We announced impCentral, our new product development and management platform, in July 2017, with the goal of making massively scalable Internet of Things (IoT) deployments and product lifecycle management easier than ever. impCentral’s foundation API was released for preview at that time, and today we’re very pleased to make our web application, powered by the new API, available as an early preview release.
impCentral is the successor to the Electric Imp IDE. It combines the best software development and production management features from the IDE with a more intuitive and easier to navigate user experience, plus advanced product and device management features.
impCentral’s key benefits include:
- Scalable to support very high production volumes
- Workspaces streamline code development and testing for full product lifecycle management
- New Device Groups provide superior production device segmentation and organization
- Fully test and dry-run your production process before you go to the factory
- Fast factory BlinkUp fixture assignment for simplified factory configuration
- New, simplified navigation for quick access to frequently used tools
The impCentral Public Preview can be used to try out the new web app. We don’t recommend that you use the Public Preview to work on mission-critical code, but any work you do in the Public Preview will be retained as impCentral moves toward a production release through the coming months. Only your account’s unassigned devices will be available for use in impCentral in this phase, and none of your current IDE models will affected.
The Public Preview release will be followed next month (October 2017) with a Beta Release; this will allow you to begin migrating your existing models to impCentral. On December 4, 2017, we’ll release impCentral 1.0 as our sole web-hosted app. At that time, the IDE will be withdrawn from service, and all of your remaining models will automatically migrate to impCentral. Until then, the IDE and impCentral will co-exist, and you should continue to use the IDE for commercial work.
To help you find your way around impCentral, we’ve created an introductory guide to the new UI and its features. We’ve also prepared a series of FAQs to answer questions you may have concerning impCentral’s capabilities and how they differ from the IDE.
The impCentral API has also been updated and now enters its beta release phase. It will be available at a new location: api.electricimp.com/v5. The preview URL, preview-api.electricimp.com/v5, has now been deprecated, so please update any software that uses the preview URL. Any Products, Device Groups and code you created while you were using the impCentral API Public Preview will continue to be available.
As you try out the impCentral Public Preview and the impCentral API Beta, please let us know on the Electric Imp Forum how you’re getting on, or about any problems you experience. We’d also like to hear from you if you have suggestions for future releases.
Kenny Lee,
impCentral Product Manager,
Electric Imp