to make SensorTile.box available from the beginning of June from the company's website or from ST's distributors.

FAE Technology, an authorized ST Partner company, will provide the commercial module and associated services.

SensorTile.box serves a wide range of sensing, tracking, and monitoring use cases, and it is delivered ready-to-use with a 500mAh lithium battery and 8GB microSD card already fitted.

On-board sensors take advantage of ST's broad portfolio of proven high-performance Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices.

The sensors are managed with an ultra-low-power STM32L4R9* microcontroller.

Sensors

• STTS751 high-accuracy temperature sensor
• HTS221 humidity sensor
• LPS22HH pressure sensor/altimeter
• MP23ABS1 analog microphone
• LSM6DSOX low-power 6-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) with
• Machine Learning Core (MLC)
• LIS3DHH and LIS2DW12 3-axis accelerometers
• LIS2MDL magnetometer

In addition to asset tracking, environmental monitoring, and pedometer applications, beginners can also investigate data recording, vibration monitoring, digital compass, inclinometer/level-sensing, and baby-monitoring applications.

Added flexibility in developer mode allows activating or shutting down of individual sensors to optimize power consumption, and leverage sensor fusion by combining data from multiple sensors to improve the overall accuracy. This combining of data also enables individual calibration of sensors after final assembly using dedicated internal routines.

Also, the LSM6DSOX machine-learning core and AI extensions to the STM32Cube development ecosystem let advanced users run neural networks for advanced pattern recognition such as audio-scene classification and activity tracking.

Professional users can also utilize the STM32 Open Development Environment (STM32 ODE) to develop powerful applications quickly and efficiently, leveraging the STM32CubeMX configurator and code generator, and the STLink-V3 programmer and debugger.

The STEVAL-MKSBOX1V1 (SensorTile.box) is a ready-to-use box kit with wireless IoT and wearable sensor platform to help develop apps based on remote motion and environmental sensor data, regardless of their level of expertise.

The SensorTile.box board fits into a small plastic box with a long-life rechargeable battery. The ST BLE Sensor app on a smartphone connects via Bluetooth to the board and allows immediate use of the wide range of default IoT and wearable sensor applications.

Expert Mode enables the building of customs apps from a selection of available SensorTile.box sensors, operating parameters, data and output types, and special functions, and algorithms.

This multi-sensor kit, therefore, allows the designing of wireless IoT and wearable sensor applications quickly and easily, without performing any programming.

SensorTile.box includes a firmware programming and debugging interface that allows more complex firmware code development using the STM32 Open Development Environment (STM32 ODE), which includes a sensing AI function pack with neural network libraries.

In addition to the wide range of intelligent, low power MEMS sensors recently released by ST, the STEVAL-MKSBOX1V1 solution has three interface buttons and three LEDs and features an STM32L4 microcontroller for managing sensor configuration and process sensor output data, a micro-USB battery charging interface, and an ST Bluetooth Low Energy module for wireless communication with a BLE-enabled smartphone.

The kit's small protective housing and long-life battery make it suitable for testing remoting monitoring, wearable, and tracking IoT applications. The free-to-download ST BLE Sensor app for a smartphone lets developers almost immediately begin running the board with any of the following applications that the company specifically designed to work with the sensors.

• Barometer app: allows the configuring of the STTS751 temperature, LPS22HH barometric pressure and HTS221 humidity sensors to monitor environmental information in real time from a smartphone, or collect and graph the data over time on a plot screen.
• Compass and level app: allows configuring of the LSM6DSOX accelerometer and gyroscope and LIS2MDL magnetometer sensors to monitor real-time inclination and bearing sensor feedback data and plot the information over time.
• Step counter app: allows the configuring of the LSM6DSOX accelerometer to monitor walking and running speeds and plot the information over time.
• Baby crying app: lets you configure the MP23ABS1 microphone sensor to detect human voice events including a baby crying and send an alert to a smartphone and activate a LED on the sensor board.
• Vibration monitoring app: allows configuring of the LSM6DSOX accelerometer and the set up a board to "learn" the normal (typical) operation of motorized, domestic or industrial equipment, and then monitor the same equipment for atypical vibration for predictive maintenance purposes.
• Data recorder and vehicle/goods tracking app: lets you select and configure appropriate environmental and motion sensors to log the transportation and storage conditions that particular merchandise is subject to over time.
• Compensated magnetometer app: allows the building of additional apps from the magnetometer output, and a sensor fusion algorithm can compensate for disturbances from external magnetic fields.

Features

• Easy-to-use app with instant functionality for the following motion and environmental sensor applications
  • Pedometer optimized for belt positioning
  • Baby crying detection with Cloud AI learning
  • Barometer/environmental monitoring
  • Vehicle/goods tracking
  • Vibration monitoring
  • Compass and inclinometer
  • Sensor data logger
• Expert Mode with additional sensor app parameter settings
• Compact board with the following high precision sensors:
  • Digital temperature sensor (STTS751)
  • 6-axis inertial measurement unit (LSM6DSOX)
  • 3-axis accelerometers (LIS2DW12 and LIS3DHH)
  • 3-axis magnetometer (LIS2MDL)
  • Altimeter/pressure sensor (LPS22HH)
  • Microphone/audio sensor (MP23ABS1)
  • Humidity sensor (HTS221)
• Ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller with DSP and FPU (STM32L4R9)
• Bluetooth Smart connectivity v4.2 (SPBTLE-1S)
• Programming and debugging interface for professional firmware development