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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Drag-and-Drop Site Supports Internet of Things

Semtech Corp. has a knack for scoping out the next big thing, and right now the company is betting on the “Internet of Things,” or IoT. Earlier this month, the Camarillo semiconductor supplier contributed the first $3 million of a $10 million Series A funding round to finance Calabasas startup myDevices, which builds custom software to power IoT machines. The firm’s most successful invention is Cayenne, a drag-and-drop software platform that allows amateur and professional programmers to configure controls for IoT products. “The number of IoT applications being designed and prototyped is accelerating,” Marc Pegulu, vice president and general manager of Semtech’s wireless and sensing products group, said in a press release. “The Cayenne platform from myDevices provides a user-friendly solution for IoT companies that want to connect sensors and data intelligently.” Talking gadgets IoT refers to a network where machines communicate with other machines, as opposed to the current online community where people connect with people. Smart homes, in which the house warms or lights turn on based on sensors around the property, is one early application of IoT. Semtech has a natural interest in IoT technology because the 50-year-old company makes sensor and communication equipment. The company’s investment in myDevices includes a partnership through which buyers of Semtech’s products, chiefly sensor manufacturers and network providers, will be able to license Cayenne free of charge. myDevices will also collaborate with Semtech on projects similar to a water monitoring initiative Semtech has already conducted in Ventura County with the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency. “It’s more than money in this relationship with Semtech – it’s a strategic relationship,” myDevices Chief Executive Kevin Bromber told the Business Journal. “When you pair (Semtech’s technology) with our software, the possibilities of what we can automate and make more efficient is pretty unbelievable.” Semtech and myDevices have much to gain from working together, thanks in part to Semtech’s keen intuition for acquisitions with high potential. In 2012, the company paid $5 million for French intellectual property provider Cycleo, the developer of a semiconductor with the capacity to transmit data wirelessly over distances greater than 30 meters without large power requirements. This “LoRa” technology – its name an amalgam of the words “long” and “range” – offered a solution to the frustrations of chip designers who struggled to build products that balanced signal quality and modest power consumption. The purchase proved to be a good buy for Semtech. The company since has leveraged LoRa to emerge as a leader in IoT development, from integrating LoRa-enabled trackers on the ear tags of livestock to taking part in an effort to build a large-scale IoT network in New Zealand. Semtech’s technology even has been implanted into the horns of endangered black rhinoceroses at Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania, Africa, where sensors equipped with LoRa allow park rangers to monitor the animals’ activity. Yet capturing LoRa’s prowess in commercial products requires more programmers – and time – than manufacturers can afford. That’s where myDevices comes in: The Cayenne platform was originally launched as a simple way for IoT developers and hobbyists to quickly build prototype projects using Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive miniature computer produced by Adafruit Industries. “We kept hearing, ‘I love the Internet of Things, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to do this,’” said Jake White, vice president of corporate communications at myDevices. “So we said, ‘What if we gave you a project builder?’” Meet Cayenne Semtech declined to comment on the source of the money it fronted for the myDevices investment, but past acquisitions were funded by cash from operations and debt. Cycleo was purchased with cash reserves, while the roughly $500 million paid for broadcast electronics supplier Gennum Corp. in 2014 came from a combination of cash and loans. The company bought Triune Systems for $45 million in 2015 through a revolving line of credit. Semtech’s most recent quarter, ended on Oct. 30, was unexpectedly strong. The company reported positive growth for the third quarter in a row, with net sales of $141 million and earnings of $24.3 million, or 37 cents a share. Sales rose 16 percent year-over-year, while earnings rose 57 percent. Its stock price is 42 percent higher than this time last year. myDevices has grown significantly in the same period. Its Cayenne software, launched almost exactly a year ago, features many of the same analytical tools used in “real life” IoT laboratories as well as the ability to quickly discover sensors on hardware components, a “rules engine” for generating actions between devices and a drag-and-drop dashboard to visualize systems. Though initially limited, the library of hardware that could be implemented into Cayenne projects quickly expanded to include actuators, connectivity products and sensors from partner companies such as Adeunis RF and NKE Watteco, as well as Semtech’s LoRa technology. The company claims more than 130,000 professional and amateur programmers have downloaded the software since its release, a number that is likely to grow with the recent introduction of the “Bring Your Own Thing” API, a feature that uses the Cayenne cloud to permit connections between all types of hardware. And that’s just the start: At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, myDevices announced its free “IoT Ready” program for hardware manufacturers, which promises interoperability between Cayenne-enabled devices regardless of what company makes them. “It’s a win-win for everybody,” White said. “Now that IoT has been made easy – and that’s always been our goal, to simplify the IoT creation process – what do you want to create?” The projects posted on the myDevices website by Cayenne’s community of enthusiasts suggest endless possibilities. They range from temperature-dependent solar pool heaters and IoT breathalyzers to tortoise-monitoring systems. Bromber envisions the software as a springboard for limitless creativity. “We think that we’ll become the de facto tool for IoT project building,” he said.

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