RoadTest: AVNET Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit
Author: hansc85
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Independent Products
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?: STM32 Discovery IoT node
What were the biggest problems encountered?: 1.Provisioning the kit in the Azure IOT Central site. 2.Ensuring that you are not charged for the single device you are provisioning - i.e ensuring you have subscribed to the "free" Azure service 3.integrating the click board
Detailed Review:
Robustly packed for overnight shipment. No visible damage on arrival.
The contents included the MT3620 Board, a micro USB power cord, and an informational packet that
contained step by step directions with links to get you going.
The software development for the MT3620 was the Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 . Cloned the recommended project from GitHub to get started.
Was able to build and run in debug mode right out of the box - surprisingly easy!
However, when I tried to create a Release build, I encountered build errors. I need to dig into it further and will report my findings at a later date.
I purchased two MikroE current sensor kits, as my goal was to hook up the kit and sensor to my basement sump pumps. I plan on monitoring the sump pump activity and get an estimate of how often
the pump kicks in and the quantity of water that is drained. As an added bonus, I can also monitor the temperature and humidity of the basement using the kit's on board sensors.
After playing around with the example solution in standalone mode, I was able to successfully provision the kit in the Azure IOT Central cloud. Setting up the telemetry data visualization was a breeze.
The trick I believe is to get most of the computations done at the kit level(edge computing) and only transmit the processed results for visualization in Azure IoT Central. This will be an ongoing task.
Also have to watch the Azure costs like a hawk. The first 5 devices you provision under the Pay-as-you-go plan is free. You will be charged for the data - so need to be extra vigilant about the amount of data you will be uploading.
I already racked up $24.00 for the month of September! 
Turned out that I was using the default transmit rate of 1 sec for the data upload.. Dialed it down to once per hour and things look more reasonable.
Test Setup
javascript:;IDE Output screen
Azure IoT Central Telemetry screens
