diff --git a/_posts/2024-10-17-embedded-world-na-2024.md b/_posts/2024-10-17-embedded-world-na-2024.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..25eb1463 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2024-10-17-embedded-world-na-2024.md @@ -0,0 +1,113 @@ +--- +title: Embedded World North America 2024 Recap +description: A recap of Embedded World 2024 +author: gminn +tags: [embedded-world, conferences] +--- + +Last week, a handful of Memfolks had the opportunity to travel to Austin to +attend the first ever Embedded World North America[^ew_na]! Embedded World NA +welcomed 3,500 visitors and 180 vendors across 3 days[^ew_na_pr]. While it was +surely a smaller showing than Nueremburg's Embedded World, we still wanted to +quickly touch on our takeaways from the event. + + + +In this post, we will cover what we learned from the first Embedded World North +America. Our team had the chance to meet with some IoT device makers and +understand what is top of mind for them. + + + +

+ +

+ +{% include newsletter.html %} + +{% include toc.html %} + +Three major themes stood out to us at this conference while perusing the booths +and talking to developers at our booth: Security, AI, and Zephyr. + +## Security regulations heating up + +Security regulations have become increasingly part of our conversations with IoT +companies, and this trend was also apparent at EW. Leaders know that their +products must comply with regulations like the CRA and PSTI[^psti]. They want to +stay ahead as best they can and are worried about getting started too late and +missing deadlines. In fact, last week, the CRA was adopted by the EU[^eu_cra], +marking an important next step in the official publication of this law. + +I would be remiss not to mention that we at Memfault have been thinking a lot +about security. We have compiled some resources on what to focus on, including +[IoT Security Best Practices](https://memfault.com/blog/7-iot-security-practices/), +[Cyber Trust Mark Guide](https://memfault.com/blog/us-cyber-trust-mark/), and +the [CRA Guide](https://memfault.com/blog/eu-cyber-resilience-act-guide/). We +hope these references are helpful if your team is thinking about how to comply +with the new standards! + +## More AI at the edge and LLM-based tooling + +

+ +

+ +Unsurprisingly, AI continues to be a hot topic, with nearly every semiconductor +company showing its own edge AI demos. The +[Edge Impulse](https://edgeimpulse.com/) booth also really caught our attention. +They had a demo showing a smart litter tray that could use lightweight ML models +to learn the habits and track the weight of the cat for better health +monitoring. See the cute stuffed cat picture above 😸! +[Driver AI](https://www.driver.ai/) was another highlight - a tool that +automatically creates technical documentation from source code using LLMs. They +launched their product publicly this month[^driver_ai_launch]. I, for one, would +love a tool to help understand complex parts of a software stack better! + +## Zephyr continues to gain popularity + +As we also noted +[in our EW recap earlier this year](https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/embedded-world-2024#zephyr-is-winning-hearts--minds), +Zephyr continued to come up in conversations with developers across the +industry. We had a few people ask for advice on selecting the right RTOS, +particularly asking for comparisons between RTOSs like Zephyr and FreeRTOS. A +Zephyr community member wrote +[a blog post last year on their transition to Zephyr from FreeRTOS](https://zephyrproject.org/why-we-moved-from-freertos-to-zephyr-rtos/), +which you might find helpful if you are considering such a switch. Zephyr was at +the ADI booth this year with their signature kite flying to mark the spot 🪁 +Zephyr recently hit 100,000 contributions, marking an exciting milestone in its +trajectory as one of the fastest-growing open source projects[^cncf_report]. + +## Conclusion + +This conference was another great opportunity for us to meet a variety of +embedded teams at our booth and peek at the latest technology from vendors. No +time was wasted in the announcement[^ew_na_pr] -- the next Embedded World North +America will be in Anaheim next November! We can't wait to see what the second +year of this regional EW will bring. If we didn't see you this year, we hope +we'll cross paths in 2025. + +_Shoutout to Memfolks who attended the conference this year and helped put +together this post: Chris, Eric, Jon, François, JP and Jesse._ + + + +{% include newsletter.html %} + +{% include submit-pr.html %} + + + +{:.no_toc} + +## References + + +[^ew_na]: +[^ew_na_pr]: +[^eu_cra]: +[^driver_ai_launch]: +[^cncf_report]: +[^psti]: + + diff --git a/img/embedded-world-na-2024/edge-impulse-cat.jpg b/img/embedded-world-na-2024/edge-impulse-cat.jpg new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cc23f3ff Binary files /dev/null and b/img/embedded-world-na-2024/edge-impulse-cat.jpg differ diff --git a/img/embedded-world-na-2024/memfault-booth.jpg b/img/embedded-world-na-2024/memfault-booth.jpg new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6c694c45 Binary files /dev/null and b/img/embedded-world-na-2024/memfault-booth.jpg differ