Facebook launches Parse IoT SDKs for Atmel, Broadcom, Intel, and TI hardware

Parse, Facebook’s mobile app development platform, is announcing today the availability of new software development kits (SDKs) for more types of Internet-connected devices. Now there are SDKs for hardware containing processors from Atmel, Broadcom, Intel, and TI.

“Now, it’s easier than ever to use Parse with even more types of hardware and a broader range of connected devices,” Parse engineer Damian Kowalewski wrote in a blog post on the news. “You can build an app for Atmel’s SAM D21 + WINC1500, TI’s CC3200, Intel’s Edison or Broadcom’s WICED — and connect it to the Parse cloud in minutes, with just a few lines of code.”

Parse debuted its first SDKs for the Internet of Things (IoT) at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference in March. They were targeted at Arduino boards, which are popular in the maker movement of hardware tinkerers. But now Facebook is making technology available for the types of chips that are more commonly found in professional environments. Parse is focusing more on the “Industrial Internet” market, to use a buzz phrase.

This isn’t particularly surprising. More enterprise-oriented technology vendors, like GE Software, Microsoft, Oracle, and Pivotal, have long talked about supporting apps that draw on data from connected devices. Arduino’s have not been a high priority for such companies.

That doesn’t mean Facebook’s strategy of initially going after amateurs with Parse for IoT was such a bad idea. “Already, hundreds of apps for connected devices have been created with the new SDKs,” Kowalewski wrote. He provides several examples of apps:

Our tools have been used to build exciting and diverse products like a farm-to-table growing system that lets farmers remotely control their equipment with an app (Freight Farms); a wireless smart home speaker that syncs music, lighting and more (Musaic); and even a smart BBQ smoker that can sense when meat is perfectly done (Trignis). Here at Parse, we had fun building a connected car and a one-click order button.

You can find the new SDKs here.