RoadTest: NXP Rapid IoT Prototyping Kit
Author: mnitin59
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: Weather forecasting system, IoT Smart mobility
What were the biggest problems encountered?: 1. First time configuring with BLE and IoT Prototyping device. 2. Interfacing with another cloud network
Detailed Review:
Unboxing the Parcel
I like to thank element 14 and all the team members for supporting and giving chance for this roadtest review on the NXP Rapid IoT Prototyping Kit. I really appreciate this opportunity and always be thankful for encouraging hardware testing and giving this platform.
Overview
NXP’s Rapid IoT Prototyping Kit is a comprehensive, secure and power-optimized solution designed to accelerate prototype and development of an IoT end node.
Rapid IoT integrates 11 NXP devices (microcontroller, low-power connectivity, sensors, NFC, secure element, power management, interface) in small form-factor hardware design, and combines it with proven software enablement (drivers, RTOS, middleware, cloud connect) and a web IDE with GUI based programming.
Rapid IoT provides the easiest and fastest path for anyone to take their connected thing idea to a proof-of-concept.
Features
Kit Contains
Supported Devices
Here is an overview of the Rapid IoT box.
Begin by opening the box and reviewing the kit content. The Rapid IoT unit comes with a printed Quick Start Guide, a SIM tool, and a micro-USB cable.
The printed Quick Start Guide provides useful information like the location and the numbering of the Touch or Pushbuttons as well as the menu architecture of the Factory application.
Begin by charging the battery of your Rapid IoT. Connect one end of the micro-USB cable to your computer USB port (or to any USB charger) and the other end to the micro-USB connector of your Rapid IoT board.
The RGB and White/Blue LED’s on the top front will blink for few seconds to confirm that the preprogrammed Bootloaders loaded successfully (more details in the dedicated chapter).
While the factory application is loading the NXP and the Atmosphere logos will be displayed.
Then the Welcome menu with the Rapid IoT logo and the clock will show up on your Rapid IoT screen.
With the help of the printed Quick Start Guide, you can navigate through the different screens with the Touch electrodes, and change the options with the Push buttons.
The factory application divides into four main categories: Application, Settings, Info, and Sensors.
From the Application section, you can access mini-Apps that leverage the sensors onboard in different use-cases such as a thermostat, barometer, air-quality, motion or fall detection, or color-light controller.
From the Settings section, you can change the Wireless mode (Bluetooth or Thread), enable/disable the internal access to the NFC-tag or the Sensor-tag (Sensor data pushed through wireless), turn on/off the buzzer or the screen backlight, or restart your Rapid IoT board.
From the Info section, you can verify the version of the firmware programmed in your board or scan the QR code to quickly download the Android or iOS Phone App to monitor/control your Rapid IoT over Bluetooth.
From the Sensors section, you can enable/disable each sensor onboard to create your custom monitoring profile and extend your Rapid IoT battery lifetime.
By default, the application is configured to stream all the sensor data (Sensor tag) over Bluetooth radio to an Android or iOS Phone/Tablet. Thanks to the dedicated phone App the sensor data will be automatically pushed through WiFi or Cellular connectivity to the Cloud.
IMPORTANT: The firmware programmed in factory is a public version that can be broadly distributed. The Rapid IoT board will be detected independently from the user-account used to login to the Phone App.
Now go to the Google or the Apple App store to download and install the NXP Rapid IoT phone App for Android or iOS.
Then launch the Rapid IoT phone App from your phone/tablet.
You will need a free NXP account to connect to the Rapid IoT phone App.
If you already have an account press LOGIN NXP SSO and you will be automatically redirected to the NXP Sign In page.
If you don’t have an account yet simply select the link please access the NXP Community Portal and register an account there or the link Register Now from the NXP Sign In page.
Enter the requested information (First/Last Name, Email, Password, Country and Company Name).
Check the box to confirm that you have read and accept the Term of Use and Privacy Policy and the box to confirm that you are not a Robot.
Finalize your registration by pressing the Register button.
Visit the mailbox used during the registration and open the email sent by: nxpupdt1@contact.nxp.com
Click on the enclosed link to verify your email.
NOTE: Check the folder Junk/Spam/Clutter, if the confirmation email doesn’t show up in your inbox.
You are now ready to login with your NXP account.
Press the button LOGIN NXP SSO.
Enter you Email Address and Password and press Sign In.
At the first connection to the Rapid IoT phone App with your SSO account a window with the User Agreement will appear.
Check the box Accept Term of Use and Privacy Policy and press SUBMIT
The phone App will automatically launch the Dashboard view
Open the left panel by selecting the icon located in the top left corner.
Select the Device view to pair your equipment with your Rapid IoT board.
Select the icon located in the top right corner to scan the Bluetooth devices in the range.
Each Rapid IoT board has a unique MAC address printed on a sticker at the back of the casing.
The phone App indicates the list of the Bluetooth devices detected with the type of Application programmed in their memory as well as the last four Hexadecimal numbers of their MAC address.
Select your Rapid IoT board and press PROVISION.
The phone App will automatically launch the phone App interface for the Out of the Box Demo.
It takes approx. 5s for the first sensor value to appear on the phone App.
Control the color of the RGB LED remotely by selecting one of the options in the phone App.
Congratulation you now successfully monitor and control your Rapid IoT with the phone App over Bluetooth.
We will now monitor your Rapid IoT board from the Cloud.
To visualize your Rapid IoT data remotely, you need another Android/iOS terminal with the phone App installed - or you can simply use the web browser of your computer.
The instruction below will apply for a computer access.
Open your web browser and visit the dedicated Rapid IoT Studio portal at:
http://rapid-iot-studio.nxp.com
Login with the same NXP account used to connect to the phone App.
The Dashboard view will open automatically.
Open the right panel by selecting the icon located in the right edge.
Choose the option Data Graph to display from the Cloud the sensor value in a graphic.
A blank graphic will now be added to your Dashboard. Select the icon Configure located in the top right corner to setup your graphic.
First give a name to your graphic (ex. Sensors) and press Next.
Select the Rapid IoT application connected to the Cloud over Bluetooth via the phone App (ex. Out Of the Box Demo) and press Next.
Select the X-Axis data for your graphic (ex. _timestamp) and press Next.
Now select the Y-Axis data or Sensors that you want to display (multiple selection is allowed) and press Submit.
The graphic named Sensors in your Dashboard will now display and update automatically the value of the selected sensors from the Cloud.
Visit the dedicated Rapid IoT Studio portal: http://rapid-iot-studio.nxp.com
You will need a free NXP account to access Rapid IoT Studio.
If you already have an account press LOGIN NXP SSO and you will be automatically redirected to the NXP Sign In page (NXP employees use your NXP WIB).
If you don’t have an account yet simply select the link please access the NXP Community Portal and register an account there or the link Register Now from the NXP Sign In page.
Enter the requested information (First/Last Name, Email, Password, Country and Company Name). Check the box to confirm that you have read and accept the Term of Use and Privacy Policy and the box to confirm that you are not a Robot.
Finalize your registration by pressing the button Register.
Visit the mailbox used during the registration and open the email sent by: nxpupdt1@contact.nxp.com
Click on the enclosed link to verify your email.
Note: Check the folder Junk/Spam/Clutter, if the confirmation email doesn’t show up in your inbox.
You are now ready to login with your NXP account.
Press the button LOGIN NXP SSO.
Enter you Email Address and Password and press Sign In.
We will now open, build and program
The Dashboard view will open automatically.
Open the left panel by selecting the icon located in the left edge.
Select the option Studio to launch the online programming interface.
Select the option EXAMPLES to display the project examples available online.
Let’s begin by opening a simple blinky example.
Select Rapid IoT Blinking an LED from the project example list.
The Embedded view will automatically open.
The project Blinking an LED requires few Elements: one interval, one RGB LED and one Display.
You can review the parameters of each Element by selecting them from the workspace.
For example the Interval Element emulates a timer configured with a period of 1,000 millisecond
The Interval Element is connected to the RGB LED that it toggles Red.
The Element EmbeddedIconLabelDisplay will display on the Rapid IoT screen an LED icon subtitled with the text Blinking an LED.
Before launching any Build or Programming, please make sure to save first your project.
Select the icon Save from the toolbar located in the top right corner to save your modifications.
Select the icon Compile from the toolbar located in the top right corner to compile your project.
The workspace top orange bar will fill-in to indicate the progression of the compilation.
The first time a project takes approx. 30 seconds to compile.
A blue popup window will indicate when the compilation ended up successfully.
Select the icon ProgramFirmware from the Embedded View toolbar to build your project.
The file Rapid IoT Blinking an LED firmware.bin will be automatically downloaded by your web browser.
SLN-RPK-NODE Application and Wireless MCUs are pre-programmed in factory with a Bootloader to easily update their application through the onboard USB connector. To reprogram K64F internal flash with the new Rapid IoT Blinking an LED application, simply follow those steps:
Bootloader will automatically identify the MCU target to reprogram thanks to the binary file signature.
RGB LED will blink purple during download and blink blue during serial flash programming.
RGB LED will blink green during K64F internal flash (re)programming with the new application (read from Serial Flash memory) and automatically reset, when ready.
Congratulation, you have now officially compiled and programmed an Atmosphere Studio example on your Rapid IoT board
Your project is stored online by Atmosphere Studio for Rapid IoT.
You can access it from any computer with an internet connection logging-in with your user-account.
But you can also save your project configuration Offline.
From the Studio Project Manager view select the icon Export next to your project.
The file Rapid IoT Blinking an LED.atmo will be automatically downloaded by your web browser.
Then you can easily import your project to Atmosphere Studio.
From the Studio Project Manager view select the icon Import Project.
Select the file Rapid IoT Blinking an LED.atmo from the browser window and press OK.
Your project will now be automatically added to your Online library.
You can also export your Atmosphere Studio project to debug it with MCUXpresso IDE.
Open your project and select the icon Download from the Embedded View toolbar.
The file Rapid IoT Blinking an LED source.zip will be automatically downloaded by your web browser.
Source Link
Review-
In the past two months of testing, the NXP Rapid has been working systematically and provide better results and more accurate from the initial stage.
The device has better performance framework and high integral system which has good quality sensors in such compact size.
In the first test,
Weather Station
Rapid IoT IDE
Application Layout and Input Output Port
Cloud Platform Network
The toolbox has a rich layout and high-quality blocks interface of the sensor module interface with the controller to the data transmission network. The module is used to connect with mobile data and interface with the cloud network.
Mobile Layout on Sensor reading through BLE
In the testing, I have used different condition and there are few advantages and disadvantage which would be helpful to those who will be using the module further
Advantage -
1. Robust module
2. Highly accurate sensors
3. Compact size
4. High-End processor with low power consumption components
Disadvantages -
1. Fixed and tools
2. battery backup is low
Conclusion -
This prototyping device has very high-end accessibility and portability in application use for the smart city, Industrial Automation, food processing, security and construction sites.
It would be a lifesaver or a useful module in everyday use IoT hardware.
Application used -
1. Smart Helmet
2. labor safety device
3. Industrial chamber monitoring
4. Weather station
Top Comments
Nice road test report.
DAB
Yes, it is a very comprehensive and useful roadtest. I'm slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't apply for it.
A well presented roadtest with lots of interesting detail and discussion. I too wanted to apply as this looked really useful. At the time I was working on Building EPCC - Elderly Person in the Community…