Contact less connected thermometer

I’ve recently made a post on how to make a pandemic alarming system based on low cost connected thermometers. This post was more about the organization model and business model than the technological solution and implementation. So I also wanted to continue to investigate the connected thermometer solution, mainly for the fun. As I’ve been sponsored by digitspace.com for some free hardware, it has been the opportunity for testing contact-less thermometers module.

The design I’m going to propose in this post will not apply to the low-cost connected thermometers as the technology I’m going to use is far more expensive to the one I proposed in my previous post.

That said, this design can be useful for companies, public site or free access thermometer booth anyone would like to design at low cost.

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UnaMKR, Ardunio Sigfox devkit

We previously discovered the UnaMKR devkit. This devkit has two boards. The module board with the radio module and the sensors. It is the one I talked about in my previous post. The Arduino board is the second one. By programming this Arduino MKR Zero you can create custom program to use sensors and radio module to experiment Sigfox. The big advantage is a single board where ever you are located as it supports all the Sigfox zones.

During this second step, we are going to see how we can use the devkit to make a simple sensor measuring and reporting.

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UnaMKR, the Sigfox Monarch experience

Unabiz has recently released the first Sigfox Monarch certified devkit. It is based on a LiteOn WSG309S module. The LiteOn module contains a St-Microelectronics based solution including a BlueNRG / S2LP in it.

In addition, the module board also have different sensors: temperature, humidity, pressure, air quality, accelerometer, magnetometer, light sensor, magnetic switch (reed switch).

You are able to use the module board as a standalone circuit. You directly program the LiteOn module. Or you can use the standard AT interface of the module and connect an Arduino MKR Zero board to use it.

In this post, we are going to see how to use the kit to test Sigfox Monarch solution.

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First steps with LoRa Radio Node (Arduino)

The LoRa Radio Node is an AVR Arduino board with a RFM95 LoRa module. This all-in-one LoRa module allows to have a LoRaWan device for a reasonable price around 15€. You need to add a battery (like a LS14500 3,7V battery) on the battery holder for a 4€ extra cost to make it mobile. LiPo option are also available using the power connector. Even if the connectors are looking like grove, they are not compatible so you will have to make your own wiring to connect extensions.

This post is reviewing how to getting started with this board to fire your first LoRaWan frame over The Things Network.

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HopeRF RFM95 and arduino a low cost LoRaWan solution

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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STM32 and Arduino, working with a custom board

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.

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Arduino for STM32

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:

  • Outside of the core libs and some nice one, most of the lib are badly written
  • The official editor is a mess if you manage more than 3 files…
  • Writing libraries with official editor is… “impossible”

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.

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Getting started with Arduino MKRWAN1300 & LoRaWan TTN

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.

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