Silicon Labs Targets India’s IoT Engineers with Studio 6 Overhaul
Silicon Labs has launched Simplicity Studio 6, a redesigned development environment, in India to support IoT engineers. The update, integrated with Visual Studio Code, simplifies IoT development and targets India's engineering base, including startups and universities. The company aims to partner with local developer communities and innovation hubs. Studio 6 offers a command-line interface for automation and is backward compatible with Studio 5. The focus is on software-led differentiation, with AI-assisted features expected in future updates to enhance IoT design workflows.
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Silicon Labs intends to expand its focus on India’s engineering base with the launch of its redesigned development environment, Simplicity Studio 6, built around Visual Studio Code.
At the Works With 2025 conference in Bangalore, India, Silicon Labs’ executives said that the latest update makes each step of IoT development simpler, from setup to debugging, with faster workflows for India’s resource-constrained design teams—all while still giving existing projects a stable path forward as customers rethink how they build connected devices. The company expects continued interest from both large design firms and smaller embedded teams in India.
EE Times gained additional insights from the company’s senior VP of software development, Manish Kothari, who said the company sees potential in partnering with maker spaces, university labs and open-source groups in India.
“We see broad opportunities in partnering with India’s developer communities. The goal is to help developers through training, documentation and easier access to tools,” Kothari said.
The updated ecosystem requires no heavy integrated development environments or large downloads, offering a command-line interface that supports full automation on low-end systems, aimed at startups, universities and incubators. Highlighting the company’s ongoing engagement with innovation hubs in India and student competitions, Kothari said, “These ecosystems often become early adopters of embedded tools because they experiment faster and try new workflows before industry uptake.”
Why Studio 5 needed a reset
Kothari said the company’s approach to migration from Studio 5 to Studio 6 is intentional. He clarified that customers on older releases do not need to move to the latest version.
“The company has a tested migration plan, and we are guiding customers through it. Studio 6 is backward compatible, but we want to limit the fan-out until all paths are validated. Older projects receiving only maintenance updates do not need to shift, and most customers have not asked to,” he said.
Studio 6’s integration with Visual Studio Code is what separates it from Studio 5. Ross Sabolcik, senior VP and general manager for Industrial and Commercial IoT products at Silicon Labs, said the tool chain is now componentized and available as plug-ins for Visual Studio Code.
“Developers can build and debug inside Visual Studio Code. They can also take tools like the network analyzer and use them as plug-ins in their preferred environment without switching context,” Sabolcik said.
Software-led differentiation, not a shift into services
Silicon Labs’ VP of Marketing and Sales, John Dixon, said the latest announcements do not mean the company is shifting into manufacturing services but instead aiming “to become the preferred development partner for IoT products …. we view hardware and software as a single product experience.”
Large-scale deployments, such as energy metering and retail shelf-labeling, have risen, increasing the pressure on platforms to maintain long-term reliability without requiring developers to rebuild connectivity foundations. Highlighting a shift among customers from hardware to software over the past decade, Dixon said, “We’ve removed complexity, provided example code and production-ready templates, and offered the infrastructure needed so engineers can focus on differentiation rather than on basic connectivity tasks.”
Kothari added that software plays a central role in customer retention. “Whether migrating across studio ecosystems, SDK releases, or device generations,” he said. “The goal is to make the process seamless. The upcoming Series 2 to Series 3 migration will be AI-assisted, with announcements expected next year.”
Where AI fits into Studio 6
As devices grow more capable, Kothari said customers now expect AI to help with code reorganization, configuration checks and migration because project scale and complexity have grown. He expects edge AI to become routine in IoT design, whether for diagnostics, documentation on the device or streamlining common development tasks.
The Simplicity AI SDK claims to understand project context—hardware, SDK version and wireless stack—and offers suggestions to trace configuration issues and optimize setups. “The intent is to accelerate workflows, not replace engineers,” Kothari clarified.
Initial versions of the AI SDK will be cloud-connected, though Silicon Labs is exploring offline or hybrid options for developers who require local operation. Beta feedback, especially from Indian teams, will focus on multi-protocol integrations, automation and cross-team workflows.
As Kothari reiterated, the goal is to help developers focus on differentiation rather than day-to-day complexity. “Studio 6 is Silicon Labs’ attempt to make that possible for global IoT teams and India’s fast-growing engineering community,” he emphasized.
See also:
Silicon Labs’ Matt Johnson: An Inflection Point for Edge AI in IoT Devices
Silicon Labs’ Wireless SoC Improves IoT Security with PSA Level 4 Certification
