EZ-Connect MW302 starter kit. (Image courtesy of Marvell.)
The EZ-Connect MW300 and MW302 Wi-Fi MCU are compatible with various industrial IoT (IIoT) or connected home applications, including those for machine-to-machine communication, remote controllers, automotive products, security systems and more.
The development kit for the MW300 family will help engineers ensure that their designs are compatible with the Apple HomeKit and cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). Alternatively, engineers can use Marvell’s recent Andromeda Box IoT platform which is designed to work with Google’s Brillo operating system for Android and Weave protocols.
Some other key features of the EZ-Connect MW300 Wi-Fi microcontroller include:
- System-on-chip (SOC) Cortex-M4F microcontroller with 802.11n Wi-Fi capabilities
- Multi-layered security for storage and communications
- Flexible memory architecture with 512kB SRAM with an accelerated flash controller
- Low-power optimization
- Low bill of materials (BOM) and printed circuit board (PCB) cost:
- One crystal, Quad serial peripheral interface (QSPI) flash, one antenna with a single input power rail
- Sensor, actuator and other component I/O interfaces, including:
- SPI, I2C, UART, I2S, PWM, ADC and DAC
- Audio and video streaming
- Software development kit and libraries for:
- HTTP, TLS, BSD Sockets, MQTT, WebSockets, JSON, XML, secure over-the-air firmware, storage, etc.
- Development documentation for hardware and software optimization
Creating a truly universal IoT communication protocol has been a complicated topic as of late. Without standardization it is unlikely that competing protocols will be able to play nice together. However, if companies such as Google and Marvell make it very easy for engineers to implement IoT, then the protocols these tools support will grow in popularity.
Perhaps it isn’t a standardized protocol that we need to ensure all future IoT devices will be compatible. Perhaps all we need is a good format war with a market-driven winner, much like the VHS and Betamax rivalry? Do you think an IoT MCU compatible with a popular protocol is the first step to this standardization? Comment below.