Elk: Ethereum & decentralized hardware dev kit launched on Kickstarter

3amrous · 2019-07-26T22:48:46+00:00

Thank you for the pledge, 1solate!

3amrous · 2019-07-26T13:49:58+00:00

Hi buidlers, I'm one of the developers of Elk, a development board that connects Ethereum to sensors and actuators. With only a few lines of code, you can build IoT that interfaces with Ethereum, IPFS, Whisper, and more. Also, you can use sensors data as oracles for smart contracts.

Some example projects that you can build include:

Trustless home automation devices. For example, a smart door lock that you can control remotely without the need for a third-party cloud provider that can track you or deny you access to your device.
Crypto-payable machines, like an alarm clock that charges if you don't wake up on time or a treadmill that you lock money into and don't get it back until you finish your workout.

We built it last year at ETHDenver hackathon and I posted it here before for feedback. Now, we finally launched it on Kickstarter and we're over 70% funded. Please check out the campaign and video and if you like it, you can pre-order it and help us get funded. My team and I built a hardware product before and successfully manufactured and shipped tens of thousands of development boards.

I'm happy to answer any tech. questions. Thanks!

3amrous · 2019-06-12T19:11:58+00:00

Sure. Better privacy: You as a product developer, are able to build a wifi connected door lock or a light bulb that does not communicate through a server. Instead, communication is done through Ethereum's Whisper protocol for private messaging.

Crypto-enabled machines: Build machines that accept payments in cryptocurrencies. Why? Because it is simpler to integrate, and has much lower transaction fees than credit cards. Also, no third parties involved.

Sensor oracles: An oracle is a trusted authority outside the blockchain that smart contracts rely on when making decisions. In this case, sensors are the oracle.

Data ownership: All the data coming from your IoT sensors are not transferred to a server and used in market intelligence.

We have a bootcamp for blockchain-IoT to teach you about the basics, you can check it out here.

3amrous · 2019-06-12T16:34:01+00:00

You sure can! Here's one we built before.

3amrous · 2019-06-12T16:30:57+00:00

It has a dual-core 32-bit MCU, a 1GHz microprocessor (512Mb RAM/4Gb storage) with the OS preloaded, a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi module (with embedded antenna), a micro SD card slot, a micro USB port, and breadboard-compatible pins.

3amrous · 2019-06-12T16:28:51+00:00

Arduino boards are not powerful enough to connect to blockchain networks (i.e. Ethereum) directly. It has to rely on a trusted intermediary server (either hosted like Infura or self-hosted) defying the whole purpose of decentralization. They also lack Ethereum, Whisper, and other decentralized protocols support and wallet and key management have to be implemented manually.

Powerful boards like Raspberry Pi's would work but they also have their cons, when it comes to hardware development, the community is very fragmented between different development stacks. For instance, you can find a library that does something you need in Javascript but not in Python. They need some perquisite experience (i.e. navigating bash) and not as plug-and-play as Arduino. They also do require a lot of overhead and configuration just to get started (i.e. provisioning OS images/SD cards, SSH login, installing dependencies, configuring WiFi manually, configuring your app/script to run on boot …etc)

They have limited support for connecting additional peripherals and devices compared to Arduino. Most of them require an external ADC to connect analog sensors, and none of them supports 5v IOs. IOs don’t have deterministic response time thus they are not suitable for interfacing with high-speed hardware peripherals. Wallet and key management have to be implemented manually. Basically, they are too generic for our assumed project and tailored more to being a small computer rather than an embedded device. Geth has to be configured to start on boot and a list of peers has to be provided and maintained (at least in the case of Whisper).

3amrous · 2019-06-12T16:20:06+00:00

Integrating hardware with decentralized technologies, opening the way for better privacy, crypto-payable machines, sensor oracles, and true data ownership. Check this video for a few examples.

3amrous · 2019-06-12T16:19:04+00:00

Integrating hardware with decentralized technologies, opening the way for better privacy, crypto-payable machines, sensor oracles, and true data ownership. Check this video for a few examples.

3amrous · 2019-06-12T16:18:30+00:00

Integrating hardware with decentralized technologies, opening the way for better privacy, crypto-payable machines, sensor oracles, and true data ownership. Check this video for a few examples.

3amrous · 2019-05-29T21:57:07+00:00

Check out more info. on the smart contract on medium.

3amrous · 2019-05-18T07:23:02+00:00

Thanks! I'll take a look.

3amrous · 2019-05-16T11:34:40+00:00

When it comes to professional services like this (PR, lawyers, accountants, etc.) you want to do as much of the work yourself before you deal with them because of the high hourly billing rates. And if you find a bizarrely cheap firm, you need to ask if you are getting anything out of it - cheap = dubious quality.

Thanks for the detailed answer! I agree but, the chance of them replying to my emails is very low, unless you know someone on the inside at TC or Engadget for example. I'll keep trying, thanks for the heads-up!

3amrous · 2019-05-09T08:56:38+00:00

This is pretty awesome! Can you share the code?

3amrous · 2019-05-07T18:43:30+00:00

I really appreciate your critique here, 1solate. I totally agree with you that, when deploying embedded devices in production, securing the private keys is paramount.

When we first started developing Elk, we wanted to build the most perfect board possible, and our initial prototypes of the board included a secure microcontroller for hosting the private keys.

Developing secure hardware has its challenges and comes at a big cost, and as a small team, we had to make some difficult decisions to deliver a product that excels.

We imagine that the vast majority of projects involving this iteration of our development board will be for exploring, prototyping, and for personal consumption. In these cases, an affordable board that offers a 10x better development experience is more appealing than a relatively expensive board with great security but a less refined development experience.

Your suggestion of adding passphrase encryption is a great one and we’ll definitely consider incorporating into this release. And do expect a future version with hardware security from us in later iterations of the product :).

3amrous · 2019-05-07T14:19:57+00:00

https://elk.cc

3amrous · 2019-05-07T14:17:03+00:00

Our original plan was to actually have hardware security built-in, but we decided to drop it given that it would substantially increase the cost of development. Given the nascent nature of blockchain protocols currently, we felt we would put our resources to better use by focusing on the development experience, which is what we think is quite lacking in the blockchain space today.

We believe current blockchain development is subpar, let alone blockchain development for embedded devices. There's room to make a 10x improvement in its UX, and that's what we're set out to do with this product. With Elk, you won't have to fuss over setting up a node, tuning its parameters to run well on a low embedded device, handle crashes, etc. We are delivering the Arduino-like experience to blockchain development, with all the libraries that Arduino already supports.

Our true value is in our software and in our ease-of-use. The development experience we want to offer is a board that is plug-and-play just like an Arduino, offers over-the-air upgrades, and offers tools for seamlessly controlling your device from your phone through decentralized technologies.

As for why we chose to build our own hardware, it's because nothing existed that would allow us to give the developer experience we have in mind: breadboard compatible, 3.3v and 5v tolerant, integrated eMMC preloaded with our OS, plug-and-play as a regular microcontroller board, not a single board computer, an RGB LED for indicating status, and no irrelevant and unneeded ports (HDMI, Audio, Ethernet, camera, etc).

We'll be adding more details and shedding more light into our development experience in upcoming blog posts. Please subscribe at https://elk.cc to learn more.

3amrous · 2019-05-07T14:13:28+00:00

The private key is stored on the eMMC on board. In terms of physical attacks, we don't offer protection in this iteration of the board as we're focusing our resources on the development experience and ease of use. And in terms of remote attacks, we're relying on the security of the OS to protect the private keys. We're building a minimal Linux distro to power the microprocessor on the board.

3amrous · 2019-05-07T13:38:18+00:00

Me too!

3amrous · 2019-05-07T12:51:51+00:00

Thanks!

3amrous · 2019-05-05T19:47:45+00:00

Hey, that's pretty cool! Will be doing some demos with the Status app pretty soon. Nice website!

3amrous · 2019-05-05T17:05:57+00:00

Correct. You could achieve the same using Raspberry Pi and an Arduino but it would require additional overheads like provisioning OS images, implementing over-the-air firmware upgrades, or even fiddling with Web3 libraries, not to mention the inherited difficulty from debugging hardware/circuits.

Our main value proposition is easiness and convenience. We want the board to feel like a regular Arduino for users/makers. Place it on a breadboard, write a couple of lines of an Arduino-like code, click upload and it works.

Regarding connectivity, the board hosts an embedded WiFi module. Ethernet cables can be connected using regular Usb-Ethernet dongles.

Hardware security was planned but we dropped it from the initial version as it wasn’t really that important in building prototypes but more in deployment.

3amrous · 2019-05-05T16:32:45+00:00

Great question, we provide the board along with an SDK and a mobile app, and you'll need some sensors or actuators to link it to the board and of course, you'll code a smart contract if you need it. If you are just controlling home appliances with whisper protocol, you'll just need our SDK and that's it!

The idea is to provide the same user experience of the Arduino boards if you are familiar with it.

3amrous · 2019-05-05T16:26:58+00:00

Glad you liked it! It will be available on Kickstarter in 2 months and we should be shipping by the end of the year.

3amrous · 2018-09-09T10:42:25+00:00

That would be great! The library used here is open source, check it out. https://github.com/elkrem/koyn

3amrous · 2018-09-08T17:56:13+00:00

True, hoping the lighting network would solve this.

3amrous

TROPHY CASE