2018 IoT Fuse Conference Rewind

It was a pleasure to be a part of the 2018 IoT Fuse conference in Minneapolis last week. DigiKey went all out and participated in the workshops, gave a talk, and sat on a panel discussion. Oh, and we had a tabletop display of several hardware development platforms. Minneapolis was the picture-perfect venue for this type of event. The spring weather was perfect and the downtown setting provided great opportunities to meet and network.

Workshop

The DigiKey workshop was about developing an end-to-end solution, from sensor to the cloud. Participants learned about all the different elements involved in the design, from the sensor, to the processor, to connectivity, cloud storage, and data visualization. Attendees built an IoT moisture sensor connected to the ESP32 platform via Wi-Fi. They were able to send data to the cloud through the Atmosphere development environment and visualize the data. The workshop was hosted by DigiKey Applications Engineer, Robert Nelson.

Talk

The topic was about implementing an IoT solution Without a Proprietary Cloud Service Provider. This may seem to be a strange path to take given the ubiquity of cloud services such as AWS, Azure, and Watson. Randall Restle, DigiKey’s VP of Applications Engineering, pulled methods and ideas that have been well documented and implemented in other applications. Randall’s thought-provoking talk spurred a number of questions and comments from the audience. The room was energized and engaged right before lunch!

Panel Discussion

DigiKey was fortunate to participate in a panel discussion with NimbeLink and Verizon Wireless, around improving our Understanding of the Cellular Landscape for IoT. Josh Mickolio, DigiKey’s Product Manager for RF and Wireless products, provided perspective from the distribution and customer point of view.

Conference and Exhibition

DigiKey was delighted to be a Silver Sponsor of the 2018 IoT Fuse conference. The show was well attended and grew exponentially from last year. As this was DigiKey’s first year, we didn’t quite know what to expect from the attendees. We were ready for all – students, makers, hardware designers, and software developers. We were not disappointed! We learned a lot from the folks that stopped by and talked to us. Hopefully, we were able to expand their view of DigiKey and help them with their IoT projects. Can’t wait for next year!

Josh taking a break after the setup was done and before the doors opened for the crowds!