Microsoft today announced at its Build developer conference that it’s now selling five new Azure IoT Starter Kits, which are available for as little as $50 each.
There are an Adafruit Raspberry Pi Kit, an Adafruit Feather M0 Kit, an Adafruit Huzzah Feather ESP8266 Kit, Seeed’s Intel Edison Kit, and the SparkFun Thing Dev Kit.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1911228,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,dev,","session":"C"}']“These kits allow anyone with Windows or Linux experience to quickly build IoT prototypes that leverage all Azure’s IoT offerings,” Microsoft said in a statement. Each kit comes with a development board that’s compliant with the Azure Certified for IoT program, along with sensors, actuators, and tutorials.
The idea of selling a kit like this isn’t completely novel. Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced Grove IoT Starter Kits powered by AWS at its re:Invent conference in October.
AI Weekly
The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.
Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.
The Azure IoT Suite was first announced about a year ago, and last month the Azure IoT Hub, a key part of the portfolio, came out of public preview.
In addition, there’s a new tool called the Azure IoT Gateway SDK, which simplifies the process of connecting older devices to the Internet. And now the Azure IoT Hub has a public preview of device management, too.
Update at 1:39 p.m. Pacific: Added that device management is part of the Azure IoT Hub.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More