The Button Corporation, a company specializing in… buttons as you may have guess, has introduced a new version of their bttn connected button with Sigfox connectivity in the US. It works a little like Amazon Dash, but mostly targets businesses, offers more features, and works anywhere with a Sigfox network. bttn & bttn mini specifications: Button functions – Short press, long press and “not pressed” LED feedback – Green (positive), red (negative) and yellow (wait) Connectivity – Mobile data (2G GPRS), SIGFOX (868 MHz ETSI / 915MHz for US), or Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n) USB – 1x micro USB port for charging Power Supply bttn mini – Rechargeable Li-Po battery bttn – 4 x AA alkaline batteries Dimensions – bttn mini: 69mm Ø x 40 mm; bttn: 100 mm Ø x 73 mm Weight – bttn mini: 90 grams; bttn: 190 grams bttn devices send data to bt.tn cloud server, […]
Pycom To Sell WiFi, BLE, LoRa and Sigfox OEM Modules for Your Own Hardware Projects
Pycom is the company making some relatively popular IoT boards programmable with Python such as WiPy, LoPy, SiPy, and soon FiPy, supporting respectively WiFi+BLE, LoRa+WiFi+BLE, Sigfox+WiFi+BLE, and for the latter all four plus LTE CAT M1/NB1. Those little boards are great for personal projects and/or to experiment, but for those of you who would like to integrated IoT connectivity into your own hardware projects, Pycom will soon launch three OEM module for corresponding to WiPy, SiPy and LoPy connectivity featues with respectively W01, S01 and L01 modules. Key features: W01 WipY 2.0 OEM Module – Dual network BLE and WiFi – 7.95 Euros L01 LoPy OEM module – LoRa, WiFi and Bluetooth – 14.95 Euros S01 SiPy OEM module – Sigfox, WiFi and Bluetooth; Available in both 14dB (for Europe) and 22dB (outside Europe) version for respectively 14.95 and 19.95 Euros All three models have basically the same functionality as […]
NXP Modular IoT Gateway Supports Thread, Zigbee, NFC, Bluetooth and WiFi Connectivity
NXP has just announced a modular IoT gateway solution for large node networks (>= 250 nodes) based on Volansys i.MX6UL system-on-module, supporting wireless communications protocols such as Thread, ZigBee, NFC through add-on modules, on top of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. NXP Modular IoT Gateway specifications: SoM – Volansys i.MX6UL 200-pin SO-DIMM module with: SoC – NXP i.MX 6UL ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 528 MHz System Memory – 256MB to 1GB DDR3L RAM Storage – 1GB to 4GB NAND flash, optional 4GB to 16GB eMMC flash, EEPROM for device info PMIC, Mbit Ethernet PHY Wireless Connectivity Expansion Modules: PN7120 explorer board for NFC Kinetis KW41 module for Thread support JN5169 module for Zigbee support 2x MikroBUS headers Baseboard connectors / features: Storage – 1x micro SD slot Connectivity – 1x 10/100M Ethernet port, Murata WiFi 802.11 b/g/n & Bluetooth 4.1 + EDR module with external antenna connector USB – 2x […]
39 Euros FiPy Board Supports Sigfox, LoRa, LTE Cat M1/NB1, Bluetooth 4.2, and WiFi (Crowdfunding)
Long range LPWAN solutions have just started to hit the market, and there are so many standards such as Sigfox and LoRa that it’s difficult to know who will eventually be the winner, or if different standards will co-exist over the long term, and in a general sense it might not be so easy to decide which one is best suited to your project without experimenting first. Pycom has a solution to this problem, as they’ve made a board similar to LoPy with WiFi, Bluetooth, and LoRa, but instead included 5 long and short range IoT protocols: Sigfox, LoRa, LTE Cat M1 & Cat NB1, Bluetooth, and WiFi. Pycom FiPy board specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32 dual core Tensilica L108 processors @ up to 160 MHz with BT 4.2 and WiFi System Memory – 4MB RAM Storage – 8MB flash memory Connectivity WiFi 802.11 b/g/n @ 16 Mbps up to […]
A Closer Look at Ingenu RPMA Alternative to LoRa or Sigfox LPWAN Standards & RPMA Development Kit
I’ve recently started to write a bit more about long range LPWAN standards for IoT applications, especially LoRa and Sigfox, as commercial networks are being launched, and relatively low cost hardware platforms are being introduced to the market. There are also other highly expected standards such as Weightless and LTE Cat M that will bring more competition to the market. Ingenu RPMA (Random Phase Multiple Access) is another available standard that’s been in deployment for a while, and based on an earlier comparison of long range LPWAN standards, it comes with long range, supports up to 384,000 nodes per “sector”, operates in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM band, and offers high combined uplink and downlink bandwidth than competitors. Ingenu recently contacted me and provided some more details and information about their technology and development kit. One of the documents includes an “independent analysis completed by ABI Research, Inc.” comparing features […]
$2 Wisol SFM10R1 & SFM10R2 Sigfox Modules and Evaluation Board
LoRa appears to be one of the most popular long range lower power WAN standards, at least based on the number of hobbyist boards coming to market, but hardware is not exactly cheap with modules such as Microchip RN2483 & RN2903 LoRa modules selling a little over $10, and development board such as LoPy normally going for at least $35. If large scale IoT is ever going to take off, prices will have to go lower, and AFAIK we are still waiting for the promised sub $2 Weightless chips. But if Elettronica In tweet is to be believed some Sigfox modules made by Korean company Wisol are selling for just $2, likely in larger quantities. WiSOL SFM10R1 is made with RCZ1 (Radio Configuration Zone 1 – ETSI – Europe), while SFM10R2 module is made for RCZ2 ((Radio Configuration Zone 2 – FCC – North America). SFM10R1 key features and specifications: […]
LX IoT Cores Are Made for IoT and Wearables with Bluetooth LE, ANT+, 2G/3G, Sigfox, LoRa, and More
LX Group, an Australian company specializing in electronics design and embedded systems, has introduced three wireless modules for IoT and wearables which they call “LX IoT Cores”, and embeds various wireless protocol such as Bluetooth LE/Ant+, 2G/3G connectivity, WiFi, Lora, Sigfox, Taggle, etc… Let’s go though the main technical specs for the three modules, one of which it itself modular (hence the max and min size) depending on your requirements. LX Cellular Core (Right) MCU – STMicro STM32F217IGH6 ARM Cortex-M3 MCU @ 120 MHz with 1MB flash, 128kB RAM Storage – 1x micro SD card reader Communication Interfaces Radios – 2G/3G, WiFi, BLE, ANT+, provision for LoRa, Taggle, SigFox, optional GPS via daughter board Wired – USB, RS485, UART, SPI, I2C, Digital IO, ADC Sensors – Ambient Luminosity, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, temperature, humidity, air pressure, microphone USB – 1x micro USB port Misc – Reset and 2x user buttons, 2x […]
SmartEverything is a Feature-Packed IoT Board with SigFox, Bluetooth LE, NFC and GPS Connectivity, Plenty of Sensors
Atmel MCU Madness is an informal competition on Twitter where people vote for their favorite development boards. We are now at the quarter finals, and beside the usual suspects such as Raspberry Pi and ESP8266 boards, I also noticed one board that I had never heard of: AXEL Elettronica’s SmartEverything based on Atmel SAM D21 Cortex M0+ and featuring SigFox, BLE, NFC, and GPS connectivity, as well as various sensors such as humidity and temperature, 9-axis motion sensor, and so on. SmartEverything board specifications: MCU – Atmel SAM D21 ARM Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 256KB Flash, 32KB SRAM Connectivity SIGFOX via Telit LE51-868 S SIGFOX 868 MHz Wireless Module with 12 months of network access included Bluetooth 4.0 LE via TDK SESUB-PAN-T2541 module based on Texas Instruments CC2541 NFC via NXP NT3H1101FHK NFC with separate antenna (included) GPS/GNSS via Telit Jupiter SE868-A GPS/GNSS module with integrated antenna. Supports […]