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November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Conexio Stratus – An nRF9160 board with solar energy harvesting capability (Crowdfunding)

Conexio Stratus board is equipped with Nordic Semi nRF9160 System in Package (SiP) with LTE-M (eMTC) & NB-IoT cellular IoT connectivity as well as GPS support through a pair of u.FL connectors for antennas, together with 500MB of mobile data valid for ten years. Designed for battery operation, the devkit comes with built-in battery charging, monitoring, and energy-harvesting circuitry, plus an accelerometer and a temperature and humidity sensor that makes it ideal for prototyping cellular IoT systems such as asset-tracking applications, environmental monitoring, and smart-meter monitoring, among others. Conexio Stratus board Conexio Stratus specifications: SiP – Nordic Semi nRF9160 system-in-package with Arm Cortex M33 MCU, 1 MB Flash, 256 kB RAM, cellular IoT modem, and GPS. Cellular Connectivity 3GPP LTE release 13 Category M1 and NB1 compliant 3GPP release 14 NB2 compliant RF Transceiver for global coverage supporting bands: Cat-M1: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B8, B12, B13, B14, […]

October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Blues Wireless Swan board adds castellated holes to Adafruit Feather form factor

We’ve often written about Adafruit Feather-compatible boards in the past, but Blues Wireless Swan board is a little different, as the STM32L4-based board comes with castellated holes instead of just through holes which allows the board to expose up to 55 GPIOs, or 36 more pins than a traditional feather-compatible board. The company also introduced the “Feather Starter Kit for Swan” that enables the board to work with the company’s Notecard LTE Cat-M/NB-IoT M.2 modem that ships with 10-year (up to 500MB) of IoT connectivity, as well as GPS/GNSS connectivity. The Swan board Swan specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32L4R5 Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller clocked at 120Mhz with 2MB of flash and 640KB of RAM USB – 1x Micro USB port for power and programming Castellated holes giving access to 55 GPIO including: 8x analog input 16x digital 4x I2C, 3x SPI 1x USB OTG full speed 1x 14-channel DMA 12-bit ADC, […]

June 24, 2021June 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Avnet AVT9152 – nRF52840 & nRF91 IoT module and devkit

Avnet AVT9152 is an IoT module and development kit that combines two Nordic Semi wireless solutions, namely nRF52840 Bluetooth 5.2/LE multiprotocol SoC and nRF91 IoT cellular system-on-module with NB-IoT, LTE-M, and GPS connectivity. The module supports Avnet’s enterprise-ready IoTConnect Platform, and the development kit combines with IoT module with a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis gyroscope, as well as pressure, temperature, relative humidity, ambient light, and motion (PIR) sensors to help with the development of IoT applications such as tracking devices, vending machines, points-of-sale, smart buildings, industrial IoT, and more. Avnet AVT9152 module – nRF52840 + nRF91 Key features and specifications: Wireless SoC/SiP Nordic Semi nRF9160 Cortex-M33 based system-in-package (SiP) with LTE-M/NB-IoT global carrier certification for LPWAN connectivity; support for power save mode, PSM and eDRX Nordic Semi nRF52840 Cortex-M4F microcontroller with Bluetooth 5.0 and Bluetooth LE for short-range communication Flexible LTE and GPS antenna options 50x castellated holes with UART, […]

June 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Cellular system-on-module integrates Quectel BG95-M3 Cat M1, NB-IoT, GPS module

Most systems-on-module come with a processor, memory, storage, and maybe a PMIC and some extra chips such as an Ethernet PHY. Some add wireless connectivity with a WiFi & Bluetooth module, but TT Electronics S-2Connect Creo SoM is more unusual as a Linux-powered SO-DIMM module with built-in Cat M1 & NB-IoT cellular connectivity, as well as GPS. This is implemented through Quectel BG95-M3 multi-mode LPWA module and an eSIM and a micro SIM socket in combination with an NXP i.MX 6UL processor Cortex-A7 processor along with 256MB RAM and a 4GB eMMC flash. S-2Connect Creo SoM specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX6UL Cortex-A7 System Memory – 256MB DDR3L Storaage – 4GB eMMC flash Connectivity LTE Cat M1 (eMTC), Cat NB2 (NB-IoT) 2G/EGPRS fallback via Quectel BG95-M3 module based on Cortex-A7 processor running ThreadX Bands LTE – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, […]

April 23, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Arduino unveils Edge Control board for smart agriculture

Arduino hardware and software have been used for smart agriculture applications for years, but Arduino has now launched a board part of its Arduino Pro program specifically designed for smart farming. Meet Arduino Edge Control. Powered by a Nordic Semi nRF52840 Bluetooth microcontroller, the board offers the usual digital & analog I/O’s, plus four 60/V2.5A solid-state relays, hydrostatic watermark sensor inputs, support for DC or solar power input, and can be augmented with one or two Arduino MKR boards for WiFi, 3G NB-IoT, or LoRaWAN connectivity. Arduino Edge Control specifications: MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ 64 MHz with 1MB flash, 256KB SRAM Additional storage – 2 MB QSPI flash memory, MicroSD card slot Connectivity Bluetooth LE Optional Wifi, 2G, 3G, NB-IoT, eMTC, and/or LoRaWAN via Arduino MKR board USB – Full-speed 12 Mbps micro USB port Expansion I/Os Digital Input – 6x edge-sensitive wake-up pins Digital […]

March 23, 2021March 23, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

MicTrack MT700 Cat M1 & NB-IoT GPS tracker promises up to 8 years of battery life

MicTrack MT700 LTE IoT GPS tracker with large battery

We’ve covered several Mictrack cellular GPS asset trackers in the past starting with the MT600 4G LTE model, later followed by MT825 with more efficient LTE Cat M1 & NB-IoT connectivity. The company has now introduced a new model with MicTrack MT700 still offering eMTC and NB-IoT cellular networking but with a much larger 7,800mAh battery allowing up to 8 years of battery life with a single daily location update. Mictrack MT700 specifications: Connectivity Cat M1 (LTE-M, eMTC) LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 LTE TDD: B39 NB-IoT (Cat NB1) – LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 2G GSM fallback – 850/900/1800/1900Mhz Internal Micro 3FF SIM Optional WiFi Internal antennas GNSS – Qualcomm Gen 8C GNSS receiver (GPS+Glonass+Galileo+Beidou) plus internal GPS antenna Sensors – 3-Axis accelerometer, light sensor Misc – Charge/SYS/GPS LEDs Power Supply – 5V/2A via Micro USB port Power Consumption – <1.5ua standby current (in lowest power configuration) Battery Rechargeable 3.7V/7,800mAh Li-ion battery for […]

February 16, 2021February 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Feather compatible shield Integrates BG96 Module with LTE Cat-M1, NB-IoT, and GPS

Last week, I wrote about the Pebble Board, an nRF9160 based LTE-M and NB-IoT GPS tracker board that connects with Thingsboard. I was soon informed about a similar solution based on Quectel BG96 and compatible with the Feather form factor. Meet IoT-Bots.com’s qTop Adafruit Feather Compatible shield. In case you wonder, why they did not call it a FeatherWing, that’s because as it’s slightly larger, and the boards are “Adafruit Feather Compatible (AFC) from the interface connection perspective only.” Key features and specifications: Wireless module – Quectel BG96 Cellular – LTE Cat M1, NB-IoT, and EGPRS module offering maximum data rates of 375 kbps downlink and uplink GNSS – GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou/Compass, Galileo, QZSS Nano SIM card holder and u.FL connector (3) for cellular connectivity u.FL connector (4) for GNSS Expansion Feather expansion connector (11) 6-pin qJam interface connector (12) with I2C for extra sensors Misc – Network status LED, […]

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Pebble Tracker nRF9160 GPS & cellular IoT platform connects to IoTeX blockchain (Crowdfunding)

Nordic Semi nRF91-series of Cortex-M33 SoCs with NB-IoT and LTE-M (eMTC) cellular IoT connectivity was first unveiled in 2018. The first member of the family is nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP) which also comes with GPS, and we’ve found it Nordic’s own Thingy:91 devkit, as well as in various modules and development boards from third parties. There’s now a new kit called Pebble Tracker that features Nordic Semi nRF9160 with NB-IoT, LTE-M, and GPS connectivity, as well as environmental, motion, and light sensors. The cellular IoT prototyping platform works with the IoTeX blockchain to design decentralized IoT solutions with higher security. Pebble Tracker hardware specifications: Wireless module – Nordic Semi nRF9610 SiP MCU Core - Arm Cortex-M33 @ 64 MHz Storage & Memory – 1 MB flash, 256 KB SRAM Connectivity – LTE-M / NB-IoT modem with support for bands from 700 MHz to 2.2 GHz) Security – Arm TrustZone IoT SIM […]