Samsung wants to take a huge slice of the growing Internet of Things pie as it releases a new platform that combines hardware and software to allow developers to build new, connected devices.
At the Internet of Things World conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Samsung Electronics president Young Sohn unveiled the company's new ARTIK platform, which consists of three separate modules that serve to power all sorts of devices, from small dedicated sensors to wearables and drones to full-blown media hubs.
Each of the three processors in Samsung's ARTIK line—ARTIK 1, ARTIK 5, and ARTIK 10—are all embedded with encryption, built-in memory, and the ability to connect to the cloud for data analytics and advanced services. They also come in an open platform that can be easily customized by developers and allow them to deploy their devices quickly.
"We are providing the industry's most advanced, open, and secure platform for developing IoT products," Sohn stated. "By leveraging Samsung's high-volume manufacturing, advanced silicon process and packaging technologies, and extensive ecosystem, ARTIK allows developers to rapidly turn great ideas into market leading IoT products and applications."
At 12 millimeters or almost half an inch, ARTIK 1 is the smallest of the three. Being no larger than a ladybug, ARTIK 1 combines Bluetooth connectivity and a nine-axis sensor to power small devices, such as dedicated sensor hubs.
Larger than ARTIK 1 is ARTIK 5, which incorporates a 1 GHz dual-core processor and on-board DRAM and flash memory. ARTIK 5, which has video encoding and decoding, can power a small drone with a camera. It can also be used for running smart home hubs and high-end wearable devices.
Last but certainly not the least is the high-performance ARTIK 10, a two-inch processor designed for things such as home servers, media applications, and industrial settings. The ARTIK 10 features a powerful set of eight cores, full encoding and decoding of high-definition video, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of flash memory. It also has support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, and the IoT standard Zigbee.
Along with the line of ARTIK processors, Samsung also revealed the SmartThings Open Cloud, which will help make it easier for developers and IoT device manufacturers to build apps and software for their products.
Last year, Samsung purchased smart home startup SmartThings in a move to strengthen its position in the budding IoT industry. Alex Hawkinson, CEO of SmartThings, said around 19,000 device types are already connected to the SmartThings platform, and the introduction of Open Cloud is sure to bring more devices on the platform.
