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Wistrio LoRa Tracker RK5205 Complies with 96Boards IoT Edition Specification

  It’s not hard to find a LoRa GPS tracker board such as Rak Wireless RAK811 these days, but if for some reasons, you’d also like your board to comply with 96Boards IoT Edition form factor, Rak Wireless just launched Wistrio LoRa Tracker RK5205 for $49.50 plus shipping on Aliexpress and Amazon. Wistrio specifications: LoRa Module – RAK5205 module with SX1276 LoRa chipset, STM32L1 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller LoRa Connectivity LoRaWAN 1.0.2 protocol OTAA/ABP activation Programmable bitrate up to 300 Kbps Support for global bands: EU433, CN470, EU868, US915, AS923, AU915, KR920, and IN865 SMA & iPEX antenna options Location – Quectel L76-L GNNS chip supporting GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS system (pin-to-pin compatible with u-blox Max7) Sensors – LIS3DH 3-axis accelerometer, BME680 environmental sensor reporting gas, pressure, humidity and temperature data Expansion Header – I2C, GPIOs, UART and ADC Power Supply – Rechargeable battery via micro USB port, or 5V […]

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Allwize K2 IoT Board Supports 169MHz Wize LPWAN Protocol (LoRa alternative)

LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT are probably the most popular low power long range wireless protocols for the Internet of Things, but there are several others, including one I had never heard of: Wize. The Wize Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) protocol has been created in late 2017, leverages the “old and refurbished” 169 MHz frequency, support up to 20 km range, 20-year battery life, and is managed by the Wize Alliance with members including STMicroelectronics, Suez, Sagecom, Renesas, Analog Devices, Silicon Labs and many others. Despite being a recent protocol, the table below claims 3 millions of deployment for Wize, and showcases some of differences against LoRa, NB-IoT, and Sigfox. You may be confused as how the standard was created in at the end of 2017, but there are so many deployments, and 13 years experience.  It appears Wize is derived from the older EN 13757 standard for gas […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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Arduino PRO Gateway for LoRa Features Raspberry Pi 3 Board

Arduino has just introduced the Arduino PRO Gateway for LoRa based on Raspberry Pi 3 development board, a LoRa gateway mPCIe module, and a metal enclosure. The strange thing about this product is that it does not feature any Arduino MCU, so why did Arduino design it? That’s because it works as a LoRa gateway for their Arduino MKR WAN 1300 IoT nodes. The gateway is sold as a kit with a LoRa gateway Embit EMB-LR1301-mPCIe card with SX1301 baseband chipset, an adapter for Raspberry Pi, an aluminum enclosure, a Raspberry Pi 3 model B+, a 5V power supply, an Ethernet cable, and an external antenna. Specifications for the LoRa part of the gateway: Chipset – Semtech SX1301 Modulation – LoRa Spread Spectrum, FSK, GFSK 868MHz (EU) / 915MHz (US) Number of Channels – 8 LoRa Channels Operating Frequency – 868MHz (EU) / 915MHz (US) Frequency Range – 860MHz to 1020MHz Operating […]

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AS923 LoRa GPS Tracking with MatchX MatchBox Gateway and RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker Board

Earlier this month, I installed Match MatchBox LoRa outdoor gateway close to the roof, and showed how easy it was easies to setup with MatchX Cloud. Basically, you just register to the cloud, enter the serial number, and the gateway is automatically based on your location. I’m in South East Asia, so the gateway was configured with AS923. I’ve now had time to play with the gateway using Rak Wireless RAK811 LoRa tracker board, and eventually managed to get the tracker location to show up on a map. It was my first experience with LoRaWAN, and I had to learn a lot, and overcome many issues from outdated software development tools, different data formats, and some interoperability issues between all components involved. I’ll document all that in this review, and hopefully it will help others. RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker Unboxing Before going into LoRa configuration, I’ll show what I got […]

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Design ESP32 LoRa GPS Tracker Applications with TTGO T-Beam Board

TTGO introduced a small ESP32 LoRa board with OLED display last year that is still selling  for around $14 shipped. But the company is now back with a similar board called TTGO T-Beam that does without the display, but adds GPS support, and a 18650 battery holder, so it should be ideally suited for all sorts of LoRa GPS tracking applications. TTGO T-Beam board specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32 dual core Xtensa LX6 processor with WiFi and Bluetooth Memory – PSRAM Storage – 4MB SPI flash Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi up to 150 Mbps +  Bluetooth 4.2 Classic and LE with “3D antenna” soldered on PCB LoRa 433, 868, and 915 MHz versions with SMA antenna Transmit current – 120 mA @ +20dBm; 90 mA @ +17dBm; 29mA @ +13dBm Receive sensitivity -139dBm with LoRa & 62.5Khz & SF=12 & 146bps -136dBm with LoRa & 125Khz & SF=12 & 293bps […]

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LoStik USB Dongle Adds LoRa Connectivity to any Computer or Linux Board (Crowdfunding)

We’ve covered plenty of hardware with LoRa radio from gateways, to Arduino shields, tracker boards, and mini PCIe cards, but after reading an article on Time4EE this morning, I realized we never wrote about any LoRa USB stick. LoStik – previoulsy LoRa Stick – is an open source hardware USB dongle based on Microchip RN2903 / RN2483 LoRa module, and offered on CrowdSupply for $39. LoStik specifications: USB – USB 2.0 port LoRa Connectivity Microchip RN2903 – 915 MHz for  US, Canada, South America and Australia Microchip RN2483 – 868 Mhz for Europe Receiver Sensitivity – down to -146 dBm TX Power – adjustable up to +18.5 dBm Range – up to 15 km coverage in suburban and up to 5 km coverage in urban areas Misc – 2x user LEDs Power Consumption – 140 ma typical TX, 20 ma idle (with power LED) Dimensions – 80 mm x 25 […]

AAEON Intel Arc
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RAK831 Lite is a $200 LoRa / LoRaWAN Gateway based on Raspberry Pi 3 Board

RAK831 is a Semtech SX1301 based LoRa gateway module that was released by RakWireless in 2017. The board has since then be sold as part of the company’s LoRa gateway developer kit with a Raspberry Pi  and a MAX-7Q GPS Module. But now RakWireless offers a nicely packaged solution with Raspberry Pi 3 board, RAK831 module, a GPS board, an enclosure, antenna, and power supply which they call RAK831 Lite, and sells for just $199 + shipping ($6.45 extra here).RAK831 Lite gateway main components and specifications: Main board – Raspberry Pi 3 development board with Broadom BCM2837 processor, 1GB RAM,  micro SD card slot, Fast Ethernet, 4x USB ports, HDMI output, audio jack Connectivity RAK831 LoRa Concentrator  board based on SX1301 chipset RF frequencies – 433, 470, EU868, AS923, AU915, and US 915 Rx Sensitivity – -140 dBm Tx Power – Up to 25.5 dBm at settings 27 dBm SMA […]

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PingPong IoT Development Board Supports Cellular Connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth, LoRa, Sigfox, and More

Round Solutions, a supplier of products, services and concepts for industrial M2M and IoT markets, has introduced PingPong IoT development board with either Microchip PIC32MZ running an RTOS, or PIC32MZ DA running Linux, and equipped with a Telit modules for either 2G or 3G cellular + GNSS connectivity. The board can also support WiFi, Bluetooth, ISM/RF, NFC/RFID, LoRa, Sigfox, Iridium satellite, and serial interface thanks to a range of expansion boards. PingPong IoT board specifications: MCU / Flash RTOS version – Microchip PIC32MZ 32-bit Microcontroller @ 200 MHz, with 512 KB RAM and 2 MB Flash Memory + 4 MB external memory Linux version – Microchip PIC32MZ DA  (Full specs TBA) Connectivity Cellular connectivity Telit xE910 module with 2G, 3G and/or 4G LTE (coming soon) Data GSM/GPRS – Uplink/Downlink: 9.6 kbps UMTS – Downlink: 384 kbps, Uplink: 384 kbps HSPA+ – Downlink: 42.0 Mbps, Uplink: 5.75 Mbps LTE – Download: 100 […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC