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IoT Development Kits and IoT Starter Kits

iot development kit starter kit sensor prototyping

This page describes various IoT development kits available from popular vendors, including ARM, Amazon Web Services, Wunder Bar, Twine, Brick Pi, Verve, Kinoma Create, Ninja Sphere, Intel, Microsoft, and Arduino.

IoT stands for Internet of Things. It’s the network that connects not only people but also things using the internet as its backbone. IoT devices connect to the network through wired or wireless connections.

One key design consideration for IoT devices is long battery life. Often, these devices use energy harvesting techniques to power themselves, supplementing or replacing traditional batteries.

IoT kits are designed to accelerate development across various wireless standards like Zigbee, Zwave, LoRa, WiFi, NFC, Weightless, THREAD, and Bluetooth.

IoT Development Kit Vendors and Descriptions

The table below outlines some of the popular IoT development kits and their key features:

IoT Development Kit VendorsDescription
ARMThe ARM IoT kit includes an ARM board, sensors, LEDs, a joystick, an LCD, and other accessories.
Amazon Web ServicesAWS promotes IoT kits from various manufacturers, including Marvell, Avnet, Renesas, Media Tek, Intel, TI, Microchip, and Beaglebone.
Wunder BarThe Wunder Bar IoT starter kit is geared towards app developers. It contains small boards with 5 sensors, 1 master module, and 1 bridge module. The master module can be controlled via a smartphone.
TwineTwine provides a solution to monitor your home remotely. The kit uses sensors to alert you to events like doors opening, leaks, or other security-related events, based on your programming.
Dexter Industries BrickPiThe BrickPi kit connects to a Raspberry Pi and transforms it into a Lego robot. The kit includes a board, motors, Lego sensors, a micro SD card, and a wireless dongle.
Inxus Verve2Verve2 includes sensors that can be attached to home appliances and devices like fridges or lights. This allows you to monitor the opening and closing of doors, light activity (ON/OFF status), etc. The product includes an API to read the data in various programming languages.
Kinoma CreateKinoma Create uses JavaScript code to interface with sensors, simplifying IoT device creation. The starter kit includes a touchscreen, microphone, speaker, and integrated WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy chips.
Ninja SphereThis kit creates a hotspot for your home, linking sensors and smart devices for home automation. The Sphere kit features an LED display and can be controlled via a smartphone app.
IntelIntel offers IoT development kits with IDE software to expedite development. A range of sensors is available for IoT prototyping. Key modules include the Intel® Joule™ Module, Intel® IoT Gateway, Intel® Edison Module, and Intel® Galileo Board.
MicrosoftMicrosoft’s IoT starter kits include:
  • Adafruit Raspberry Pi Kit
  • Adafruit Feather M0 kit
  • Adafruit Huzzah Feather ESP8266 Kit
  • Intel Edison Kit
  • SparkFun Thing Dev Kit
ArduinoThe Arduino IoT starter kit typically includes a WiFi module, temperature sensor, and other accessories.