GE Supplies IoT Developer Kit For Predix

GE Digital is making it easier for IoT developers to tap into Predix analytics and use machine learning with the release of a new hardware and software kit.

By Charles Babcock, Jul. 27, 2016 – 

The internet of things took a step toward becoming better at management as GE released its Predix Developer Kit on July 26. It's a bundle of GE-supplied hardware and software that makes it easier to collect machine data from the internet.

Developers supply an IP address, an Ethernet connection, an electrical socket, and enough programming to indicate what data they want to collect. The Predix Kit appliance automatically establishes the connection, registers its presence with a central version of Predix, and starts transmitting time-series data that may have to do with the temperature, pressure, speed, flow readings, or other data from the device sensors that it's attached to.

GE Digital owns and operates the hardware and software combination on behalf of the user, who subscribes to its output. That's for the most secure form of IoT device data collection, based on a GE Field Agent(PDF) piece of hardware using a ruggedized PC. Developers may also opt to use an Intel Edison board with a dual core CPU and WiFi connection, or a Raspberry Pi mother board running an Arm CPU.

Without a Predix Developer's Kit, an IoT programmer would set up a board to connect to a device, download software for operation of such a device, and build screens to visualize those operations. Then a programmer would have to do the type of programming that can recognize the device monitored and the hardware on which it was sitting, a task likely to take many hours, Mark Bernardo, professional services leader for GE Digital, Americas, wrote in a blog posted Tuesday.

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