 So we're here at the Embedded World in 2018 and who are you? Hi, I'm Steve Gustenhoven and I'm here from IOTI's. We're here with a connectivity solution as part of the ST Partner Program. We're really happy to be here at Embedded World today on our stand and at the STM32 Fan Zone where we're showing off a new product that's called the Tap and Link Primer. So you connect with their development board right here. You have your solution here. What is that? So the solution is actually a radio module that includes an NFC device, the ST25. Can we open this up? Sure. Can you show the whole module what it is? Sure, sure. Right there. So this... This like... What part do you have in here? So inside this module... So the module is a board that includes an ST25 DV NFC device and the STM32 L4 microcontroller. Is this this one? Exactly, and that is this board here where you see all the interfaces and you'll see the NFC antenna that runs the perimeter of the device. Now the specialization of IOTI's is to provide what we call plug-and-play connectivity for embedded systems based on microcontrollers. That connectivity is a combination of a microcontroller that allows us to exploit different types of interfaces on a board, including, for example, the debug interface on this application board. So for here, for example, we have an STM32 L4 application board. It's a discovery board that we've taken off the shelf from ST and we have connected that board to our RF module via its debug port. So what we call the SWD port. Now what that allows us to do is it allows us to provide a radio module that implements by configuration only. So that means that the user, instead of developing code to implement Bluetooth low energy or NFC devices, what they do in fact is they transfer a configuration to this module and that configuration tells the module what addresses it should access in order to show different types of variables and it tells it what types of profiles should have access to that information. So is this an active NFC? Yes. So it can basically show any tag you want through the system here? No, in fact, in this device, we're an NFC tag and we're using that NFC tag to initiate communications with a smartphone and to pair the BLE interface in this case. And so for example, we simply tap the smartphone and here we have a smartphone interface that's based on information on this board. The information coming from that is coming from variables that are related to the RTC on the application board in the STM32 F4 target and essentially we've rendered those as a clock on our smartphone application. Now keep in mind that because we've connected on a special port, the debug port, we have both the ability to read and write information in the STM32 memory. So from this application, we can continue to monitor the evolution of these variables. So here we have the time that's evolving and we can also write the information. So that means we can log into this application and change the time in the RTC application. Now, this technology in particularly the Tap and Link Primer is a solution that allows us to bring a connection that connects to a smartphone as we've seen on our smartphone application to provide a user interface but a user with a primer, when they configure their primer, will also configure their primer to send data directly to a dedicated cloud interface. So in essence, by using the debug port, we allow users to quickly and rapidly develop their IoT proof-of-concept whether they want to simply deport the user interface to a smartphone or if they want to do remote monitoring of information from their application on a cloud-based interface. So how is it to be a STM32 partner, right? Right, exactly. So we're here actually as an ST partner, as I said before, on our stand and in the STM32 fan zone and we're very happy to be part of this program because it's allowed us a level of collaboration on this project as we move forward implementing the NFC, Bluetooth, and the microcontroller part of our design. Now we're to a finished product and we're promoting that product to the STM32 community and via the ST partner program. Anybody who's developing an NFC-based IoT product will be working with you? In fact, anybody who's working with an STM32 microcontroller can use our solution to bring NFC and Bluetooth Low-Net Energy connectivity directly to their application and without modifying their original firmware. They'll simply configure the module, plug it into their application and they'll have a connectivity channel that can take them to a smartphone and to the cloud. So you have some real-world implementations already? Yes, that's correct. For example, this is a proof of concept that we did with a company called HydroLogic. The HydroLogic machine is the machine that's used to measure water levels in industrial systems. Now what we've done on that system is actually a pure connectivity case for IoTIs where our module is actually connected directly to a debug port that's present in the system. Nothing has been done otherwise to modify the electronics or the firmware of this product. We simply configured our module so that we bring an NFC and a Bluetooth connection to this device. So we simply tap a smartphone to engage the NFC and our module tells the smartphone what application files to load in order to have the user interface. And is it going to tell you how much water is left? Right, and so in this case it's a simple application where we've looked at recuperating certain values like the water level that's reported here, the temperature and the voltage. And we can also give that value different representations which is one of the pleasures of working on smartphones is there are a lot of resources that you can do to animate what your variables represent. And for example, if I adjust the probe depth we can see that my water level changes according to that positioning. Now one other thing we can do on the smartphone is we can also treat data so we can manage the data and establish, for example, a history of data established strictly on the smartphone. So here you see a curve of the latest data and you can see that the water level has varied and that is all information that's been gathered and logged on the smartphone. I think every trade show should have this because it's not very nice when you come to the water machine there's no more water. Absolutely, and in fact, in fact next year maybe we'll have a display with a big red light that says the water is getting low and maybe a map or something to bring people to the water. Okay. And there's some other demo right here that's using a different kind of solution right here. Okay, so as we mentioned before on our tap and link tools or on our tap and link modules we were connecting to a debug port or a serial port. In this case we have an industrial system that allows us to connect to a system bus so it can be an RS232, RS485, Ethernet, CAN or USB port. And in this case we provide both a module that can be left in place on the industrial system or there's also a module that's portable that runs on its own battery so you can bring the connectivity to the device that you want to connect to. So it serves as sort of connectivity dongle in that case. So you turn things into IoT. Absolutely. And that's what IoT is all about. IoT isn't just about making things connected but it's about removing all the barriers that we can so that you can make your objects connected as quickly and as rapidly as possible without running additional risks. And the tap and link primer is the ideal way to go and take your application boards, IoT's them and discuss the IoT around a concrete example of an IoTized application so you can talk with marketers and technical design teams around a functional example and not talk about theories about the IoT.