Internet of Things - Recap (June 2020)
Tags: iot, aws, news, greengrass
Published: 2020-07-03 15:06:43

---
title: Internet of Things - Recap (June 2020)
published: true
description: Recap of the Internet of Things landscape for June 2020
canonical_url: https://devopstar.com/newsletter/2020/06/25
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/qju5zsc9dqsa048k7nm5.jpg
tags: iot, aws, news, greengrass
series: Internet of Things - Recap
---

> Please reach out to me on [Twitter @nathangloverAUS](https://twitter.com/nathangloverAUS) if you have follow up questions!

*This post was originally written on [DevOpStar](https://devopstar.com/)*. Check it out [here](https://devopstar.com/newsletter/2020/06/25)

Welcome to the June 2020 issue of _the yet to be officially named_ **Internet of Things monthly recap**. Join me as I take you through some of the interesting things I've seen in the world of IoT this month.

## Community Picks

### [Meshtastic](https://www.meshtastic.org/)

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[Meshtastic](https://www.meshtastic.org/) is an open source mesh communication platform that just released its first beta code this month. I've personally fallen for a [failed Kickstarter](https://www.sonnetlabs.com/) in the past that promised to do exactly what Meshtastic is doing for 5 times the price, so I was extremely excited to see a project that uses easy to find embedded micro controllers (ESP32 in this case)

![Meshtastic TTGO Board](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/wbhgrq5m1b4y89hf3845.png)

Not only is the [code open source](https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-device), but the project uses [PlatformIO](https://platformio.org/) to build and test, so you know it won't be a pain to do deployments!

I've personally put down an order for 2 boards, so once I receive them look forward to some blogs.

### [Greengrass Core v1.10.2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/greengrass/latest/developerguide/what-is-gg.html#ggc-version-1.10)

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Who doesn't like a new Greengrass Core release? The release cycle for Greengrass has slowed down, so I'll take anything I can get. This month we got [Greengrass Core v1.10.2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/greengrass/latest/developerguide/what-is-gg.html#ggc-version-1.10) which aside from some general performance improvement and bug fixes gave us a new parameter for the Greengrass core `config.json`

The `mqttOperationTimeout` configuration option lets you define the amount of time to allow Greengrass Core to complete a publish, subscribe, or unsubscribe operation with its MQTT connection. By default this setting is 5 seconds.

### [NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX Review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcT5jLl538Q)

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As a proud owner of one of the original NVIDIA Jetson Nano boards I was really excited to hear about the launch of the [NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX](https://www.nvidia.com/en-au/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-xavier-nx/). This month we started to see review boards surfacing and [ETA PRIME](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_0CVCfC_3iuHqmyClu59Uw) put up a great review of the board


{% youtube lcT5jLl538Q %}

Some of the standout specs for this board are:

* hexa-core CPU (NVIDIA custom Carmel ARM-based cores)
* 384-core Volta-based GPU
* 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM @51.2 GB/s
* HDMI, DisplayPort, 4x USB3.1 ports, WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet

I was going to put in an order for one of these boards from an Australian distributor but the cost is a little bit outside of my budget for now. When I run into a project where the original [NVIDIA Jetson Nano](https://devopstar.com/bricks/aws-iot-greengrass-jetson-nano) doesn't suffice, I'll definitely make the upgrade though.

### [ROS 2 Foxy Fitzroy](https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Releases/Release-Foxy-Fitzroy/)

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Do I have any roboticists out there? Well this month marked the release of [ROS 2 Foxy Fitzroy](https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Releases/Release-Foxy-Fitzroy/). There was a great post put up on the AWS Blog; [ROS 2 Foxy Fitzroy: Setting a new standard for production robot development](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/robotics/ros-2-foxy-fitzroy-robot-development/) that summarized the update beautifully. Some choice cuts include:

* ROS 2 Foxy topics now automatically publish performance metrics and statistics to help users tune their applications
* Subscription failures due to QoS incompatibility are automatically reported as errors
* Ability to compress and decompress rosbag files while recording and playing data
* [MoveIt2](https://moveit.ros.org/moveit/ros2/2020/02/18/moveit-2-beta-feature-list.html) included with ROS 2 Foxy

It's been a while since I touched ROS (through RoboMaker) so this update gets me excited to jump back in.

## DevOpStar Picks

### [AWS IoT Greengrass - Jetson Nano](https://devopstar.com/bricks/aws-iot-greengrass-jetson-nano)

Have you got a NVIDIA Jetson Nano lying around that you want to put to good use? Why not try out AWS IoT Greengrass on it! This month I wrote a [Brick](https://devopstar.com/bricks) on getting started with AWS IoT Greengrass specifically for the NVIDIA Jetson Nano. [Check out the post to learn more](https://devopstar.com/bricks/aws-iot-greengrass-jetson-nano).

It's targeted specifically at total beginners too, so give it a shot and let me know what you think on [Twitter @nathangloverAUS](https://twitter.com/nathangloverAUS)

### [AWS DeepRacer - Training a Model](https://devopstar.com/bricks/aws-deepracer-training-a-model)

Along with Greengrass, I also took a look at what it takes to train a DeepRacer model from scratch, and decided I'd share a simple guide for beginners who are also interested in kick starting their machine learning interests with something very practical.

![DeepRacer Results of Guide](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/kbuqgzjzqdt5uoj8wq3u.png)

By the end of the simple tutorial you'll have trained your very own personal model from scratch and customized a fancy car as well. [Check out the post to learn more](https://devopstar.com/bricks/aws-deepracer-training-a-model).