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June 19, 2021 by Saumitra Jagdale - 2 Comments

Digi ConnectCore 8M Mini SOM and Mini Development Kit for Industrial IoT Applications

Digi International has announced the Digi ConnectCore 8M Mini System-on-Module (SOM) which is an addition to its ConnectCore family modules. We saw the Android application development kit featuring earlier Digi Wireless modules based Freescale i.MX51 (ConnectCore Wi-i.MX51) and i.MX53 (ConnectCore Wi-i.MX53) in early 2012. The new Digi ConnectCore 8M Mini comes with a built-in Video Processing Unit specialising in vision use cases. The Digi ConnectCore 8M Mini SOM is an industrial i.MX 8M Mini quad-core system-on-module that comes with Arm Cortex-A53 cores, one Cortex-M4 core, and the Cortex-M0-based Digi Microcontroller Assist. This enables optimal power consumption while simultaneous maintenance of highly efficient performance. Main benefits of Digi Connect Core 8M Mini SOM Digi SMTplus form factor (40 x 45 mm) for flexibility and reliability while designing. Power management with both hardware and software support for low-power designs. Display and camera capabilities with graphics and video hardware acceleration make it suitable […]

June 18, 2021August 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

KloudNote 10.3-inch E-reader supports WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular connectivity

Geniatech used to be better known for their Amlogic TV boxes, before expanding their business to development boards and systems-on-modules. But the company has now introduced KloudNote, a 10.3-inch E-reader running Android 8.1 on a quad-core Cortex-A35 processor. The device is equipped with 2GB of RAM and a 16GB eMMC flash, supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth, as well as optional 2G/3G/4G LTE cellular connectivity, and comes with a USB-C port and a headphone jack. KloudNote (sometimes written Kloud Note) specifications: SoC – Unnamed quad-core Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.2 GHz System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB or 32GB eMMC flash Display – 10.3-inch E-Ink flexible screen with cover-lens, 1872×1404 resolution, capacitive touch and electromagnetic touch with support for a stylus with 4096-level of pressure sensitivity Connectivity 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.2 Optional 2G/3G/4G Audio – Earphone jack, built-in speaker & microphone USB – 1x USB-C port for charging Documents […]

June 10, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 55 Comments

How much do you pay for cellular data plans?

I’m mostly working from home using a broadband “Fiber-to-the-home” monthly subscription, with a router handling the connection to computers and devices through Ethernet or WiFi. So I’ve very seldom used cellular data plans since I don’t exactly need to be connected each time I get out. But recently, I’ve been to places for around one or two weeks at a time without WiFi, and my ISP has gotten into the habit of disconnecting for several hours once a month, so I’ve started to connect to 4G cellular networks more often. So far I had purchased daily or weekly plans from my bank app depending on my need for under two dollars a day or $10 per week for a 10 Mbps “unlimited” connection. Unlimited here means the company will not throttle the connection to lower speed after reaching a cap. I had some problems with excessive packet loss (> 70%) […]

May 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Digi IX15 IoT Gateway & Cellular Router features a Zigbee & BLE XBee module

Digi International has just announced the Digi IX15 IoT gateway and cellular router with Ethernet and 4G LTE connectivity as well as support for Zigbee, Bluetooth 5.0, 2.4 GHz proprietary via an XBee module. The IoT gateway complies with Class 1 Division 2 (C1D2) certification for environments with flammable vapors or gases, as found in industries such as oil and gas, water/wastewater, energy, and agriculture. It is also programmable through a Python API to enable customers’ specific requirements. Digi IX15 IoT Gateway & Cellular Router specifications: Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port 4G LTE Cat 4 cellular connectivity Supported bands 4G – B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B8, B12, B13, B18, B19, B20, B25, B26, B28, B38, B39, B40, B41 3G: B1, B2, B4, B5, B6, B8, B19 2G EDGE / GPRS: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz Antenna connector – 50 Ω SMA (center pin: female) 2x […]

March 11, 2021August 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Crowbits Master Kit Review – Part 1: A first look at the ESP32 based education kit

Crowbits STEM education kits comprised of magnetic modules launched on Kickstarter a couple of weeks ago. There are five kits increasing in difficulty with the Hello Kit just requiring the student to connect modules to get started, i.e. no programming required, to the Crowbits Master Kit based on a battery-powered ESP32 module suitable to create your own phone, portable game console, radar tower, etc… Elecrow sent me the latter for evaluation, and in the first part of the review, I’ll unbox the kit, see how modules mechanically fit together, and have a quick look at the user manual, before trying one or two projects from the manual in the second part. This is the second STEAM product from Elecrow that I review, as I reviewed CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop last year. Let’s open the package. We have a total of six modules with two joysticks, an ESP32 module with […]

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Pebble Tracker nRF9160 GPS & cellular IoT platform connects to IoTeX blockchain (Crowdfunding)

Nordic Semi nRF91-series of Cortex-M33 SoCs with NB-IoT and LTE-M (eMTC) cellular IoT connectivity was first unveiled in 2018. The first member of the family is nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP) which also comes with GPS, and we’ve found it Nordic’s own Thingy:91 devkit, as well as in various modules and development boards from third parties. There’s now a new kit called Pebble Tracker that features Nordic Semi nRF9160 with NB-IoT, LTE-M, and GPS connectivity, as well as environmental, motion, and light sensors. The cellular IoT prototyping platform works with the IoTeX blockchain to design decentralized IoT solutions with higher security. Pebble Tracker hardware specifications: Wireless module – Nordic Semi nRF9610 SiP MCU Core - Arm Cortex-M33 @ 64 MHz Storage & Memory – 1 MB flash, 256 KB SRAM Connectivity – LTE-M / NB-IoT modem with support for bands from 700 MHz to 2.2 GHz) Security – Arm TrustZone IoT SIM […]

January 13, 2021January 13, 2021 by Abhishek Jadhav - No Comments

Calliope 2 – An LTE Cat-1 IoT platform with VoLTE support

We have already seen Sequans’ Low Power LTE-M/NB-IoT Module – the Monarch 2. Sequans, popular for its product portfolio based on Monarch LTE-M/NB-IoT and Calliope Cat 1 chip platforms, has continued to release more products with the latest announcement of the Calliope 2 LTE Cat-1 Platform (Chip). This solution is designed for IoT applications that require a higher data rate of more than 100 kilobits per second. One of the key elements of the IoT industry is to choose a network connection that is cost-efficient and provides excellent coverage along with global coverage that enables roaming and voice over LTE (VoLTE) made possible with Cat 1. Why having audio and voice for IoT applications you may ask? That’s mostly useful in machine-to-human and human-to-machine communications such as command, control, and alerts. “Calliope 2 complements our Monarch 2 LTE-M/NB-IoT product family and makes Sequans a one-stop-shop for virtually all IoT applications—ranging […]

December 12, 2020December 12, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

LwM2M v1.2 M2M & IoT device management protocol adds support for HTTP and MQTT, LwM2M gateways

Lightweight M2M (LwM2M) is a REST-based protocol from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) for M2M & IoT device management that defines the application layer communication protocol between an LwM2M server and an LwM2M client running on an IoT/embedded device. While LwM2M v1.0 was published in early 2017, we first covered the new protocol a year earlier as Imagination Technologies released the source code for the LwM2M stack running on MIPS Creator Ci40 development board. Since then we’ve mostly seen the LwM2M protocol supported in cellular LTE IoT modules including Quectel BC66 and u-Blox Sara-R410M, as well as the now-defunct Samsung Artik WiFi IoT modules. LwM2M v1.0 was followed by v1.0.1 and v1.0.2 for bug fixes, and v1.1, but OMA has now announced LwM2M v1.2 protocol that adds the following new features: New transports for LwM2M: MQTT and HTTP Optimizations for the bootstrapping and registration interfaces to reduce the amount of […]