 Hey you guys, I've got the greatest new invention. You take a piece of material Cut it into a round shape then put a perpendicular thing through the middle and you can oh Wait, somebody already did this. Oh, yeah, that's right If you're like me every time you do an IOT design with sensors and Bluetooth You feel like you're reinventing the wheel We spend so much time doing all the same stuff Everybody else has to do before we start the real work that makes our application awesome Maybe we should do something about that. Don't you think hi? I'm Amelia Dalton host of chalk talk today I'm talking with Francesco Dodo of ST Microelectronics about the blue energy to IOT IOT sensors development kit which can get us way down the road on our sensor-based IOT design without spending weeks Reinventing, you know And before we get started don't forget to click that link there You can find even more information about the blue energy to IOT sensors development kit from ST Microelectronics, thank you. Thanks a lot Okay, so we are here to talk about blue energy tile, but first can you tell me what is all of this all about? Absolutely, so that's a little board that we put together a few months ago We didn't tend actually to address a lot of IOT applications and specifically Application in the industrial space. So we wanted actually to have a single unit with all the sensors and connectivity and Processing power to enable actually battery-operated applications to be connected in with the cloud And so that's pretty much what we want to achieve with the blue energy tile Okay, so in short, what can you do with the blue and our G tile? So really in a summary there are three things that we want to achieve implement motion algorithms within the blue energy tile being able to Transmit voice over Bluetooth low energy and implement wireless network with the Bluetooth low energy mesh in the board Cool. Can you show me an example? Absolutely, so I have in front of me a little board over here, right? I'm gonna plug the battery in the board and the first thing that we're gonna do We're gonna connect to an app that is available both on Android and IOS and once we connect the first thing that we're gonna be able to see in the board is really a bunch of sensors That you can actually read so we're monitoring the data that are coming from the sensors and all this data can be logged in the app and Send offline through an email for example to your favorite email address but you can also monitor the same data using USB connection and Connecting basically the board to your computer So you have to weigh actually to sense the data and log the data. So what about remote toggling? That's an important feature it's in basic but in reality This gives you the possibility to control what is happening on the board an example is that you can toggle an LED on the board Just using that icon that you see here on the smartphone where you can turn it off and turn it down really talk about the LED So this allows you actually to do even more when you put your hands really in the code and you can control remotely Sensors within the board. So can you use the board to detect different types of events? Absolutely, that's a great question because really highlights the low power Consumption of the boards. So all the sensors that are available within the blue energy tile They offer embedded capability to detect events So that means basically that you can let the main microcontroller the main brutal energy SOC to sleep Why all the sensors are processing data? And if a feature or an event is detected that actually notify and wake up the brutal energy microcontroller And then notify the app as an example you see here in this picture a tap So the inertial sensors can automatically detect the tap on the board if you push with your finger the board and At that point the sensor is going to wake up the brutal energy SOC and the brutal energy SOC will notify that information to the smartphone Okay, these are really cool examples, but what about something else really impressive this board can do? A lot of applications actually especially in the industrial space, but also in the wearable space They're really required to know in a very accurate way the absolute position in space Rotational position in space. And so usually the state of the art of this technology is adopting sensor fusion for those sensors Usually the challenge is that the sensor fusion works with the high performance microcontroller where you need and you know A lot of meeps and so on we achieved with this board is that we can run the sensor fusion Thanks to a very simple cortex M zero microprocessor So not a lot of meeps available But still we're able to achieve great capabilities and performances with the sensor fusion available on the board So you're able then to really precisely map the rotational position of the board in space And this might be of great interest in applications like robotics, for example, cool. What else? So the other incredible part is actually that you can stream voice think about of a simple remote control Nowadays a lot of our remote controls for TV. They actually have voice control, right? So now you can use a microphone that is available on the blue energy tile Detect the voice and send your voice over Bluetooth low energy so that the remote device in this case the smartphone It's gonna be able to play back your voice in real time And this is not the functionality is not natively supported by Bluetooth low energy But we were able actually to implement this in again a cortex M zero SUC and is in a bother operated device So that's a great another great functionality is just an add-on and you can use it for several other Scenarios like for example audio sync classifications from the audio you're able actually to understand what's going on around you You're in indoor outdoor or for example in a conference room like we are right now Okay, so after I collect and process all this data. What do I do next? That's a super good question, right? Because now we got an incredible sensor with all these new functionalities We send all this information to the smartphone and then what right? Are we stuck on the smartphone? So not what we did actually within the app We have the possibility to connect the app to your favorite cloud providers as tea is partner of both at your NAW S And does a lot of work with IBM as well So you do have the possibility to select your option through the app either IBM or AWS or Azure and Connect to a remote cloud service their remote cloud service and post your data in your favorite dashboard So you can see actually those data working in one of the three options We also do provide a possibility to use a very simple M QTT, which is a standard protocol for cloud So you can implement your own cloud service and use this custom M QTT service That doesn't need to be plugged into one of the cloud providers that we mentioned before so it's very flexible Okay, so how does the tile achieve all of these features? What lets you get there? When you look at really at the sensor you see this little board that is only 25 millimeters wide basically exactly the same size of the CR 3032 battery so very small and When you look at the board by itself you see sensors all over the place look at the picture over here You see ranging sensor that allow you to measure distance with a high resolution up to four meters So you can use really this structure to measure distance But you find also the inertial sensors the accelerometer the magnetometer and the gyroscope That allow you basically to detect movement in a very precise way But also rotational movement of the object as we showed before then you also see the microphone That allows you basically to talk to the board and send voice over bluetooth low energy And you see also what we call the environmental sensors There is a water resistant pressure sensor that allows actually you to measure barometric pressure And that's great to help for example think about an application where you want to know on which Store of a building you are which floor of a building you are right? So this will allow you basically to detect not only that actually that precision and the resolution of this pressure sensor Allow you to understand if you're walking up or down the steps So it goes up to a few centimeters of resolution and then you look at the combo temperature and humidity sensor This is really important because a lot of those applications that need to be calibrated in the field So you have wireless sensor node with all these sensors, right? You use the sensors in the field But most of the time the behavior of the sensor is really affected by the temperature around the sensor But also the humidity around the sensor So those sensors helped you to really calibrate the inertial for example that you want to use So you have calibrated applications So they're fundamental blocks for the end application that you want to use and then at the center of all this System there is a Bluetooth low-energy so see the blue energy dash to this device is basically a cortex M zero Bluetooth low energy so see one of the lowest power consumption device in the market That's why we're able actually to push this entire application to very low power consumption limits And also it offers the processing power that is good enough to drive the sensors and run all these libraries So Francisco, can you tell me a little bit more about the architecture of the tile? Absolutely, it's a very simple architecture if you look at this picture for example You see the blue energy dash to the blue turner just to see at the center of the architecture And the device is connected just using I square C to all the sensors So all the sensors actually they are connected to the I square C and then you see the microphone It has a dedicated port so it's connected through a dedicated port and then you see the top portion of this scheme You see the antenna matching which brings me also to another important point The the boards has been fc certified already So the design that we have put together is a really robust design that is available to everybody that wants to use it So we make available the Gerber files the bomb the schematic and again being fc certified That's another value of this platform developers can just copy the design and basically They're almost hundred percent sure that that design can pass fc certification if they follow those guidelines and design rules Okay, so tell me a little bit more about the blue NRG. Why is it so great? That's really the key element of this board, right? So we're able actually to run the blue energy dash two out of batteries together with the rest of the board and the device by itself Running out of a CR 2032 battery can actually run for more than three years of lifetime And this is definitely because of the lowest current consumption in sleep mode from this device So you can go down to 0.9 micro amp when connected using Bluetooth low energy But also if you were for example, if you have the board no connected to a smartphone This can go even farther down to 500 nano amps. So this is really an incredible number for those type of radios That's why we get this great current consumption But besides that the device has a flash that can go up to 256 k with 24 k of ram And this ram is always in full retention Which means basically that even when the device in this lowest current consumption mode Which is basically the standby with 500 nano amps the device is still in ram retention So it preserves so that the data that are within the device and they can wake up fast So you don't need to reset the device Finally, of course, the device is a 5.0 Bluetooth certified device with a very optimized stack That only requires 70 k of flash and 8 k of ram for the device And of course, as all the encryption functionalities and privacy functionalities are required by the 5.0 standard So you talked all about the features Is there a summary you could give me with all the functionalities and software libraries as well? Absolutely. So I have prepared for you at one slide that is going to summarize everything So you see on the right side the device, the Bluetooth energy board And on the left side you see all the libraries that we support So you see if we start from the top, you see all the calibration algorithms Those are super important in order to make sure that all our sensors are working properly So you see actually calibration for the magnetometer, calibration for the gyroscope And from the accelerometer You want to make sure that all the intrinsic effects of the sensors are removed before we start any acquisition So those are in there And then you see the position tracking library We see basically what we call the motion effects Our sensor fusion library together with the tilt detection and the compass functionality All these functionalities can be explored individually using the app So you can have access to each of them and really play a little bit with the functionalities So you can get used with that And then you see also some of the activity tracking features, libraries Again embedded within the Blender G-2 system on chip You can recognize for example if a person is biking Or if a person is carrying for example the unit in this pocket Or you can have gesture recognition For example a free fall on the board Or if you're waking up the board just moving it And there is even a pedometer that is actually embedded in there So for example if you want to try it later If you want to get actually the unit Put in your pocket and just walk It's going to tell you with an incredible precision How many steps actually you have taken here Just taking a walk in the office And finally actually there are other libraries a little bit more evolved To understand if you're for example running If you're standing, if you're sitting Or if you're using the little board and bringing Like you will bring your phone next to your ear Same story, it will tell you exactly recognize that type of movement So those are all additional libraries That are available within the Blender G-Tile And the message here is that they're designed to be low power But also to be efficient from a side's code side's perspective Because they're all actually working within a 256k of flash device So that's amazing how many things we can put together in this little board Great, tell me a little bit about the power consumption of this board Yes this is really the key element Right because when we design this board We add power consumption in mind So we wanted to have this board actually to run on You know a standard CR2032 battery And we wanted to have a very long battery life So what we did actually we say okay Let's consider the most popular cases use cases that you will use And let's see what we can get in terms of battery life With that specific battery right And here is actually a result of what we got That's a quick summary So if you keep the board in standby Which basically means that the board is not doing Anything is just waiting for something to happen And this something to happen can be either You take the board and you wake up just moving it So you get 25 microamps for the entire board So that's current consumption of the entire board With all the sensors in sleep mode And the radio in standby mode And in this case as you can see You get basically more than a year of battery life For the entire system Now we're talking about the entire system The second step is what we call the Advertise with 250 milliseconds Basically that means that Not only the board is actually processing all the information Coming from the sensors But it's also letting the rest of the world Knowing that it is there The board is there So if you get closer to a smartphone The smartphone will be able actually to see the board Because the board is advertising And in this case of course You can connect to the smartphone In this case we got up to 170 microamps Of total current consumption in this specific case Which bring the battery life to 54 days So we're assuming in this specific case That the board is advertising all the time Right? While in the real case What will happen is that The board will be in standby So with the current consumption of 25 microamps And then you're gonna move it And then you're gonna get into the advertisement So typical use case You're gonna always kind of duty cycle Between the two functionalities Then we consider a few cases Where you're doing something with the board Like for example You're notifying the battery consumption to the app And so you get this short time to 25 milliamps So for example if you're so curious That you wanna know the battery life of the board All the time Your battery will last only 37 days Pretty good If you're so focused actually to look at the board At the app for all this time And then for example If you just wanna monitor That's another important case Continuously all the environmental sensors The inertial sensors Specifically the accelerometer And also control the LED As you can see the current consumption Increase a little bit more Because now we're continuously streaming data From the board to the smartphone And so we go down to 30 days Then if you want to add the sensor fusion So now we're really getting this board Really busy in doing something So checking the rotational position continuously And sending all this data A lot of data through the smartphone Now we're getting to 1.4 milliamps Which by the way is still pretty good Considering the activity that the board is doing And now we're getting into 6.5 days If you run this continuously Finally if we use the microphone And we're gonna stream voice This is actually the worst case scenario For Bluetooth low energy Because that's really when you're sending A lot of data Especially you're streaming your voice Into the app And we get up to 3.6 milliamps And 2.5 days of continuous Streaming of your voice Can you do that? And then finally If we consider also the ranging sensor Together with the rotational position So let's say we want to Not only understand The rotational position of the device But also measure the distance of this device From a specific target Using the ranging sensor So in this case we go up to 8 milliamp And we only have A little bit more than one day Of current battery consumption Okay so what does this look like? So if we want to have a pictorial Description of this That's basically Those are the measurements that we took Out of the lab Right so the numbers that I gave you before Not just theoretical numbers That we put in that spreadsheet But really you know This is what we did with our test in the lab To make sure that We can bring something that is really value For our customers So when you look into this You will see some of the peak in here Of current consumption That is really when you use the ranging sensor Which is a sensor that actually requires More current to be driven And then you see If for example Go to the right side Where you see The standby And the advertisement You see really the lower current consumption State for the system Where you go back to 25 micrograms Or 170 micrograms for the unit And so this really Give you some idea that Those tests actually can be done And the device is really low battery power Now where do you see the blue tile being used? When we designed this We had industrial application in mind And specifically There are a few applications where Nowadays we see that The device can be used The first that come to my mind Is predictive maintenance For example Let's say that you have an electric motor And you want to actually understand If this motor is going to have problems Like for example Vibrations Or a thermal issue with a device So the blue tile is the perfect device That can actually be put next to the motor Or on top of the motor To monitor vibrations for example Do some pre-processing Like even FFT within the device Fast Fourier Transform In order to understand the Frequency behavior of the motor And really understand Which is the vibration that can create Problem for example to the motor We also had in mind Other applications like A factory control And maintenance planning But also energy management For the device Because of the sensors that are in there And the reason actually Where we believe this is also possible Is that this unit Can also be used With the Bluetooth low energy mesh Blue energy mesh That's a new topology that came out Almost two years ago From Bluetooth low energy alliance ST has been part of that group The mesh group since the beginning And this allowed basically To build a network of sensors So now you can imagine 10 to 100 of those sensors That are spread in the building Or in a factory floor for example And all these sensors are Using each other to bridge the information So that you can extend The range of your network And the capability of each single sensor This deliverable is something that Is already available And we show to a lot of our shows And we are actually Bringing as a part of our SDK Software development kit In a few months On the ST website as well So that's really perfect for applications Where you need actually To have multiple sensors In the same place Building automation Factory automation And so on Okay, so can we dive into more detail On some of those sensors? Yes, absolutely You know, let's really understand How those sensors are Helping us, right? So I want to start from the proximity sensor Our BL53L1X This is actually We branded as Time of flight TOF sensor And this device is capable actually To measure distance Up to four meters And as a field of view Of 27 degree So pretty narrow Field of view That we can focus on a specific target In order to measure the distance So the four meters allow Really to use this device In industrial applications Where you can, for example Check the distance Of an object One application that I can mention Is room presence For example, try to imagine If you put this sensor Really the old blue energy tile On the top of the entrance Of this room The door of this room And then the ranging sensor Can actually detect If anybody If a person is coming in the room or not But the great part of this sensor Is that because of the technology that we use This is not sensitive to Change of light in the room So it can work in the dark It can work with a lot of light in the room And with several objects Just because of the technology That is built inside What about the inertial sensor? So the inertial sensor Is another key element in the system We run the sensor fusion Using this sensor That is basically a combo Of an accelerometer and a magnetometer And the greatest part of this sensor Is the lowest current consumption device In the market When we talk about inertial sensors Only 0.45 mA of power consumption For the device And if we only use the accelerometer Because you can decide To use both of them Or just one of them You can actually go down To 0.05 mA of current consumption Okay, so what about the magnetometer? So the magnetometer is really important Again for our sensor fusion But also to use the device as a compass And you can see from this slide This field range is pretty large Plus minus 50 goes And the data that we get Is 6B data output So it gives you basically A very high resolution for the device But also the sensitivity of the device Is very low 1.5 mA per LSB Now let's look at the environmental side of this What about the pressure sensor? So the pressure sensor As I mentioned before It's a water resistant device That we use for the application Our LPS22HH And has an absolute accuracy of 0.5 HPA Relative accuracy is even lower Also the RMS noise of this device Is very low And it embeds a temperature sensor That allows you actually To do a temperature compensation Of the pressure As you know the pressure Changed a lot with temperature So you want to have actually that part So because of the absolute accuracy And relative accuracy of the device You can actually do incredible things As we mentioned before As recognizing a step If you for example Working up and down the steps But pressure isn't the only part of the environment You'll have to worry about, right? Correct, correct Actually the humidity Especially in an industrial environment Humidity and temperature Are always there, right? So we mentioned before The temperature sensor Within the pressure sensor That's enough actually To calibrate the pressure sensor In terms of accuracy That sensor is not enough For the entire application That's why actually We decided to put within the unit Humidity and temperature sensors With the right level of accuracy In order to make sure That you can calibrate The entire application And work even in a harsh environment Without any problem So when you look at the humidity sensors This has a range that goes from 0 to 100% The supply voltage is also very large From 1.7 to 3.6 volts So very good for battery operated applications And when we look at the accuracy For the humidity device A humidity sensor 3.5% Temperature accuracy Plus or minus 0.5 Celsius degree For the device Also the other part Look at the current consumption Very low, 2 microamps So all the sensors that we have been selected For this unit Are really the lower current consumption For their category So you said before That I can talk to the board Does it use a microphone? And what's good about your microphone? So yes, ST is also present With a very huge microphone portfolio And really the added value Of those portfolios is that the THD So really the audio fidelity Is pretty flat Overall the entire frequency range So if you look for example At the chart here below You will see a comparison With our competitors And you see actually how flat it is So this really allow the microphone To be used in a huge variety Of applications And the voice is the one That we show previously Excellent, well I'm going to click That link right there And go to a Mauser.com page For more information But thank you so much For joining me Francesco This was super cool It was really great actually Having this opportunity To tell a lot about the Blue energy time Thanks a lot And before we go You didn't forget to click That link did you? There you can find even more information About the ST Microelectronics Blue NRG2 IoT Sensors Development Kit For Chalk Talks I'm Amelia Dalton From EEJournal.com For more Chalk Talks Head on over to the Chalk Talks Section of EEJournal Can't miss it It's right across the top Or head on over to YouTube Key word?