Toshiba has announced the launch of a Hardware Development Kit (HDK) and a Software Development Kit (SDK), able to monitor activity levels, take a pulse and check heart rate, that together form a development platform for the TZ1000 series application processor for wearable and IoT devices.

Toshiba will start supplying IoT device developers with the HDK and SDK on May 7th, and also conduct a trial campaign that will offer a limited quantity of reference boards and its development environment free of charge.

TZ1000 series devices integrate a sensor, a processor, flash memory, and a Bluetooth Low Energy controller in one package and are designed as a single-device solution for measuring, processing, saving and communicating data required for wearable and IoT devices.

The development environment includes an HDK embedded with the TZ1000 series TZ1001MBG processor, the SDK that operates on it, software development tool support and documentation.

The kits will allow users to evaluate and develop software in an environment closer to final products and to optimize use of the application processor for specific product characteristics compared with previous development environment. The development environment will contribute to reduce design man-hour requirements and product development periods.

Toshiba is also working on the development of a software algorithm to measure weak biological signals, like pulse waves and the heart's electrical activities, and environmental data such as temperature and humidity, and aims to supply a system solution in the TZ1000 series that will further strengthen the line-up.