sigfox News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Sigfox is in financial trouble

While there are many LPWAN standards, in recent years, we wrote mostly about LoRaWAN, NB-IoT & LTE Cat M1/2, as well as Sigfox to a lesser extent. The company managing the latter, also called Sigfox appears to be in financial trouble with the company placed in “redressement judiciaire”, a court-supervised business recovery/turnaround procedure in French law that looks to be similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, and sometimes also translated as “receivership”. LTE IoT standards like NB-IoT and Cat M1/M2 rely on the vast infrastructure established for phones, while LoRaWAN allows the community and private companies to build their own network with gateways, but Sigfox decided to build and own their network and charge a monthly/yearly fee per device to access the network. Sigfox has extensive coverage in Europe, South Africa, Japan and South Korea, New Zealand, and part of South East Asia, but more sporadic coverage in […]

January 28, 2021January 28, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Agromon smart agriculture wireless transmitter connects ModBus RS485 sensors to WiFi, LoRaWAN, Sigfox, or NB-IoT

The Internet of Things has many applications including smart agriculture . A few months ago, I talked to a local shrimp farm owner who used Arduino and ESP8266 boards to monitor water and activate pumps only when needed to get shrimps healthy and save on his electricity bill. He built his own solutions, but there are also companies offering easy-to-use smart farming solutions such as Malaysia-based Wondernica’s Agromon “interface wireless transmitter” designed specifically for smart agriculture applications. Agromon has two variants with support for 2 sensors (WR-AGRO-2S) or 3 sensors (WR-AGRO-3S) that share the following specifications: Connectivity – WiFi, Sigfox (RCZ 2/4), LoRaWAN, NB-IoT Sensor Interface – Modbus RS485 (analog input / 4-20mA / 12V-14V output) Power Supply – 12V DC (tolerance up to 14V); supports batteries, solar power, or power adapter Power Consumption – Sleep Mode: 3 mW Dimensions – 130 x 90 x 40mm Ingress Protection – IP67 […]

August 1, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

IoTSDR Linux Board Targets the Development of IoT Gateways with Standard or Custom IoT Protocols (Crowdfunding)

Xilinx Zynq-7010/-7020 powered iotSDR board by EmbedINN enables the development of IoT gateways with support for LoRa, SigFox, WeightLess, Bluetooth, BLE, 802.15.4, ZigBee, as well as custom IoT protocols. The board also supports GPS, Galileo, Beidou, and GLONASS navigation systems thanks to a Maxim Integrated MAX2769 GNSS chip. iotSDR key hardware features and specifications: SoC (one or the other) Xilinx Zynq-Z7010 (XC7Z010-1CLG400C) dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor with 256 kb on-chip memory, FPGA fabric with 28,000 logic cells, 17,600 LUTs, 2.1 Mb block RAM, 80 DSP slices Xilinx Zynq-Z7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG400C) dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with 256 kb on-chip memory, FPGA fabric with 85,000 logic cells, 53,200 LUTs, 4.9 Mb block RAM, 220 DSP slices System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage 128 Mbit QSPI flash memory for firmware Microchip AT24MAC602 SPI EEPROM for RF transceiver MCU firmware and data Radios “IoT” Radios RF Transceivers – 2x Microchip/Atmel AT86RF215 European band – […]

August 1, 2019August 2, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

UnaMKR Sigfox Monarch Development Kit Follows Arduino MKR Form Factor

Unabiz is an IoT network operator with offices in Singapore and Taiwan. The company offers Sigfox networks in the region, and last year unveiled UnaMKR, a Sigfox Monarch development kit compatible with the tiny Arduino MKR boards. We’ve already written about Sigfox LPWAN standard several times, but what is Sigfox Monarch exactly? Answer direct from Sigfox website: The Monarch feature makes IoT devices aware of the local radio configuration (RC) to use. A single device can thus lawfully communicate on the Sigfox network even when moving between countries with different radio regulations. That means a Sigfox Monarch compliant end-point can work legally anywhere in the world switching to 868 MHz, 902 MHz, and 920 MHz frequencies automatically depending on the country of operation. This is useful for asset tracking across countries and continents. Back to the board itself, with UnaMKR specifications: Platform – Arduino or STMicro Connectivity Lite-On WSG309S Sigfox […]

March 21, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Sigfox Targets Worldwide Coverage with Satellite Launch

LPWAN technologies such as NB-IoT, Sigfox, and LoRa deliver low power, long range communication at low bitrate and can be used for asset tracking, environmental monitoring, water & electricity meters, and so on. The line-of-sight range between the closest gateway and nodes is usually 10 to 20 km, and coverage can be expanded by connecting several gateways to form a network. However, this is not workable in all locations worldwide, so Sigfox plans to launch a Sigfox satellite in collaboration with Eutelsat in order to provide coverage in places like large deserts such as the Sahara desert, the two poles, as well as oceans as explained by Franck Siegel, chief operating officer at Sigfox. This will for instance enable tracking and monitoring of oil platforms and vessels. The press release does not explains much except Sigfox and Eutelsat will test the first Satellite in H2 2019 before the commercial launch […]

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

STMicro Introduces STEVAL-FKI001V1 Dual-Radio Bluetooth/LPWAN IoT Development Kit

STMicro has just launched a new development kit – STEVAL-FKI001V1 – that integrates two radios, one at 2.4 GHz for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and another sub-GHz radio for LPWAN IoT standards such as Sigfox. The devkit targets the development of IoT devices such as smart sensors, finders, and trackers for smart-home or smart-building scenarios, asset-tracking, energy-management, smart-farming and industrial monitoring, and control use cases. STEVAL-FKI001V1 devkit key features & specifications: Jorjin WS2118-00 Sigfox & BLE module Embedded BlueNRG-132 Bluetooth LE Arm Cortex-M0 SoC with up to +8 dBm BLE RF output power, receiver sensitivity of -88 dBm Embedded S2-LPQTR ultra-low power sub-1 GHz transceiver tuned for 826-958 MHz frequency bands Up to +16 dBm sub-1GHz RF output power, receiver sensitivity down to -130 dBm Modulation schemes: 2-(G)FSK, 4-(G)FSK, OOK, and ASK Air data rate from 0.1 to 500 kbps Ultra-low power consumption: 7 mA RX, 10 mA TX @ +10 dBm; low duty cycle RX/TX operation mode, […]

November 19, 2018November 19, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

PyGo Wearable Devices Create LoRa Mesh Networks (Crowdfunding)

Pycom has made some interesting IoT boards running MicroPython in the past starting with WiFi capable WiPy in 2015, and followed by various others supporting various wireless standard including Bluetooth, LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT with LoPy and Fipy. The company launched all their boards via crowdfunding campaigns, and they are now back on Kickstarter for their PyGo plug-n-play wearable devices creating PyMesh networks with up to 12km range between nodes, and managed using Pylife mobile app. Typical use cases include basic connectivity (e.g. messaging) in remote areas without cellular access, and assets / pets / kids location tracking, There are two version of PyGo: PyGo1 with mesh networking only, and PyGo2 that adds cellular network access. Pygo hardware specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32 dual core WiFi 4 + BLE SoC System Memory – 64 Mbit (8MB) RAM Storage – 8MB flash Display – 128×36 OLED display Connectivity PyMesh up […]

October 28, 2018October 28, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Sigfox Introduces Access Station Micro Sigfox Gateway

There are plenty of long range LPWAN standards for the Internet of Things, but the most common ones include LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and Sigfox. LoRaWAN lead the way in terms of deployments, while NB-IoT and eMTC leverage existing cellular infrastructure but cost a bit more to operate. Sigfox works with $2 modules, but AFAIK so far you had to subscribe to the company network, and if your area was not covered you were out of luck. Sigfox Access Station Micro gateway promises to change the situation, as companies can now add their own Sigfox gateway(s) where coverage is not available, and this could make Sigfox more popular, especially if one or more communities similar to The Things Networks form(s) around it. Sigfox Access Station Micro SMBS-T4 specifications: Radio characteristics: Standard – Sigfox Ultra Narrow Band Protocol for M2M and IoT Max range of operating frequencies – 865 to 928 MHz Max […]