Tag Archives: IoT

Fongwah S9 NFC Reader

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I’m actually working on a device using a NFC chip from ST. Unfortunately, this chip is not using the ISO-14443 norms but the less usual ISO-15693 one. As a consequence the NFC reader I had were not compatible with this norms. I found a solution (there are not a lot) in Amazon to covert this need. The Fongwah S9 NFC Reader. I made this post to share my test experience of this device.

Precision: this is not a post made for Fongwah, I really have to crash my head on this device and the purpose of this post is to save your time. The fondwah S9 is a nice tool with a multi-language (on top of C library) SDK but it is delivered with no easy documentations, broken links and no reference on ISO-15693 support… I was a bit disappointed once the box opened.

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HopeRF RFM95 and arduino a low cost LoRaWan solution

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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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The Sigfox Micro Base Station test

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The Sigfox Micro basestation has been announced during the last Sigfox Connect event in Berlin. The base-station allow to extend the Sigfox public network, at low price, for your private location.

This post is detailing my experience with the micro base-station and the field test I’ve made on an industrial site.

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LIbrenard is out – Open Source Sigfox stack implementation

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Sigfox is not publishing its detailed specifications. For this reason different people (like me) are doing reverse engineering. Thank to this activity we are now getting more and more information on how the IoT network communication works. I’ve been the first one to publish the uplink frame in details more than a year ago.

Today, during the 35th edition of CCC Congress, Florian Euchner has published, on Github, the first Open-Source Sigfox stack : LibRenard.

This library allows to transform a Sigfox radio signal into a decoded frame (uplink demodulation). It allows to create a Sigfox radio signal from a decoded frame (downlink modulation).

The LibRenard implementation follows the Open Sigfox Protocol specification also host on Github from Florian. It details the uplink as the downlink communication frames. Making this open specification as the real first Sigfox global protocol specification published.

I really want to congratulate Florian for this excellent work. I hope the stack will be soon enriched with the native Sigfox encryption I’ve just finished to detail, with the associated OOB frames.

10 things you can’t ignore when writing a Firmware

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When you write an IoT firmware, there are different things you may never forget to think about… The coming 10 things you can’t ignore are coming from my experience of smart object creation and the associated field experience.

The field experience is unfortunately the real step where you will improve your firmware and discover all you have forgotten when you have written the firmware and tested it in your laboratory. In laboratory everything is perfect.

The following 10 things you can’t ignore when writing a Firmware is a non exhaustive checklist of points to verify before pushing your code to the field. It is also a list of  test conditions you can execute to validate a Firmware / device made by a third party.

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Send Sigfox messages with STM32 + S2LP

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STM32 solution for using Sigfox is actually one of the best offer on the market has the solution is powerful, low consumption and allows global coverage with the use of the last Sigfox library versions including Monarq, Bubble… Different module providers are actually designing solutions based on this platform.

In this post we are going to see how to configure the STM32 platform, starting from a STM32L053 devkit plus a S2LP extension. Using a eclipse/gcc environment. The environment installation is described in this post about installing Eclipse for STM32.

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Introduction du IoT LPWAN – year 2018 update

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For the second year I had the chance to introduce the IoT and LPWAN networks to a group of 150 students in computer engineering school. This year we add a longer time to detail a bit the Sigfox and LoRaWan solution and I’ve added a part on the IoT security.

I’ve tried to propose a different point of view on security aspect, not based on fear but practical things to do and a larger contextual aspect. I’ll try to make video on this specific topic on my Youtube (where you can find in french most of the content of these slides).

So … here are the slides, for my students who joined or not the conferences, and for those who would like to join this course.

 

Review Laird Sentrius LoRaWan Gateway

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After having tested different LoRaWan gateway like Kerlink iFemToCell, TheThingsGateway and Kerlink Wirnet, in the past two years, I was looking for a new low cost indoor gateway for deploying TheThingsNetwork (the global crowd-sourced LoRaWan network) in my city.

Gateway are not all easy to shop, Kerlink at first. As one of my iFemToCell has burned into the hell this summer with no reason after only 3 months powered-on I was not looking for the same. TheThingsGateway has different semiconductor provider reseller but myne suffer of certain instabilities actually and I need to reboot on regular basis. So that’s the reason of this new try.

Let’s see how to setup on TTN.

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