Android Wear gets big data visualisation and IoT capability from Actuate

Updated BIRT products aimed at wearable tech and Internet of Things app developers

Actuate has enhanced its embedded analytics products to bring data-driven business intelligence into Android Wear devices, and enable Internet of Things app development.

The company announced at a briefing attended by V3 that it has added Android Wear functionality using a suite of updated BIRT open source integrated development environments.

Actuate demonstrated how the updated BIRT iHub, now in its 3.1 iteration, can sit between a data source and a wearable or mobile device.

The iHub then transforms raw data into information that can be used in applications to deliver useful data in a visual and contextual way.

The BIRT upgrade, which also includes BIRT Analytics 5.0, aims to help businesses and developers extract useful data running through applications and analyse and convert it into visual information suitable for business intelligence use.

Pete Cittadini, chief executive at Actuate, explained how iHub 3.1 and related enhancements help extract value from data harvested from varied sources.

"We see the iHub as a container of information. Once embedded into applications [it acts] as a transformation of information into intelligence, as the application gives the information context to the users," he said.

The company used a connected car as an example of the iHub's visualisation of analytical information.

As a car drives around, data can be collected from sensors and delivered to the iHub in real time, which can then turn that data into visual information to be streamed to a smartwatch or smartphone screen.

Using a framework for Android Wear, Actuate can display a car's speed, RPM and other parameters on the screen of a smartwatch, and have alerts sent to the device if necessary.

This would allow a business running a fleet of cars to gain insight into how they are being driven.

Allen Bonde, vice president of product marketing and innovation at Actuate, explained that the iHub provides a platform to visualise information and reports on any Android device.

"This scenario really talks about embedding information in new ways and new devices, visualising it and re-examining what's possible when we connect to new [data] sources. We're really starting to think about the Internet of Things," he said.

Bonde also explained that Actuate wants to provide this analysis and data visualisation to developers so that they can embed business intelligence in a straightforward way.

"We want to give people the code and this is very much the culture of the company going back to its open source initiative 10 years ago," said Bonde.

NHS England is one such organisation making use of the development capabilities of Actuate's products.

Michael McGonnell, deputy head of commissioning at NHS England, explained to V3 that the simple and visual nature of the Actuate products appealed to the healthcare service.

"When we showed it to colleagues, it is that intuitiveness that makes them go 'That's fine.'"

Actuate is not the only company pushing products that aid the development of apps for wearable technology. Salesforce recently unveiled its Wear software development kit for enterprise use.