Our customers often mention that they enjoy the flexibility and backward compatibility of our software. More specifically, they appreciate our software’s ability to assure that older devices stay as “fresh” as the newest models. In industries like energy, manufacturing and connected commerce — where machines and controls operate continuously for years or even decades — that constant-yet-secure update of functionality and compatibility is extremely important.
In that spirit, we are pleased to announce general availability of our new software release, impOS™ 34. impOS 34 further expands security, device connectivity, Private impCloud™ and device “smarts” across Electric Imp’s products and platform-as-a-service. The release also doubles application processing code space on its popular imp003 module. All imp devices do a lot of edge processing, such as data filtering/compression, alerting, local data storage, implementation of algorithms that run when no connectivity is available, and much more.
Rick Ryan, Fellow at Pitney Bowes, says: “Electric Imp technology enables Pitney Bowes to simplify the complexities of doing business across the physical and digital worlds.” Pitney Bowes uses Electric Imp in its SmartLink retrofit of its popular postage meters deployed around the world.
Regan Ryan, CTO at Embrium Holdings, manufacturer of smart sub-meters and advanced energy controls for commercial building owners, adds: “With impOS 34, we now have greater capacity and more processing power at the edge to stay on top of a rapidly evolving sector.”
Along with our customers managing devices in 105 countries worldwide, many of Electric Imp’s technology partners are enjoying the new release as well. For Gavin Knight, co-founder of IoT design and engineering firm Mystic Pants, we help his customers shave time to market by addressing the complexity of secure IoT connectivity for them. “Electric Imp’s doubling of code space on imp003 has allowed us to meet our customer requirements with ease. The addition of new network capabilities has also opened up new use cases and and expanded connectivity dramatically.”
And then there is security. Our dedication to maintaining the robust security at all layers of data and control connections to/from the IoT is integral to new functionality in impOS 34, which includes:
- TLS 1.2 and forward secrecy: increased protections on data in transit and prevention of attempts to decode previously captured data should the keys ever become available.
- Doubled RSA key and certificate lengths: increases longevity of secure device use.
- Added an ed25519 challenge-response system: leveraging the unique identities provisioned into every imp at time of manufacture, this verifies device authenticity in a lightweight but secure way.
- FIPS 140-2 certified HSM system: provides physical, tamper-proof protection of the private OS signing keys and ensures that only genuine updates will ever be accepted by devices in the field.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about the importance of security, device “smarts” and compatibility, including ease of interoperability and management over time.
For impOS 34, see the full release. Visit our Dev Center for full release notes. Or email us directly via marketing@electricimp.com.
Harry Reiss
Product Owner