Cypress and Mouser Offer Free Bluetooth Mesh Kits to IoT Developers

CYW20819 Arduino Eval Boards and Bluetooth Mesh Eval Kits have been made available free to developers by Cypress Partners and Mouser Electronics as part of a maker-centric giveaway at electromaker.io.

Entrants are challenged to develop a Bluetooth 5 Internet of Things concept incorporating the Cypress boards, with a first prize of $2000 in cash.

With a second prize of a Comgrow Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D Printer, third placed wins maker tools worth $500. The key to winning the competition is to develop a concept that makes the semi-final stage, and access to the free hardware. Once this is achieved, semi-finalists will find the required number of CYW20819 Arduino Eval Boards and Bluetooth Mesh Eval Kits landing on their doormats.

Any combination of the boards can be used, along with any additional components that are needed to achieve the project's aim.

For example, the CYW20819 Arduino Eval Board is a prototyping board with Arduino-compatible headers. This means you can add off-the-shelf Arduino shields along with any other compatible hardware to extend the functionality of the platform beyond its motion and thermistor sensors.

Used alone or alongside the EZ-BT™ Bluetooth Mesh Development Kit, this could be the bedrock of an exciting new IoT project pitch. And if network access is required for the proposal, the Bluetooth Mesh Development Kit packages four Bluetooth Mesh-enabled nodes in the box, designed to create a quick and easy ad-hoc Bluetooth network. Each of these nodes includes the CYW20819 SoC, an Ultra Low Power, BLE/BR/EDR Bluetooth 5.0 ARM Cortex-M4 chip, alongside ambient light, thermistor, and PIR motion sensors. Clearly this makes the EZ-BT™ Bluetooth Mesh Development Kit ideal for IoT projects, leaving entrants to the competition limited only by their own imaginations.

But just what types of IoT project can be realised with a Bluetooth 5 Mesh? Cypress Partners tell us that "Our friends at Sylvania have come out with a Smart Bulb that implements Cypress' Bluetooth Mesh solution, making us the only company with a Bluetooth 5 SIG Mesh solution on the market today. CYW20819 is Dual-Mode Bluetooth compliant supporting both Bluetooth Classic and the Bluetooth Low Energy specification."

That should be enough to enthuse most makers, amateur enthusiasts, and basically anyone who wants to get their hands dirty with an ambitious IoT project built with free boards. And whether these projects utilise Bluetooth Mesh, temperature sensors, or any of the other onboard instruments, the ModusToolbox 1.1 IDE supports both boards.

If you're interested in taking part in this giveaway incentive, head to the electromaker.io contest page. You should also take note of the all-important dates.

Semi-finalist projects will be decided on June 13th 2019, and boards distributed. This gives you less than a month to create an electromaker.io account, develop your concept and submit it via the website.

Once accepted as a semi-finalist, there is eight weeks - for projects to be uploaded to electromaker.io. The competition closes on August 2nd 2019 with contest winners announced on August 16th 2019.

I’d like to enter the contest. What do I need to do?

1. Firstly, if you haven't done so already, register for an Electromaker account.
2. Apply for your free Cypress development board(s) using the application form.
3. Once your application has been approved, your board(s) should be delivered within one week.
4. Once you have your board(s), you can start building your project!
5. Log in to your Electromaker account and document your work using the project upload form.