Tag Archives: IoT

Is making a Smart light bulb easy ?

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Creating a connected object is easy! This is often what we think, or what we believe we know when we create our first DIY project with an Arduino. When I attend IT conferences and listen to others talk about their projects completed over a weekend or two, that’s the impression I get. But strangely, when I design an object, I ask myself a lot of questions, write a lot of code, not just to make a simple lamp work, but to ensure that it works simply and securely… The saying goes that the “S” in IoT stands for security (geeks will understand), and if IoT has a bad reputation, it’s because of its history (though we can also talk about MS-DOS, W3.11, W95… too), but also because there is a lack of understanding of what IoTs really are. Through a personal experience to understand how a connected bulb works, I will attempt in this article to show you part of the non-functional code used in such a simple object, whose functional purpose can be summarized as adjusting the light intensity between 0 and 100% and changing the color hue.

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EchoStar IoT – the geostationary LoRaWan solution for Europe

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In previous blog posts, I introduced you to satellite-based IoT through technologies like Kinéis and Astrocast. Both of these solutions rely on constellations of satellites, typically in polar rotation around earth and low Earth orbits (LEO), which allow for global coverage—but at the cost of latency due to satellite revisit times.

This time, I want to highlight a different approach to satellite IoT: a solution called EchoStar IoT, which I had the opportunity to explore hands-on by developing a compatible device.

What sets EchoStar apart is its use of geostationary satellite technology. This means the satellite remains fixed relative to a specific area on Earth, continuously covering the same geographical zone. As a result, there is no satellite pass delay—connectivity is constant within the coverage footprint.

However, this also implies a trade-off: a single geostationary satellite cannot provide global coverage. As of today, EchoStar IoT services are available across most of Europe, parts of North Africa, and the entire Mediterranean region.

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ThingsBoard Open Source IoT platform

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ThingsBoard is an open-source IoT platform designed for device management, data collection, processing, and visualization. It supports a variety of communication protocols, including MQTT, CoAP, and HTTP, allowing seamless integration with diverse devices and sensors. The platform offers powerful tools for monitoring and controlling devices, as well as visualizing sensor data through customizable dashboards.

ThingsBoard provides essential features such as device provisioning, real-time data processing, and rule engine capabilities for automated actions based on data inputs. It also supports user role management, enabling secure access control. With its scalable architecture, ThingsBoard can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud, making it suitable for a wide range of IoT applications, from smart cities to industrial IoT use cases. The platform is highly extensible, supporting integration with third-party systems and services, ensuring flexibility for developers and businesses alike.

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Abeeway 1WL devkit with Murata LBEU5ZZ1WL all in one tracking module

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The Abeeway 1WL development kit is dedicated to geolocation through various means such as GPS, GPS sniffing, WiFi sniffing, radio triangulation, BLE sniffing…, using the different components of the Murata LBEU5ZZ1 SiP module and Actility’s ThingPark geolocation platform, which gives meaning to the raw listening data. Abeeway is a key player in fleet tracking solutions, providing both a business platform and hardware solutions for this purpose.

Through Actility/Abeeway, I was able to obtain an evaluation kit whose main goal is to simplify access to these multiple geolocation technologies for the rapid development of customized tracking solutions.

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Create some Mioty Devices – Step 1

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In my previous article, I shared my first steps as a Mioty user. Today, I want to dive into the creation of devices using this technology. It took me some time to publish this follow-up, as I encountered a few challenges—primarily related to an ecosystem that, unfortunately, remains stubbornly inaccessible.

In this initial post, I’ll share my experience with a ready-to-use module from Radiocraft. Future articles will explore other solutions… depending on my available time, of course. As you can probably tell, I haven’t been posting much lately, as I’ve been busy with other projects. Stay tuned!

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TheThingsConference 2024

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On September 25th and 26th, the new edition of TheThingsConference was held, the must-attend event of the LoRaWAN ecosystem and, more broadly, LPWAN. Even though the event, which was very open, is naturally becoming increasingly focused on TheThingsIndustrie’s solution and thus LoRaWAN, it remains an opportunity for numerous discussions in many other areas.

The organization was, as always, perfect, with ample space for side events that provide great opportunities for networking.

There were few announcements this year beyond the arrival of TheThingsIndustrie’s “plug & play” gateway and the introduction of trackers in the form of solar-powered tags, which seem to confirm the trend of IoT in this form factor, following RAK Sodaq and many other ongoing projects.

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IoT slide deck 2024-09 Update

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Here is the update of my IoT slide collection, which now approaches 400 slides that you are free to reuse. In this new edition, you will find technical elements on Meshtastic, Mioty, DePin, LoRa updates throughout, and a few introductory slides on blockchains. However, on this point, my new deck, published a few days ago, is more relevant.

As usual, to go further, you can find video content on my Youtube channel, like my new MooC about Block Chain and my IoT MooC (long version) posted this year.

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Critical Analysis of the Meshtastic Protocol

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Meshtastic is a mesh protocol (peer-to-peer, network by proximity) based on LoRa technology. LoRa is not LoRaWan, just as WiFi is not IP. It is therefore possible to use LoRa for networks without infrastructure.

Meshtastic was designed for communication outside of any public infrastructure, with a survivalist spirit of autonomous and (more or less) secure communication.

Due to its structure, it is difficult to estimate the size of such a community, but the map seems to indicate that more than 10,000 nodes are currently active. However, it seems that there are actually around 40,000 active nodes, with strong participation from the global ham radio community. In practice, the network is composed of clusters of nodes communicating locally with each other and expanding as clusters become visible to one another. In reality, without linking infrastructure, it won’t be possible to connect from one cluster to another but some MQTT relay features exists.

The use and development of the network require very few resources, as simple DIY nodes based on widely available devkits, such as the T-beam, are sufficient. The user interface works via a mobile application interacting through Bluetooth. The investment is just a few dozen euros. In a previous Meshtastic blog post, I detailed its implementation with small LoRa modules.

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