Embedded World Nuremburg has closed its doors for 2016 and the Elektor team have now trudged back to HQ, bags full of boards and heads filled with interesting impressions and new ideas. Between us, we must have visited around 100 stands from the record number (939) of exhibitors who were on show this year. Alongside the better known semiconductor manufacturers such as Renesas, Microchip, NXP and Atmel were many smaller startups that I’m sure not too many readers are aware of. In the upcoming edition of Elektor and in these newsletters we will be introducing you to some of the more interesting new ideas, products and services that caught our eye.

As always it was a real pleasure to meet and chat with so many of our readers and authors at our stand; this year we were sited in the modern hall 4A.  Some of your suggestions included more articles on the subject of the more powerful ARM Cortex-M- controllers and a (special) printed edition of the most interesting news from our e-zine. There is a clear appetite for more articles covering Linux-based embedded applications and this was almost immediately taken care of by Benedikt Sauter who in Nuremburg was showcasing the latest version of his Linux-Boards. There is an interesting video introducing these on Elektor TV and they will be the subject of a series of articles which should begin in September.

Overall our lasting impression is of a well-organized and successful trade fair. The only slight negatives concerned the state of broadband access. The chances of establishing a reliable WLAN connection was about as likely as finding a reasonably priced pretzel in the local restaurants i.e. close to zero. For a major event like this, showcasing the latest IoT technology our only hope for future events is that the organizers manage to sort out free and reliable web access for all!