Author Archives: Paul

The other Sigfox Connect news

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During Sigfox Connect 2019 we had different announcement like ultra-low power devices and ultra-low-cost IoT devices with a BOM under a single $. There are the main announcement in my point of view but we have also had much more coming with updates on previously seen technologies.

At first Sigfox announced the ability to deploy a private network, we are going to see what it could means as the details have not yet been given. Next I’ve got update on satellites connectivity and bubble service announced last year.

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Make Sigfox works with potatoes, an ultra low power story

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Sigfox Connect yearly event is the opportunity for the company to present its vision on IoT technology evolution. As part of the 2019 edition, the company has introduced Ultra-Low-Power Sigfox communication. In this domain, we are talking about micro-watt to send a radio message over the air the Sigfox network will be able to capture on the fly. You can find a lot of different use-cases for a such communication system. Industrial environment sounds to be the primary market but it can also be included in final products. The main interest of ultra-low-power is to not needing battery but harvesting its energy from many sources, up to the existing WiFi network energy captured from the air.

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All about the Sigfox Connect button

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As a gift to the participants of 2019 Connect forum, Sigfox has offered a connected button. This button is the first official device based on the ultra-low cost technology detailed in my previous post about $1 Iot. This device is based on a single SoC, a CMT2189C chip from CMOSTEK. This chip usually made for garage door remote controller is offering a low-cost solution ($0,25) with a MCU+Radio solution, compatible with Sigfox.

In this post I’ll detail what are the components of this solution and the real price you can achieve for a such device to verify the low cost promise.

Sigfox published the reference design for this type of IoT devices, including the button elements. Where writing this post, I did not add a chance yet to read the final version of the document and the estimate is based on reverse engineering of a prototype I’ve got a month ago. The reference design can be obtained from build.sigfox.com.

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Make your own $1 Sigfox IoT device

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Previously in my blog post “I held the first $1 Sigfox device“, I’ve explained how the Sigfox network will soon accept some really low cost Radio MCU chip on its network. One of them is the cmostek CMT2189C MCU. It has a cost around $0.25 and has it own integrated radio compatible to Sigfox. This device has initially been made to support garage door remote and it has a lot of limitation. However, you can imagine many application. This post details the first steps to get a development environment ready. And this should save some of your time by going directly to the right way.

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IoT Decoded Podcast EP#3

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IoT decoded #3, the monthly LPWAn podcast analyzing the IoT news and trends. Register to podcast : looking for feed subscription on bottom right of this web page.

This month content:

The musical theme is Cascade by Kubbi (CC)

What is Amazon sidewalk?

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As usual, I love read what traditional and “tech” press can write about LPWAn technologies. That’s always a pleasure to read such amount of bullshit condensed is a maximum of 10-15 lines. They are directly copied and paste from a press release. The Author added value is a custom and totally wrong clickbait title.

As part of many, the one making me starting this post is from “Le monde informatique”. It is supposed to be a serous source. The title was “sidewalk a threat for LoRa and Sigfox on IoT”.

Just to let you know guys… Sidewalk is just a new Zigbee !

So let see what is really Amazon sidewalk, what are the strength and weakness of this solution

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IoT Decoded Podcast EP#2

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IoT decoded #2, the monthly LPWAn podcast analyzing the IoT news and trends. Register to podcast : looking for feed subscription on bottom right of the page.

This month content:

The musical theme is Cascade by Kubbi (CC)

I held the first $1 Sigfox IoT device !

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This was 2 years ago during the first Sigfox connect event: Christophe Fourtet was on stage opening a letter and this action was firing a Sigfox message. He was announcing Admiral Ivory service. He was announcing $0.20 solution able to communicate on the Sigfox network. Since this date, the Admiral Ivory service has just been a strategic vision proposed by Sigfox for a future low cost IoT, far from the device maker day to day reality. Far from the minimum $10-$15 devices we currently produce coming with its $2-$5 yearly subscription fee.

Could we imagine, this two years old vision will be the next semester reality ?

Being in relation with the Sigfox lab, I’m back with some really good news about making this vision becoming a reality, let see how it is going to be possible.

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