Decawave and Runtime today announced support for the open source Apache Mynewt Operating System (OS) on Decawave’s DW1000 Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transceiver. The combination of these technologies provides developers of real-time location (RTLS) applications with an open and reusable development environment and a framework for device-to-cloud lifecycle management and messaging.
Decawave, the global leader in UWB-based silicon for RTLS and proximity applications, and Runtime, a leading IoT platform-as-a-service and open source solution provider, worked collaboratively on the implementation of Apache Mynewt support for the DW1000. The addition of the Apache Mynewt OS enables support for multiple hardware platforms and a wide range of network protocols, allowing Decawave to offer a unified code base across its development kits and hardware platforms. This lowers barriers to adoption of UWB technology and reduces time-to-market for developers.
Decawave’s contribution to the Apache Mynewt OS expands Runtime’s industry-leading portfolio of wireless transport options, which already include Bluetooth 5 (BLE), Bluetooth Mesh, Wi-Fi, NFC, LoRaWAN, and the uCIFI sub-GHz mesh.
“Decawave has delivered RTLS solutions across 40 different verticals and sold more than 5.5 million chips to date,” stated Paul Kettle, VP of Strategy Enablement at Decawave. “The diversity of applications is exciting but also represents a real challenge as almost every customer requires a bespoke hardware platform with combinations of MCUs and wireless technologies like BLE to interface with handheld devices or long-range radio technologies for data backhaul. Today’s announcements make handling that complexity a breeze for customers.”
“Support for Mynewt on Decawave’s hardware is a huge win for RTLS application developers,” related James Pace, CEO of Runtime. “Customers can now leverage a modular, reusable OS while mixing and matching the short- and long-range network transports best suited for their products. Building atop embedded open source, developers can further leverage Runtime’s Device Platform for device lifecycle management, end-to-end security, and messaging at scale.”
The indoor location-based services market is forecast to grow to over $40B by 2022 [1], with use cases that range across operational efficiency in fleets, factories, safety of employees, robot navigation, retail, precision agriculture, lighting and alarm sensors. For use cases where precision is required, UWB-based technologies provide a level of granularity missing from GPS- or cellular-based solutions—sub 10 centimeters.
