ESP32 board with 150Mbps 4G LTE modem also supports RS485, CAN Bus, and relay expansion

LILYGO has designed another ESP32 board with a 4G LTE modem with the LILYGO T-A7608E-H & T-A7608SA-H variants equipped with respectively SIMCom A7608SA-H for South America, New Zealand, and Australia, and SIMCom A7608E-H for the EMEA, South Korean, and Thai markets, both delivering up to 150 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload speeds.

The board also supports GPS, includes a 18650 battery holder, and features I/O expansion headers that support an add-on board with RS485 and CAN bus interfaces, in a way similar to the company’s earlier TTGO T-CAN485 board with ESP32, but no cellular connectivity.

LILYGO T-A7068E-H/T-A7608SA-H board specifications:

Wireless Connectivity
- WiFi & Bluetooth – ESP32-WROVER-E module based on ESP32 dual-core processor @ 240 MHz with 4MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2/5.x connectivity, PCB antenna
- Cellular connectivity
  - Data transfer speeds
    - 4G LTE – Up to 150 Mbps downlink, up to 50Mbps uplink
    - 3G HSPA+ – Up to 42 Mbps downlink, up to 5.76 Mbps uplink
    - 3G UMTS – Up to 384 Kbps DL/UL
    - 2G Edge – Up to 236.8 Kbps DL/UL
    - 2G GPRS – Up to 85.6 Kbps DL/UL
  - Frequency bands
    - SIMCom A7608SA-H module (South America, New Zealand, and Australia)
      - 4G LTE FDD – B38, B40, B41
      - 4G LTD TDD – B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B8, B20, B28, B66
      - 3G – B1, B2, B5, B8
      - 2G – 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
    - SIMCom A7608E-H variant (EMEA, South Korea, and Thailand)
      - 4G LTE FDD – B38, B40, B41
      - 4G LTD TDD – B1, B3, B5, B7, B8, B20
      - 3G – B1, B8
      - 2G – 900/1800 MHz
  - Nano-SIM card socket, 1x external 4G LTE antenna (but 2x u.FL antenna connectors)
  - Supply Voltage – 3.4 to 4.2V
  - Dimensions – 30 x 30 x 2.5 mm (LGA module)
- GNNS with external GPS antenna
Storage – MicroSD card socket
USB
- 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming
- 1x Micro USB port to use the board as a 4G LTE USB dongle
Expansion – 2x 16-pin headers with GPIOs, ADC, DAC, touch interface, UART, I2C, SPI, VN/VP, Reset, VBUS, VBAT, 3.3V, GND
Misc – Reset and Boot buttons, battery switch,
Power Supply
- 5V via USB Type-C port
- 16850 battery holder + charging circuit
- 4.4V to 6V via 2-pin header for solar panel input or external battery
Power consumption with a 3.7V battery
- Active – 170 mA
- Sleep – 0.125 mA
Dimensions – 11 x 3.2 x 2 cm

The board ships with one LTE antenna, one GPS antenna, a 2-wire cable with a JST connector for an external battery, and two pin headers. LILYGO provides documentation and code samples for Arduino and PlatformIO using the TinyGSM library on Github.

As noted in the introduction, they also made the T-SimHat RS485, CAN Bus, and 5V relay add-on board for both the ESP32 4G LTE board mentioned in this article, and the earlier TTGO-T-PCIe board that takes SIMCom SIM7000 mini PCIe cards instead.

LILYGO T-A7608E-H / T-A7608SA-H board can be purchased for about $45 on Aliexpress or Banggood, while the T-SimHAT expansion board is currently sold for $13.58.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.