There are plenty of add-on boards and HATs for the Raspberry Pi that add functionality to the computer, from simple things like LEDs or motor controllers, to sensor suites and enterprise security. The MATRIX Creator is something a little different, though, adding a huge number of functions in a bid to open up development with the Raspberry Pi to IoT and beyond. "The MATRIX Creator is an all-inclusive hardware device that connects to the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi and provides a means for any developer around the world to start making machine learning, computer vision, and Internet of Things applications within minutes," explains Rodolfo Saccoman, CEO of AdMobilize, the company behind the MATRIX. "We see it as being a building block for the democratisation of IoT and AI. Just as how the iPhone created an all-in-one hardware device that allowed developers to unleash their creativity and build amazing apps, which in turn revolutionised the world, we see the MATRIX Creator doing the same thing for a multitude of industries such as smart homes, intelligent buildings, robotics, security, industrial control, smart retail, drones, custom maker projects, and many more."

The Matrix Creator is an AI and computer vision Internet of Things (IoT)-ready dev board that is compatible with the 10 million Raspberry Pi's currently on the market. The Creator is an FPGA microcontroller-driven Raspberry Pi shield with over 15 accelerometers on it. There is a microcontroller, gyroscope, IMU, microphone array, IR, Z-Wave, Thread, NFC, and ZigBee amongst others. To simplify hardware application development, the Creator includes an OS, which allows developers to build hardware applications in a few lines of JavaScript, with C or Python code coming'soon'. Its goal in creating this product is to make developing IoT apps as easy as developing websites, and to allow novice and expert software developers to easily build hardware applications.