The Internet of Things refers to the growing number of devices that are connected to the Internet, enabling them to interact with each other, online services and humans. Electric Imp is at the center of this movement, offering a complete end-to-end solution that makes it simple to connect almost any product to the Internet through an innovative and powerful cloud service tied closely to leading-edge hardware.
Now, rather than spending time and resources to design and integrate connectivity, companies and developers can instead focus on their core expertise to build unique and rich experiences into their products, add value and differentiation, and reduce time to market.
The Electric Imp connectivity platform, featuring fully integrated hardware, software, OS, APIs, cloud servers, makes it possible to effectively empower your devices with intelligence, scalability and flexibility. The possibilities are endless.
The Electric Imp is a WiFi enabled development platform powered by a Cortex-M3 processor core. The Imp provides an easy, integrated way to connect almost any hardware device both to other devices and to internet services. It's more than just a WiFi card, or even a WiFi module with processing built in - it's an integrated platform that deals with the drudgery of connectivity, allowing you to concentrate on the application instead of the mechanics.
It does this by integrating an 802.11b/g/n WiFi transceiver, a great antenna, a Cortex-M3 core and lots of flexible I/O in a tiny package. But the hardware is only part of what makes the Electric Imp an innovative platform. The development environment and workflow is totally cloud-based and in-browser! Simply program the Imp with your WiFi Network information using your iOS or Android smartphone (Optically! No special hardware required!) then log on to the Electric Imp developer website and program your module over-the-air!
Development is done in-browser and in a language called "Squirrel," which is a C-like language with extensions to communicate with the hardware interfaces and the service. Thanks to cloud-power, you get many big system benefits like buffered I/O and crash recovery - plus you can push updates to devices in the field with a few clicks. There's even a Planner tool that makes it easy to design interactivity between your Imps.
Note: Although, the Electric Imp comes in an SD form factor, it isn't compatible with standard SD devices. Development boards are available, though, in the related items below!
Electric Imp offers a comprehensive solution designed to connect your product or project to the Internet quickly, easily and effectively. The platform includes:
- Imp Hardware: The Electric Imp platform starts with the imp, a powerful module containing WiFi and a processor that acts as the gateway to connect your device or service to the Internet, providing it with a brain in the cloud.
- Imp OS: The software foundation for the imp’s features and services that allows your code to concentrate on bringing your product’s functions to life.
- Imp Cloud: Our cloud allows you to run agents - server side code that runs in a secure environment - that are used to provide HTTP I/O and cloud-side processing, and easily connect your products to anything with Internet access. Agents can act as a central hub to your products, apps, third-party services, and even your own servers.
- Imp Open API: Enrich your customer experience and build your business by developing enhancements like messaging, monitoring, and much more.
- Imp BlinkUp
TM : The proprietary Electric Imp setup solution, BlinkUp, integrates seamlessly into your apps, letting you and your customers connect products in seconds using just a smartphone or tablet. - Imp Services - IDE and Ops Console: Maintain your software, push new code and features easily to devices anytime, ensuring that your users always have the latest features. The Ops Console enables you to gain more insight into your factory production lines and scale to millions of devices.
Features:
- Super Small Form Factor
- WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryption
- Cortex-M3 core gives great performance combined with low power consumption
- 6 I/O - UARTs, I2C, SPI, analog in and out, PWMs, GPIOs... all selectable under software control
- No SDK to install, no JTAG pods, no long download times... you develop your code in a browser-based IDE
- Software that runs on the Imp is written in Squirrel, a C-like language
- Data passes to and from the service over a TLS encrypted interface
- Dimensions: 32 x 24 x 2.1mm
