Review: “Visible Things” IoT jumpstarter kit from Avnet Silica
Let’s get started
The Quick Start Guide lists a trifling 17 steps before you can make things visible. I got stuck straight away at step 1 which says “Search for and install the Visible Things app to your mobile device”. Sadly no such thing is found using Play Store on my Samsung smartphone Galaxy Trend S7560 (sure, the iPhone version is all over the place).
After some Internet research I thought I could go by way of the “Avnet Appstore”, only to discover that (1) I had insufficient memory on my phone and (2) even with sufficient memory, was not recognized and there was no option to register (!). Ultimately I found all 4.7 MB of the app at an obscure website called apkPure. No luck though because after downloading I got: “Problem parsing the Package”. Bummer.
Turns out my 2-year old smartphone will remain forever stuck at Android 4.2.2 and you need 4.4 minimum. My colleague Chantalle has a smart looking Android 6.x smartphone and found the Visible Things app instantly. The same with colleague Raoul. So I borrowed Raoul’s Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo running 4.4. Instant success, the app installed like a dream. Finally, I was able to complete that installation. Hey that USB cable from the box is really short, like 50 cms?
Within half a minute, more success: on step 4 of the install I got “Gateway found” — mine is VT-GW-2F31, an obscure number of course.
Some more obscurity follows when doing the WAN configuration (including when the phone needs your approval to act as a hotspot) but eventually I got right up to step 12 of 17. I went on to create an account with avnet.devicepoint.co.uk. Bummer 2, I hit a snag: “you can only register with a valid avnet.eu or avnet.com email address or promotion code at this time”. How am I supposed to get that? Simple, ask help from the folks at of Avnet Memec Silica. An email was flashed to me the next day and I was able to proceed.
Linking the IoT kit to the smartphone went smooth although I had to retrieve that VT-GW-2F31 number to be able to register the gateway. A few minutes later I had achieved my goal: sensor data in the DevicePoint Cloud and from there, onto the smartphone screen — not mine but what the heck.
As a gimmick I moved the Sensor Board into a 1959 Tektronix 535A oscilloscope in the attic here at Elektor House, just to be able to see from a distance if it wasn’t running too hot and/or humid, or illegally lifted (all 65 lbs of it J). Just a dab of hot gun glue and there’s plenty of space inside the beast for that tiny board (30 x 30 mm). I moved the Gateway power supply from my desktop PC to a cheapo power adapter with 5 volts out and placed the lot within Bluetooth range of the smartphone which acts as a hotspot. In full operation, three LEDs light permanently on the Gateway, and one blinks lightly to indicate sensor data reception. On the Smart Sensor board, one LED blinks at a very slow rate, I hope that does not load the CR2032 cell too much. Who was that again proposing in Elektor to kill all indicator LEDs 4ever? Clemens Valens?
The graphs showing the sensor data look impressive on the smartphone and I realized the challenge of adding a long term logging function to do analytics, reporting and workflow management. I sadly found GPS missing so I can’t track the old ‘scope, only see the slight vibration caused by its internal fan that needs attention.
In good Elektor fashion I pondered over the educational value of the Visible Things kit and concluded that the strengths if any are securely vested in the datasheets of the various sensors, and of course the programming of the two ARM micros. Both subjects are beyond this quick review, and capita selecta I am sure in the realms of Jens’ “Journey into the Cloud” and recent articles in Elektor Magazine covering ARM and Bluetooth. Still, the experience of setting up a multi-sensor system with full Cloud access and a borrowed smartphone — and using it to watch over a vintage oscilloscope with 60-plus hot tubes inside— was a fantastic experience.
In closing, Visible Things is an IoT dev kit in the ‘pro’ class, with a fine bouquet of sensors and controllers from formidable backers rather than from kickstarting Highschool kids. One point of criticism is the hefty price of the Starter Kit, €199. It might be justifiable if a board with various actuators on Bluetooth was included. And I am hesitant about the veracity of Av-Si’s claim to “propel your next design from Edge to Enterprise” when in fact there is so much engineering and programming still to do to mix the individual sensors, components, and their connectivity into a professional, sellable application for e-enterprising.
The Quick Start Guide lists a trifling 17 steps before you can make things visible. I got stuck straight away at step 1 which says “Search for and install the Visible Things app to your mobile device”. Sadly no such thing is found using Play Store on my Samsung smartphone Galaxy Trend S7560 (sure, the iPhone version is all over the place).
After some Internet research I thought I could go by way of the “Avnet Appstore”, only to discover that (1) I had insufficient memory on my phone and (2) even with sufficient memory, was not recognized and there was no option to register (!). Ultimately I found all 4.7 MB of the app at an obscure website called apkPure. No luck though because after downloading I got: “Problem parsing the Package”. Bummer.
Turns out my 2-year old smartphone will remain forever stuck at Android 4.2.2 and you need 4.4 minimum. My colleague Chantalle has a smart looking Android 6.x smartphone and found the Visible Things app instantly. The same with colleague Raoul. So I borrowed Raoul’s Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo running 4.4. Instant success, the app installed like a dream. Finally, I was able to complete that installation. Hey that USB cable from the box is really short, like 50 cms?
Within half a minute, more success: on step 4 of the install I got “Gateway found” — mine is VT-GW-2F31, an obscure number of course.
Some more obscurity follows when doing the WAN configuration (including when the phone needs your approval to act as a hotspot) but eventually I got right up to step 12 of 17. I went on to create an account with avnet.devicepoint.co.uk. Bummer 2, I hit a snag: “you can only register with a valid avnet.eu or avnet.com email address or promotion code at this time”. How am I supposed to get that? Simple, ask help from the folks at of Avnet Memec Silica. An email was flashed to me the next day and I was able to proceed.
Linking the IoT kit to the smartphone went smooth although I had to retrieve that VT-GW-2F31 number to be able to register the gateway. A few minutes later I had achieved my goal: sensor data in the DevicePoint Cloud and from there, onto the smartphone screen — not mine but what the heck.
As a gimmick I moved the Sensor Board into a 1959 Tektronix 535A oscilloscope in the attic here at Elektor House, just to be able to see from a distance if it wasn’t running too hot and/or humid, or illegally lifted (all 65 lbs of it J). Just a dab of hot gun glue and there’s plenty of space inside the beast for that tiny board (30 x 30 mm). I moved the Gateway power supply from my desktop PC to a cheapo power adapter with 5 volts out and placed the lot within Bluetooth range of the smartphone which acts as a hotspot. In full operation, three LEDs light permanently on the Gateway, and one blinks lightly to indicate sensor data reception. On the Smart Sensor board, one LED blinks at a very slow rate, I hope that does not load the CR2032 cell too much. Who was that again proposing in Elektor to kill all indicator LEDs 4ever? Clemens Valens?
The graphs showing the sensor data look impressive on the smartphone and I realized the challenge of adding a long term logging function to do analytics, reporting and workflow management. I sadly found GPS missing so I can’t track the old ‘scope, only see the slight vibration caused by its internal fan that needs attention.
In good Elektor fashion I pondered over the educational value of the Visible Things kit and concluded that the strengths if any are securely vested in the datasheets of the various sensors, and of course the programming of the two ARM micros. Both subjects are beyond this quick review, and capita selecta I am sure in the realms of Jens’ “Journey into the Cloud” and recent articles in Elektor Magazine covering ARM and Bluetooth. Still, the experience of setting up a multi-sensor system with full Cloud access and a borrowed smartphone — and using it to watch over a vintage oscilloscope with 60-plus hot tubes inside— was a fantastic experience.
In closing, Visible Things is an IoT dev kit in the ‘pro’ class, with a fine bouquet of sensors and controllers from formidable backers rather than from kickstarting Highschool kids. One point of criticism is the hefty price of the Starter Kit, €199. It might be justifiable if a board with various actuators on Bluetooth was included. And I am hesitant about the veracity of Av-Si’s claim to “propel your next design from Edge to Enterprise” when in fact there is so much engineering and programming still to do to mix the individual sensors, components, and their connectivity into a professional, sellable application for e-enterprising.
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