The HopeRF RFM95w module proposes to access LoRa at low cost. Its unitary price is around 4€ on shop like aliexpress. A version with a shield is also existing. Its name is Lora1276-C1 from niceRF. These different transceivers are using Semtech SX1276 chip. It makes this kind of chip interesting for regional low cost LoRaWAN design in association with a MCU. Here we are going to use it with an Arduino platform.
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Arduino is supporting STM32 platform and after following the installation steps, you can easily work with the st-microelectronics development kit.
In the real life you need to create a specific setup once your prototype is transformed into a custom board. This setup redefines the pin mapping, the target MCU and needs to refine the firmware transfer method as you will use and external STLINK programmer.
In this post we are going to see the different step for doing this.
In a previous post I explained how to getting started with STM32 with classical Eclipse or Keil environments. These environments are very cool for starting from scratch in designing firmware. That said, you have to recreate a lot of basic functions and libraries to create your firmware.
On the other hand, the Arduino community is proposing a lot a existing libraries and a development framework with a large number of supported features. The STM32 community looks active and that’s a good way to quickly create advanced firmware.
That said there is different point blocking in my point of view for using Arduino as a professional environment:
For this reason, in this tuto, I’ll use Visual Code Studio to see if the 2 last point can be solved. Regarding the first point, there is nothing better than using well coded libraries and rewrite (and share) the badly written one.
After making some post on Arduino MKRFOX1200, here I come with the first steps to use MKRWAN1300 board to send your first frame on TTN and also how to use them for discovering the TTN coverage around.
MKRWAN1300 board is a LoRaWan Arduino board based on the Murata CMWX1ZZABZ module. This module is capable for LoRaWan in Europe (868Mhz), NA (915MHz) Asia (923MHz) …. It is also capable for Sigfox in both zone (but actually not with this board as much as I know). Producing 14dB emission and capable for 20dB emission for FCC zone. The price of the Arduino board is about 40€ and it is largely available on Internet.
In this post we are going to see how to make the first steps with this board and create a device to map the TTN network coverage with and without a GPS.
Following the previous post where we saw how to transmit data on Sigfox with an Arduino MKRFox1200, in the second part we will learn how to consume these data in a backend site. To make this simple we are going to implement a solution using Adafruit.io service. This service allows to create graphics from data received from an API. We will configure Sigfox backend to push device data to this API.
Arduino MkrFox1200 sounds like Arduino for Maker using Sigfox. This board is an official Arduino product, looking like Arduino Nano series (but not pin-compatible, longer and larger)
It is composed of a SAM D21E MCU (Microchip ARM Cortex M0) operating at 48MHz. It includes 256K flash memory and 32K of SRAM. We can consider this as an Arduino under steroid.
The Sigfox radio layer is composed by an ATA8520. This is a Microchip Sigfox module based on AVR MCU. This module is communicating with the SAM D21E module with a SPI bus. The radio module is supporting RCZ1 zone (Europe).
This board can be found in many eShop places for a price around 45€ including an antenna and 2 year of Sigfox network access.
In this Post we will see how to get started with this board and how start programming with it.
I have recently discovered the smartEverything prototyping board for Sigfox. This board was used during the SigFox maker tour and It is really nice for creating some prototypes and evaluate the technology.
The board is an Arduino board based on an Atmel SAM D21 MCU (Cortex M0) with 256KB of flash and 32K SRAM running @48Mhz
The most important part is concerning the sensors available on the card and this is clearly the best point about this board : you have a lot of them available : crypto authentication chip, BLE module, GPS, NFC, Accelerometer / gyroscope / magnetometer, Pressure / Humidity / Temperature sensor, proximity light / sensor, RGB Led, Led & push button. It can be powered by USB or external 2xAA batteries.
The board cost is about 106€ and can be found at RS. It is provided with a sigfox network access to the backend.
This post detail how to get start with the board
I make a post on measuring temperature with different sensors and an objective : watch the impact of designing a correct box for you IoT you want to put in a Car.
When sun is lighting your windshield it is not a surprise to get high temperature, but did you expect to get up to 90°C when the outside temperature is about 35°C ?
The packaging have a big impact on temperature as this post will detail it.