Getting Started with the Intel® Edison Board on Mac OS X

Get access to the new Intel® IoT Developer Kit, a complete hardware and software solution that allows developers to create exciting new solutions with the Intel® Galileo and Intel® Edison boards. Visit the Intel® Developer Zone for IoT.

Step 1: Assemble your board

You can set up your Intel® Edison board with your choice of expansion boards:

The Arduino* expansion board or	The mini breakout board

Setting up the Intel® Edison board with the Arduino expansion board

Requirements

• Intel® Edison module
• Arduino expansion board
• 2 Micro B to Type A USB cables
• A direct current (DC) power supply. Your power supply should be rated as follows:
  • 7-15V DC
  • At least 1500mA
  • The center/inner pin should be the positive pole of the power supply
  Note: An external power supply is the preferred way of powering the Intel® Edison board. However, you can power your board over USB if you do not have an external power supply. For details, see the Powering your board over USB section.
  
  We suggest an EMSA120150 or similar supply:
  • digikey.com
  • futureelectronics.com

Assemble your board

See these steps in a video, https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/intel-edison-kit-for-arduino-unboxing-and-assembly, or follow the steps below.

1. Place the Intel® Edison module within the white outline on your expansion board, lining up the holes on the module with the screws on the expansion board.

   

2. Press down on the module just below the words What will you make? until you feel a snap.
   Caution: Unless you make sure your board is seated properly, it may not work or turn on at all.
   When you turn the attached module and expansion board on their side, both pieces should fit evenly and sit in parallel with each other.

   

3. Use the two hex nuts (included in the package) to secure the module to the expansion board.

   

4. Insert a screw in the corner hole and attach the plastic spacer.

   

5. Repeat for the other three corner spacers.

   

Connect the board to your system

See these steps in a video, https://software.intel.com/en-us/videos/intel-edison-kit-for-arduino, or follow the steps below.

1. Plug in the power supply.
   
   Note: If you do not have a DC power supply, you can still power the board through a USB port. See Powering your board over USB for details.

   

2. A green LED should light up on the expansion board. If it doesn't, check your connection.

   

3. Find the microswitch in between the USB ports on the expansion board. Switch the microswitch down towards the micro-USB ports, if it isn't already.

   

4. Plug in one of the micro-USB cables to the middle USB connector on the expansion board.

   

5. Plug in the other end of the USB cable to your computer.

   

How do you know when the board is ready?

You will know that your board is fully initialized when your computer mounts a new drive (much like inserting a SD card into your computer). If you do not see a new drive, or the LED light (DS1 on the Arduino expansion board) is occasionally turning on and off, check the connection of your power supply.

1. Plug in your second USB cable to the edge USB connector on the board.

   

2. Plug the other end of the USB cable in to your computer.

   

Now that you have finished assembling your Intel® Edison board, continue the setup process by installing your drivers.

Setting up the Intel® Edison board with the mini breakout board

In this guide, you’ll connect the Intel® Edison module to an Intel® Edison mini breakout board.

Requirements

• Intel® Edison module
• Intel® Edison mini breakout board
• 2 Micro B to Type A USB cables

Note that the breakout board has two micro USB ports:

• The top port is used to create a terminal connection by serial over USB only.
• The bottom port is for power and USB communication.

For details, see the Intel® Edison Breakout Board Hardware Guide (PDF).

Assemble your board

At the end of this section, you should have an assembled Intel® Edison board.

1. Place the Intel® Edison module on the breakout board, lining up the holes on the module with the screws on the breakout board. Press down on the module at the upper left corner and just below the words What will you make? until you feel it click into place.
   Caution: Unless you make sure your board is seated properly, it may not work or turn on at all.
   When you turn the attached module and expansion board on their side, both pieces should fit evenly and sit in parallel with each other.

   

2. Use the two hex nuts to secure the module to the expansion board. Hand-tighten the hex nuts onto the two screws that protrude through the module.
    

   

3. Plug in one of the micro-USB cables to the bottom USB connector on the expansion board. Plug in the other end of the USB cable to your computer. A green light should light up on the expansion board. If it doesn’t, check your connection.

   

4. Wait a moment for the board to boot up. You will know that the board is fully initialized when your computer mounts a new drive (much like inserting a SD card into your computer).
5. Plug in your second USB cable to the top USB connector on the board.

   Note: If you do not see a new drive, it is likely that the board isn’t getting enough power from the USB port. Plug in your laptop’s AC adapter (if you are connecting the board to a laptop), try a different USB port on your computer, or try using a USB hub that has its own power supply.
   
   

Now that you have finished assembling your mini breakout board with the Intel® Edison board, continue to install your drivers.

Step 2: Run the integrated installer

This section contains steps to download and run the Mac* OS X* integrated installer, which combines updating firmware and installing your choice of IDE.

Which programming language should you use?

When you run the integrated installer, you should install your intergrated development environment (IDE) of your choice. You choose your IDE based on the programming language you want to use to program your board, as follows:

• Arduino*: Arduino is an easy-to-learn, open source C++ based programming environment. It's convenient for quickly adding sensors since there is a lot of available sensor code out there. Since the Intel® Edison and Intel® Galileo boards are Arduino-pin compatible, there are also plenty of shields to choose from. The Arduino IDE is the application of choice for programming with Arduino.

• JavaScript* and Node.js*: These languages are great for creating web interfaces and also work well in cloud connectivity and getting devices talking to one another. We provide the Intel® XDK IoT Edition to program in JavaScript and Node.js. It comes with easy-to-use project templates to jumpstart your IoT projects.

• C++: Alternatively, using C++ tends to be very powerful, giving you full control of the system while simultaneously taking advantage of a lot of available libraries. The Intel® IoT Developer Kit version of Eclipse*, which is downloadable, comes with a built-in capability to easily integrate sensors from our GitHub library.

Download the installer

Download and run the Mac OS X Integrated Installer. Be sure to return to this document to set up the serial terminal and network connections for your board when it is done.

End-user license
Third-party program use

Next Steps

Continue with the setup process by setting up serial communication with your board.

Step 3: Set up a serial terminal

This section contains steps to set up serial communication with your board.

Requirements

• You have assembled your board, connected it to your system, installed any required drivers, and so on. For steps, see the appropriate link below:
  • Assembling the Arduino* expansion board
  • Assembling the mini breakout board

1. Launch Spotlight by pressing Cmd + Space.
2. Type terminal.
3. Select the Terminal app.
4. In the Terminal window, enter the command:
   
   ls /dev/cu.usbserial-*

   

5. In the list of connected devices, look for a device that contains cu.usbserial. In the example above, the device name is /dev/cu.usbserial-A402YSYU.
   
   Note: If your device is not in the list, verify that your board is powered on.
6. Connect to the USB serial device using the Terminal screen utility by entering the command:

   screen /dev/xx.usbserial-XXXXXXXX 115200 –L

   where /dev/xx.usbserial-XXXXXXXX is replaced by your device’s unique name. Using the example above, the command would be:

   screen -L /dev/cu.usbserial-A402YSYU 115200 –L

   Note: Adding –L to the command, as shown above, turns on output logging so you can see what the result of your commands are. To end a session in Screen type Ctrl + A and then Ctrl + K to kill the session. You will be prompted to end the session.

7. At the blank screen, press Enter twice. A login screen is displayed.

   

8. At the login prompt, type root and press Enter.
9. Press Enter when prompted for a password. The following screen is displayed:

   

Next Steps

Now that you have set up a serial terminal for your board, continue by connecting your board to a network.

Step 4: Connect over Wi-Fi*

This guide contains steps to set up network access to your Intel® Edison board and obtain an IP address.

Requirements

You have assembled your board, connected it to your system, installed any required drivers, set up a serial terminal, and so on. For steps, see the appropriate link below:

• Assembling the Arduino* expansion board
• Assembling the mini breakout board

Set up Wi-Fi

1. Establish a serial communication session with your board.
2. To configure your Wi-Fi, enter the command:
   
   configure_edison --wifi
   
   If you get an error saying configure_edison: not found, you need to update your firmware.
3. When asked if you want to set up Wi-Fi, type Y and press Enter.
4. Your board will scan for Wi-­Fi networks for 10 seconds. When it is finished, a list of available networks will be displayed. If you don’t see any networks, enter 0 to rescan.
   
   
5. Choose the network you would like to connect to, type the corresponding number from the list, and press Enter. To confirm your entry, type Y and press Enter. In this example, to connect to the kafka network, enter 16.
   
   
6. If your network requires a password or other information, enter the appropriate network credentials.
7. The board will attempt to make a connection to the network. When you see a Done message, your board is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
   
   
8. Note the IP Address, as shown in the image above. This is your board’s IP Address. Alternately, enter the command:
   
   ifconfig
   
   
   
   Make note of your wlan0 IP address, as shown above.
9. To verify connectivity, you may want to ping your board from another computer on the same network using the IP Address obtained above. Alternately, you can try accessing your board by typing in your IP Address into a browser of another computer on the same network.

If you are having problems connecting, try running the following commands in a serial communication session with your board:

ifconfig usb0 down
ifconfig wlan0 down
ifconfig usb0 up
ifconfig wlan0 up

You may also want to try the alternate method to set up Wi-Fi.

Next Steps

Now that you have set up your board, set up your preferred integrated development environment (IDE) to get started programming your projects.

Step 5: Set up your IDE

Now that you have set up your Intel® Edison board, you can get started programming your board. For steps to get started with your preferred integrated development environment (IDE), choose the appropriate link below:

• Intel® XDK IoT Edition
• Eclipse*
• Arduino*

Intel® Developer Zone for IoT

Start inventing today with the Intel® IoT Developer Program which offers knowledge, tools, kits and a community of experts to quickly and easily turn your innovative ideas into IoT Solutions.

Dream it, Build it with the Intel® IoT Developer Kit for Intel® Edison and Intel® Galileo platforms. These kits are versatile, performance-optimized and fully integrated end-to-end IoT solutions supporting a variety of programming environments, tools, security, cloud connectivity and hardware.

For more resources and to learn how the new Intel® IoT Developer Kit v1.0 can help streamline your IoT projects:

• Download the Intel® IoT Developer Kit
• Visit the Intel® Developer Zone for IoT
• Attend one of our Roadshows for hands-on training in creating your own IoT projects