The board is an upgrade from the previous version which used a Cortex-M3 processor running at 96 MHz with 32 KB of RAM and 512 KB of flash memory. Communication links I/Os are also improved with Ethernet, SPI, I2C, ADC, DAC, PWM, UART and GPIOs. Also included in the package is a sensor IO application shield with a 128 × 64 graphics LCD, two potentiometers, a joystick button, a PWM connected speaker, a 3-axis accelerometer, an RGB LED (controlled via PWM), and a temperature sensor. Xbee headers are also provided for connection of a Zigbee or WiFi module.

IBM’s contribution comes in the form of access to the IBM cloud (IBM BlueMix platform) which includes analytics and mobile application resources for IoT services. The kits will be shipped with ARM’s mbed OS with step by step guides to take you through the process of making basic devices and connecting to the BlueMix cloud service.