Thread Gets Boost from Freescale Beta Program | EDN

We covered the announcement of Thread, a proposed IoT communications standard back in July. The question for Thread, as with competing IoT standards like Open Internet Connect and The AllSeen Alliance, is who will adopt it. Needless to say: without the embrace of software and device makers, even the best standard will wither on the vine.

Now its seems like Thread is getting a boost from Freescale Semiconductor. That company last week announced a beta program that will give developers access to its own implementation of the Thread draft specification.

Freescale Semiconductor is encouraging development using the Thread IoT communications standard with a new microcontroller bundle.
Freescale Semiconductor is encouraging development using the Thread IoT communications standard with a new microcontroller bundle.

As this report over at EDN Newtork notes, Freescale said at the Electronica 2014 conference that it is offering Thread-compliant versions of its Kinetis W series of wireless microcontrollers.  The move is designed to encourage companies to create Thread-enabled products based on Freescale’s Kinetis platform.

Freescale’s Kinetis family of devices are designed to enable connections between devices for home automation, healthcare, smart energy and so on. The platform was originally based on the ZigBee Pro network stack. Applications include home-area networks, building automation, HVAC and home security.

Participating beta companies will receive Freescale’s Kinetis KW2x Tower boards, USB dongles, samples and the Thread stack. That includes precompiled Thread libraries and demo application code that they can build on.

Freescale was a founding member of Thread, which also has the backing of Google, Samsung, ARM and device makers Yale Lock and Big Ass Fans.

Read more via Freescale pushes Thread beta program | EDN.

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