Bangalore, November 19 2014: Leading global provider of silicon for wired and wireless communications, Broadcom has  leveraged its Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED™) platform (pronounced "wik-id") to roll out a couple of useful and affordable tools that will interest  startups and young  developers.
WICED Sense Kit for IoT:
The company has unveiled a new development kit aimed at giving Internet of Things  technologists a leg up in this exciting market, where everything from door locks to tea kettles will get connected to the cloud. It's called WICED Sense Kit  and is pre-programmed and ready for app developers and hardware and software developers to get going with an IoT project.
The kit includes a WICED-branded Bluetooth Low Energy board housed in a sturdy plastic case. Inside is the BCM20737S Bluetooth Smart System-in-a-Package  (SIP) module, five micro-electromechanical sensors (MEMS) and Broadcom’s flagship WICED Smart software stack that’s Bluetooth 4.1 compatible.
“From two-person garage startups to tier one manufacturers, we care tremendously about fostering innovation in this market,” said Sid Shaw, senior product line manager for Internet of Things business in the Broadband and Connectivity Group at Broadcom. “The idea is to democratize this market and open it up to millions of software and hardware developers so they can experiment with low-energy Bluetooth and innovate on the WICED™ platform.”
The kit’s set-up is designed to be dead simple: Pop in the coin-cell battery, download the WICED Sense app (available on the App Store and in the Google Play Store  to a mobile device, and pair up the Bluetooth Low Energy connection between the sensor tag and the smartphone or tablet.
The tag, outfitted with a MicroUSB port, is now ready to gather all kinds of data, including:Temperature, Humidity, Atmospheric pressure, Direction and Speed.  The kit takes less than five minutes to set up. All of the needed software is already pre-programmed onto the sensor tag.
The BCM20737S has some pretty cool  features, too.  For one, it is an attractively priced ($25) , extremely small (6.5 x 6.5) SIP module with built-in embedded security supporting RSA 4K (important when there’s data being collected from consumers). It supports iBeacon technology, the latest wireless charging standards, Near Field Communication, and can get over-the-air firmware updates for future upgrades. The WICED Sense devkit is an affordable entry point to the ever-expanding IoT ecosystem and a platform for engineers, tinkerers, DiY-ers and entrepreneurs.
WiFi adapter for Rasberry Pi
A Broadcom USB hub and WiFi adapter based on  WICED™ Wi-Fi ,  is now available for the popular Rasberry Pi, wallet-PC platform. It  sports two USB ports and 802.11 b/g/n support in a very low-power $ 15  package.
“It gives you full-featured Wi-Fi connectivity out of the box for your Raspberry Pi device,” said Jeff Baer, director of business development for Wireless LAN at Broadcom.The low-cost adapter bolsters the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s mission: to get affordable computers into the hands of students so they can learn critical computer science skills. The new USB Wi-Fi adapter for Raspberry Pi sports two USB ports and 802.11 b/g/n support in a very low-power package.That last bit is a big selling point, since it frees up the Raspberry Pi’s computing power to do other nifty things.
One of its other standouts: the Broadcom USB hub has integrated software support for Raspberry Pi and other Linux-based platforms, the operating system of choice for the millions of open-source tinkerers who develop on the Pi.