About Edison

Intel launched its series of Internet of Things (IoT) ready kits with Intel Galileo and ranges to Intel Galileo 2 and Intel Edison. The Edison is a preferred development platform over Galileo owing to its very small form factor, on-board WiFi and Low Energy Bluetooth (BLE). It is available with an Arduino Breakout board and a Mini Breakout Board to expand its connections.

Getting Started from the scratch: (from Intel Website)

Hardware-

  • Intel Edison Module with Arduino Expansion Board
  • Two (2) Micro B to Type A USB cables
  • A direct current (DC) power supply. The power supply should be rated as follows:
    • 7-15V DC
    • At least 1500mA
    • The center/inner pin should be the positive pole of the power supply

Software-

  • I used Windows 8.1 (64Bit) Operating System with Internet Connection on HP laptop (8 GB RAM).
  • Intel Integrated Installer
  • Arduino IDE

Step 1: Setup

Assemble your board

See this procedure in a video https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/intel-edison-kit-for-arduino-unboxing-and-assembly or follow the steps below.

 

  1. Place the Intel Edison module within the white outline on your expansion board, lining up the holes on the module with the screws on the expansion board.edison_assemble_screws
  2. Press down on the module just below the words What will you make? until you feel a snap.
    Caution: Unless you make sure your board is seated properly, it may not work or turn on at all.
    When you turn the attached module and expansion board on their side, both pieces should fit evenly and sit in parallel with each other.edison-assembly-snap
  3. Use the two hex nuts (included in the package) to secure the module to the expansion board.edison_assembly_screws
  4. Insert a screw in the corner hole and attach the plastic spacer.edison_assembly_one_leg
  5. Repeat for the other three corner spacers.edison_assembly_legs

Connect the board to your system

See this procedure in a video here: https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/intel-edison-kit-for-arduino.

 

  1. Plug in the power supply.Note: If you do not have a DC power supply, you can still power the board through a USB port. See the Powering your board over USB section for details.edison_dc_only
  2. A green LED should light up on the expansion board. If it doesn’t, check your connection.edison-green-power-light-DCpower
  3. Find the microswitch in between the USB ports on the expansion board. Switch the microswitch down towards the micro-USB ports, if it isn’t already.edison_microswitch_0
  4. Plug in one of the micro-USB cables to the middle USB connector on the expansion board.edison_dc_and_middle_usb
  5. Plug in the other end of the USB cable to your computer.plug-usb

How do you know when the board is ready?

You will know that your board is fully initialized when your computer mounts a new drive (much like inserting a SD card into your computer).  If you do not see a new drive, or the LED light (DS1 on the Arduino expansion board) is occasionally turning on and off, check the connection of your power supply.

win-drive

  1. Plug in your second USB cable to the edge USB connector on the board.edison_all
  2. Plug the other end of the USB cable in to your computer.

Your Intel Edison board is now assembled. Choose your host operating system below.

Note: If you are setting up your board to use Brillo, go to http://www.code-labs.io/codelabs/brillo-hello-leds-edison/ , otherwise continue.  If that URL isn’t working for you, make sure you are signed into the right account.  You could also try incognito mode on your browser.

Step 2: Run the integrated installer

This section contains steps to download and run the Windows* 64-bit integrated installer, which combines updating firmware and installing your choice of IDE.

Which programming language should you use?

When you run the integrated installer, you should install your integrated development environment (IDE) of your choice. You choose your IDE based on the programming language you want to use to program your board, as follows:

  • Arduino*: Arduino is an easy-to-learn, open source C++ based programming environment. It’s convenient for quickly adding sensors since there is a lot of available sensor code out there. Since the Intel® Edison and Intel® Galileo boards are Arduino-pin compatible, there are also plenty of shields to choose from. The Arduino IDE is the application of choice for programming with Arduino.
  • JavaScript* and Node.js*: These languages are great for creating web interfaces and also work well in cloud connectivity and getting devices talking to one another. We provide the Intel® XDK IoT Edition to program in JavaScript and Node.js. It comes with easy-to-use project templates to jumpstart your IoT projects.
  • C++: Alternatively, using C++ tends to be very powerful, giving you full control of the system while simultaneously taking advantage of a lot of available libraries. The Intel® IoT Developer Kit version of Eclipse*, which is downloadable, comes with a built-in capability to easily integrate sensors from our GitHub library.

Download the installer

Download and run the Windows 64-bit Integrated Installer. Once it’s done, be sure to return to this document to confirm driver setup and set up the serial terminal and network connections.

End-user license
Third-party program use

Confirm driver installation and locate the COM port number

Once you have run the installer, follow the steps below to confirm your drivers installed correctly.

Confirm installation of Intel® Edison drivers

  1. Open the Device Manager.
  2. Under Ports (COM & LPT), confirm that the Intel Edison USB Composite Device and Intel Edison Virtual Com Port entries are listed:Confirming installation of the USB drivers

Don’t see Intel® Edison devices show up in Device Manager?

  • If you are working with an Arduino expansion board, check that the board is in device mode. The microswitch should be toggled downwards, toward the micro USB ports.
  • Check the micro USB cable connection between your computer and your expansion board:
    • For the Arduino expansion board, check that the micro USB cable is securely connected to the middle USB port on the expansion board.
    • For the mini breakout board, check that the micro USB cable is securely connected to the bottom USB port on the mini breakout board.
  • Be sure to restart your computer after installing your drivers to ensure driver changes take effect.
  • Try connecting your board to your system using a different micro USB cable to eliminate errors due to a bad cable.
  • You may also need to update the firmware on the Intel® Edison board. Steps to do so are included inInstall Flash Tool Lite.

Confirm installation of FTDI serial drivers and locate the COM#

  1. In the Device Manager, under Ports (COM & LPT), confirm that the USB Serial Port entry is listed.Confirming installation of the FTDI drivers
  2. Make a note of the COM#, as highlighted above; you’ll need this later.

Step 3: Set up a serial terminal

This section contains steps to set up serial communication with your board. Serial communication gives you access to the Yocto-built Linux* operating system running on your board. Once you’re connected, you can use Linux commands to change the hostname and password of your board, set up a Wi-Fi* connection, flash you board’s firmware, and more.

Set up PuTTY

  1. Download the PuTTY terminal emulator: http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe.
  2. Double-click the putty.exe file you downloaded to run it.
  3. Configure the PuTTY menu as follows:
    1. Under Connection type, select Serial.
    2. In the Serial line field, enter the COM port number for your board that you noted inConfirm installation of FTDI serial drivers and locate the COM#. This should take the form of COM#, where # is the number of your port (for example, COM12).
    3. In the Speed field, type 115200.puttyConfig
  4. Click Open to open your serial connection.
  5. When you see a blank screen, press Enter. If you have an old version of the firmware, you may have to press Enter twice. A login prompt is displayed.putty-login
  6. At the login prompt, type root and press Enter.
  7. By default, root does not have a password. Press Enter to see a terminal prompt.putty-password

Next Steps

Now that you have set up a serial terminal for your board, continue by connecting your board to a network over Wi-Fi*.

Step 4: Connect over Wi-Fi*

This guide contains steps to set up network access to your Intel® Edison board and obtain an IP address.

Set up Wi-Fi

  1. Establish a serial communication session with your board.
  2. To configure your Wi-Fi, enter the command:configure_edison –wifiIf you get an error saying configure_edison: not found, you need to update your firmware.
  3. When asked if you want to set up Wi-Fi, type Y and press Enter.
  4. Your board will scan for Wi-Fi networks for approximately 10 seconds. When it is finished, a list of available networks will be displayed. If you don’t see any networks, enter 0 to rescan.Example of scanning for Wi-Fi networks
  5. Choose the network you would like to connect to, type the corresponding number from the list, and press Enter. To confirm your entry, type Y and press Enter. In this example, to connect to the kafkanetwork, enter 16.Example of choosing a Wi-Fi network to connect to
  6. If your network requires a password or other information, enter the appropriate network credentials.
  7. The board will attempt to make a connection to the network. When you see a Done message, your board is connected to a Wi-Fi network.Example of the Done message
  8. Note the IP Address, as shown in the image above. This is your board’s IP Address. Alternately, enter the command:ifconfigExample of an IP address

    Make note of your wlan0 IP address, as shown above.

  9. To verify connectivity, you may want to ping your board from another computer on the same network using the IP Address obtained above. Alternately, you can try accessing your board by typing in your IP Address into a browser of another computer on the same network.

If you are having problems connecting, try running the following commands in a serial communication session with your board:

ifconfig usb0 down
ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig usb0 up
ifconfig wlan0 up

You may also want to try the alternate method to set up Wi-Fi.

Next Steps

Now that you have set up your board, set up your preferred integrated development environment (IDE) to get started programming your projects.

Step 5: Set up your IDE

Now that you have set up your Intel® Edison board, you can get started programming your board. For steps to get started with your preferred language, choose the appropriate link below:

I used Arduino.

Blinking an LED with the Arduino* IDE

This guide will teach you how to run a sample sketch on your Intel® IoT board using Arduino*. These instructions are geared toward the Intel® Edison module with the Arduino expansion board, but can also be applied to the Intel® Galileo board. Steps for the Intel® Edison module with mini breakout board may vary slightly.

Requirements

Running Arduino

  1. Run Arduino.
  2. Open the LED blink example sketch by choosing File > Examples > 1.Basics > Blink.Example of the Arduino IDE
  3. Choose Tools > Board, then select your board.Example of selecting your board
  4. Select the serial device of the board from the Tools > Serial Port menu. See the instructions below for your specific OS.Note: The easiest way to find what port the board is using is by disconnecting your board, restarting the IDE, and re-opening the menu. The entry that disappears should be your board. Reconnect the board, restart the IDE, and select that serial port.

    blink-arduino-win-tools-port

  5. Once you have selected your COM port, the COM port number is displayed in the bottom right corner of Arduino. Continue to upload the sketch to your board.blink-arduino-win-port

Finding your port on a system with Windows*

  1. In the Device Manager, look for one of the following:
    • For the Intel® Edison board, look for an entry called Intel Edison Virtual Com Portand note the COM port number displayed next to the entry in parenthesis, which is likely to be COM3 or higher. It is NOT USB Serial Port.In Arduino, select your COM port. In the example below, the COM port is COM14.Edison_Win_usbserialport
    • For the Intel® Galileo board, look for an entry called Galileo (COMx) device under Ports (COM & LPT), as shown below.In Arduino, select your COM port. In the example below, the COM port is COM7.Looking for the Intel® Galileo board entry in the Device Manager
  2. Now that you have selected your port, continue to upload the sketch to your board.

Finding your port on a system with Linux*

  1. Choose Tools > Serial Port, then select the port for your board, which is likely to be /dev/ttyACM0.blink-arduino-linux-tools-portNote: If the /ttyACM* port is not available, here are several possible reasons why:
    • The modem manager is using the port. When the port becomes active, the modem manager can claim the port, blocking the IDE’s access to the port. The exact command to remove it will depend on your Linux distribution. For example, the commandsudo apt-get remove modemmanagermay work.
    • The /ttyACM port was not created automatically when you plugged in your board. To add the port, do the following:
      1. Create a file: etc/udev/rules.d/50-arduino.rules
      2. Add the following to the file:KERNEL=="ttyACM[0-9]*", MODE="0666"
      3. Restart udev by entering the following command:sudo service udev restartIf you are using a virtual machine (VM), you may need to reboot Linux within the VM.
    • If you still are not able to see the port in the IDE, it may be because your user hasn’t been added to the dialout group. Add yourself to the dialout group by entering the following command: 
      sudo adduser your_user_name dialout

      Then restart the IDE and try again.

  2. Now that you have selected your port, continue to upload the sketch to your board.

Finding your port on a system with Mac* OS X*

  1. Choose Tools > Serial Port, then select the port for your board, which is likely to be/dev/cu.usbmodemxxxx, where the xxxx is a string of four to five characters based on your device.blink-arduino-mac-tools-port
  2. Now that you have selected your port, continue to upload the sketch to your board.

Uploading the sketch to your board

  1. Click the Upload icon in the upper left to load and run the sketch on your board.blink-arduino-upload
  2. You should see Done Uploading and Transfer complete messages when your sketch has uploaded.blink-arduino-transfer-comp
  3. The DS2 LED on your board should now blink on or off every second.blink-led-arduino

That’s all for Getting Started. Intel Edison is a very versatile platform and much to do with IoT.

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