Particle Takes Pre-orders for its Cellular Tracking SoM, Evaluation Kit, and Tracker One Asset Tracker

Earlier this year, Particle announced its Tracking System turnkey solution comprised of Tracker SoM LTE IoT module, Tracker One asset tracker with enclosure, as well as Particle Tracking Services software suite with geolocation services, fleet management, and an open device firmware application framework to integrate with off-the-shelf IoT sensors and enable OTA firmware updates.

The hardware devices were expected for June/July 2020, and the company has now started to take pre-orders for Tracker SoM, its evaluation kit, and Tracker One for respectively $79.99, $99.99, and $127.99. Shipping is expected to start in August 2020.

We already covered Tracker SoM in our initial article with the full specifications, but basically, it’s a Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 powered module with 8MB flash, ESP32 for WiFI (including support for indoor location),  U-blox Neo-M8U GNSS module, and a choice of Quectel BG96 LTE CAT M1 module for the US or Quectel EG91-X CAT 1 module with 2G/3G fallback for EMEA region.

We did not have information for the evaluation board last time around, so here are the specs for the Tracker SoM Evaluation Kit:

• SoM – Particle Tracker SoM
• Debugging Ports
  • Micro USB for u-blox GNSS
  • Micro USB port for Quectel cellular modem
  • Micro USB port for nRF52 (also used for power)
  • JTAG/SWD debugging connector for nRF52 MCU plus JTAG power jumper
• Antenna – NFC antenna connection for NFC tag feature
• Expansion
  • 2x 34-pin GPIO header with SPI, Analog, I2C, UART ports for ESP32 and Cellular, PMIC signals, etc…
  • 2x Analog Grove connector with one configurable for I2C
  • 2-pin terminal CAN data connection (2-pin terminal
• Misc – MODE & RESET buttons, RGB status LED, STAT LED charge status indicator, power LED, jumpers to disable each LED; RTC battery plus on/off switch
• Power Supply
  • 5V via Micro USB port (8)
  • External power 5-12 VDC (13)
  • JST-PH connector for LiPo battery (14)
  • Battery & SoM power switches
  • 2-pin terminal for 3.3V power output (22)
• Dimensions – 164 x 97 x 14 mm
• Weight – 9 grams

You’ll find all technical details about the Tracker SoM and evaluation kit on Particle Docs.

Tracker One is a complete asset tracker reference design based on the Tracker SoM with a carrier board, battery, and antennas as well as an IP67 enclosure. It’s supposed to work out of the box with Particle Tracking Services.

The Tracker SoM and Tracker One will be supported by a monthly $6.99 “Tracking” pricing tier based on the company’s Starter tier plus access to the following features:

• Particle Locations services:
  • View current and historical route info
  • 6 months rolling location + user data storage
• Particle Configuration services:
  • Zero-code device and fleet-wide configuration changes
  • Configure sleep and reporting interval
  • Wake on movement
  • Geofencing and sensor-based alerting
• Tracker Edge firmware application framework and libraries
• High-volume cellular data plan (25MB/mo)

Again, you can find all technical information about Tracker One on the documentation website.

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