The Microchip PIC-IoT WG is an Internet of Things (IoT) development board that features a low-power PIC® microcontroller, a hardware secure element device, Wi-Fi® connectivity, onboard temperature and light sensors, a battery charging circuit, and a mikroBUS™ expansion connector. Using the expansion header and input/output pins, you can connect a variety of sensors and actuators to incorporate specific components or signals needed for your own applications. The Wi-Fi connectivity allows you to connect wirelessly to other devices or to the internet to communicate real-time data and commands. You can power the board through battery power supported by a built-in lithium polymer (Li-Po) charging circuit or USB. An onboard debugger port allows you to connect software development tools without needing to purchase additional debugger dongles. The combination of features and capabilities found on the PIC-IoT provides a foundation for IoT rapid prototyping and product development.
Microchip’s MPLAB® X Integrated Development Environment (IDE) supports software development for the PIC-IoT. The MPLAB X environment includes a compiler, debugger, and linker along with configurable software components and support packages for the PIC-IoT and many other Microchip boards and components. The MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC) tool enables you to rapidly configure the microcontroller’s peripheral devices using a graphical interface. The MCC tool also includes a number of configurable software libraries for input/output, signal and data processing, communication protocols, and drivers for many types of sensors and actuators, including a growing portfolio of Mikroe Click boards™. MCC generates easy-to-understand C code that you can insert into your MPLAB X project to rapidly build new applications. MPLAB X works with the onboard debugger built into the PIC-IoT for debugging and troubleshooting application code.
The Medium One IoT Prototyping Sandbox cloud-based platform is designed to help early-stage developers prototype their IoT project or connect their existing hardware to the cloud. It offers an IoT Data Intelligence platform enabling you to quickly build IoT applications with less effort. Programmable workflows quickly build processing logic without the need to create your own complex software stack. A graphical workflow builder and run-time engine lets you process IoT data as it arrives and route or transform it as needed for your application. Workflow library modules are available for data analytics, charting, geolocation, weather data, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, SMS text messaging, and integration with Twitter, Salesforce, and Zendesk. In addition, you can create custom workflow modules using snippets of Python code. The web-based Workflow Studio, which provides a drag-and-drop visual programming environment, designs and builds end-to-end workflows. Workflow versioning and debugging tools support the development, test, and deployment lifecycle.
Communications take place between IoT devices and the Medium One Cloud using REST APIs or the MQTT protocol. Configurable dashboards let you visualize application data and view real-time data in a variety of formats. Dashboard widgets are included for tabular data, charts, geopoint maps, gauges, and user inputs. Medium One’s iOS and Android apps build simple mobile app dashboards that can communicate with your devices through the IoT Prototyping Sandbox.
To use your own Microchip PIC-IoT WG Development Board with the Medium One IoT Prototyping Sandbox, check out our step-by-step Connecting Microchip’s AC164164 PIC-IoT to Medium One IoT Cloud article that walks you through the entire process of:
In this article, we also show you how to observe the published data on a real-time dashboard created in the Medium One environment. A set of next steps gives suggestions for how to extend and adapt the application for different IoT prototyping scenarios or to learn more.
Greg is an architect, engineer and consultant with more than 30 years experience in sensors, embedded systems, IoT, telecommunications, enterprise systems, cloud computing, data analytics, and hardware/software/firmware development. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Univ. of Notre Dame and a MS in Computer Engineering from the Univ. of Southern California.