Electric Imp: Offering innovative and powerful ‘Internet of Things’ solutions by connecting devices with advanced cloud computing resources

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower”– Steve Jobs

Founded in 201, Electric Imp offers an innovative and powerful Internet of Things platform that securely connects devices with advanced cloud computing resources. Electric Imp’s unique solution featuring fully integrated hardware, OS, security, APIs and cloud services dramatically decreases cost and time to market while increasing security, scalability and flexibility. The Electric Imp platform enables innovative commercial and industrial applications and empowers manufacturers to manage and quickly scale their connected products and services to millions of users.

Located in Los Altos, California and Cambridge, UK, Electric Imp is funded by Foxconn Technology Group, PTI Ventures, Rampart Capital and Redpoint Ventures.

….and this how Electric Imp was founded
In early 2011, Hugo Fiennes, CEO and co-founder of Electric Imp, was remodeling a bathroom in his home and wanted to add a strip of RGB lights under a cabinet to light the floor. His plan was to connect the lights to WiFi to display information ambiently — hourly weather forecast, daily calendar, stock prices — indicated with color changes along the strip that could be viewed at a glance. It turned out to be a bigger project than envisioned and after much frustration with the available tools, Hugo determined that there should be a better, simpler way to integrate Internet connectivity. Beside the fact that it was difficult for any hobbyist to make a useful networked device, industrial and commercial product manufacturers faced similar challenges. Businesses that tried venturing into Internet connectivity usually ended up reinventing the wheel at great cost, resulting in products that were expensive, fragile and often communicated to nothing more than a smartphone app.
What was needed, Hugo concluded, was to take the best implementations of hardware, firmware and cloud service, consolidate them into a powerful Internet of Things platform, and enable them to be applied to any device in the world. Electric Imp, thus came in to being as a result.

The ‘Electric Imp’ Platform
Electric Imp provides a complete end-to-end solution for manufacturers and businesses seeking to bring their products and services online that makes it simple to connect nearly any sensor, device or service to the Internet quickly, securely and seamlessly. The Electric Imp connectivity platform is a proven solution featuring fully integrated hardware, software, OS, APIs, cloud services and security that can effectively enhance your devices with greater functionality, efficiency and performance.

Features of ‘Electric Imp’
imp Module- The Electric Imp platform starts with the imp, a powerful module integrating WiFi and compute power, which acts as the gateway to connect your device or service to the Internet. Imp hardware is available in several forms: modules with or without an integrated antenna, and as a single chip for high-volume applications.
impOS- The software foundation for the imp’s features, the impOS provides secure cloud connectivity services to product and allows to concentrate on creating code to bring your product’s functions to life.

imp Cloud- The imp Cloud allows you to run ‘agents’ — server-side code unique to each and every device in the field — that are used to provide HTTP IO and cloud-side processing to all of your products, and easily connect your products to anything with Internet access. Agents can act as a central hub to your products, apps, third-party services and even own servers.
imp Open -API Use the extensive Open API to enrich customer experience and build business by developing enhancements like messaging, monitoring and much more.

imp BlinkUp™-The proprietary Electric Imp setup solution, BlinkUp integrates seamlessly into apps to allow customers to securely connect products in seconds using just a smartphone or tablet.

imp IDE- Implement and maintain software, push new code and features easily to devices at any time, ensuring that users always have the latest features.

imp IDE Production Tools- Gain more insight into factory production lines and scale to millions of devices.

imp Build API- Integrate Electric Imp’s online development functionality into your existing workflow and tools.

imp Code Libraries- Enhance software’s functionality with ready-to-use code that will help you take advantage of leading edge web services and hardware components.
imp Security-Electric Imp’s market-leading security features are designed and embedded into every single physical and virtual aspect of the Electric Imp connectivity platform. They are continuously maintained and updated.

imp Scalability– Their powerful cloud architecture is highly extensible across a single device or to millions of products.

Electric Imp’s connectivity solutions for clients business
Connectivity can transform your entire business. It can build new partnerships, enhance customer engagement, discover cost savings, and unveil new revenue opportunities by integrating Electric Imp’s proven IoT platform.
Benefits to integrating connectivity using Electric Imp include:

• Reduced time to market
• Advanced security, continuously maintained
• Seamless scaling to millions of connections
• Minimized product development costs
• Painless over-the-air updates
• One platform, multiple product lines

The Electric Imp connectivity platform is a proven solution featuring fully integrated hardware, software, OS, cloud services, scalability, management tools, and security. This powerful offer dramatically decreases cost and time to market while creating new revenue streams, business models, and partnership opportunities. By delivering the most complete, easy-to-deploy connectivity platform, Electric Imp empowers your business to deploy, manage and quickly scale your connected products and services to millions of users.

Knowing the Leaders

Hugo Fiennes, CEO and Co-founder – Hugo began building hardware and software for early ARM-based computers in the late 1980s, and he has been making useful and successful things ever since. Prior to co-founding Electric Imp, Hugo led the hardware team through the first four generations of the groundbreaking Apple iPhone, and subsequently designed and architected the hardware for the Nest Thermostat. Early in his career, Hugo founded empeg, creator of the first in-car MP3 digital audio player. He then worked on many more MP3 players at Rio before moving to the US from his native England to work for Apple in 2006.

Peter Hartley, Software Architect and Co-founder- In his role at Electric Imp, Peter draws from considerable software architecture and engineering expertise within a variety of disciplines, including animation, networking and embedded multimedia, for companies such as DisplayLink and Sigmatel. Peter is based in Electric Imp’s office in Cambridge, England.