Google has unveiled a new software development kit for connecting microcontroller-class devices to connect directly to the Google Cloud IoT.
Idranil Chakraborty, Senior Product Manager at Google, explained in a blog post that the new Cloud IoT Device SDK consists of client libraries written in Embedded C that enable developers to connect, provision securely, and manage devices with Cloud IoT Core.
"The kit targets energy- and size-constrained applications, such as battery-powered cellular devices that act as asset trackers, or Wi-Fi smart home devices with limited flash ROM (read-only memory)," he said.
The SDK is vital as embedded processors — in particular, microcontrollers—are the fundamental building blocks of IoT, powering edge devices such as smart refrigerators, industrial motors, and energy monitors, according to Chakraborty.
Among its features include a highly portable feature set paired with a lightweight BSP (Board Support Package) allowing for the deployment of new features with minimal engineering impact.
There’s also single-threaded operations with co-routines to support bi-directional messaging without interrupting device applications and all the necessary security requirements to connect to IoT Core via JSON Web Token (JWT) authentication, out-of-the-box integration with third-party TLS stacks (wolfSSL, mbedTLS), including TLS 1.2 and support for various secure elements.
“From a value perspective, this SDK allows embedded engineers to rapidly prototype, profile, and test in a standard desktop environment before porting to an embedded target, allowing for shorter time to market,” Chakraborty said.
Google introduced the Cloud IoT Core, its fully managed service for connecting and managing IoT devices at scale, a year ago.
It said then that when used as part of the broader Google Cloud IoT solution, it can “ingest all your IoT data” and connect it to Google’s analytics and machine learning services “to gain actionable insights.”
The announcement of the new SDK coincided with the first day of the Embedded World Conference being held in Nuremberg, Germany this week.
