Toronto-based BehrTech has combined with Texas Instruments to release the first dual-stack low-power IoT chip to run both wide-area MIOTY and short-range Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity. The unit makes concurrent use of license free 2.4GHz spectrum for BLE and sub-GHz spectrum for MIOTY.
The combination of long and short-range connectivity technologies for battery-powered IoT devices will open up new use cases, said BehrTech, which licences the MIOTY (stylised as mioty) for industrial IoT applications, and has built a MYTHINGS-branded family of hardware and software solutions around it.
All the low-power wide-area (LPWA) brigade, including MIOTY-rivals LoRaWAN and Sigfox, have identified short-range BLE, alongside the likes of Wi-Fi and also cellular, as key companion technologies for hybrid ‘massive’ IoT use cases. MIOTY – a portmanteau of MY-IOT – uses the new TS-UNB specification from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
The new ‘mioty Bluetooth LE Dual Stack’ brings together MIOTY and the latest version of Bluetooth (BLE 5.2) on a single multiprotocol chip, the CC1352R wireless microcontroller from Texas Instruments. The combination establishes interoperability between the two ecosystems, and across twin chunks of license free spectrum, said BehrTech. It will precipitate “smaller devices and reduced costs”, it added.
A statement said: “This dual stack improves the scalability and robustness of existing IoT applications and enables a myriad of new IoT use cases from asset tracking and indoor navigation to consumables monitoring and environmental monitoring. MIOTY extends the power efficiency and high data rate capabilities of BLE devices by serving as a reliable and robust backhaul for long range communication in both complex indoor environments and widespread remote locations.”
It added: “MIOTY and BLE, together, allow the deployment of IoT networks in a significantly broader geographic area. This flexibility is increasingly important as more IoT sensor networks are deployed in far flung, industrial locations like remote mining, oil and gas and manufacturing facilities.”
Wolfgang Thieme, chief technology officer at BehrTech, commented: “The mioty Bluetooth LE Dual Stack mitigates the physical restrictions that previously existed for IoT implementations and makes it possible for these low-power, short-range device networks to go nearly anywhere without the need for a costly and complex infrastructure. This combination of technologies will make it more feasible for massive-scale sensor networks to exist and opens up a new world of exciting industrial and commercial applications.”
Last week, the Fraunhofer Society, the largest application-oriented research organisation in Europe, awarded its annual prize for outstanding scientific achievement to MIOTY, originally developed and helped through standardisation by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS). Its Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize, awarded each year for scientific achievements by Fraunhofer institutes, is, effectively, a ‘pat on the back’, but the recognition is seen as important, especially for industrial research in Germany.
