SmartEverything development board for the Internet of Things

RS Components has announced availability of the SmartEverything Internet of Things (IoT) development kit from Arrow Electronics. The new SmartEverything ‘Fox’ board is an Arduino-form-factor IoT system-on-module that comes with a multitude of factory-bundled I/O ports and sensors and with a highly energy-efficient wireless connectivity technology. Key elements of the SmartEverything system board are the Atmel D21 ultra-low-power MCU, based on the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ processor, and a SIGFOX communications module for IoT connectivity. The SIGFOX standard is energy efficient and wide-transmission-range technology that uses UNB (Ultra Narrow Band) based radio technology and offers low data-transfer speeds of 10 to 1000 bits per second. However, importantly, it is highly energy efficient and typically consumes only 50µW compared to 5000µW for cellular communication for example, meaning significantly enhanced battery life for mobile or portable IoT devices. The SIGFOX connectivity is powered by the Telit LE51-868S high-performance module that is a certified SIGFOX gateway and covers the 863-870MHz unlicensed ISM band. It is preloaded with the SIGFOX network protocol stack and the Telit proprietary Star Network protocol. In addition, the Telit cloud management software enables easy connection up to the cloud. The SmartEverything board also includes an Atmel Crypto Authentication chipset; an 868MHz antenna; a GPS module with embedded antenna for localisation applications, which supports the GPS, QZSS, and GLONASS standards, as well as being Galileo ready; a proximity and ambient-light sensor; a capacitive digital sensor for humidity and temperature measurement; a nine-axis 3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope and 3D magnetometer combination sensor; a MEMS-based pressure sensor; an NTAG I2C NFC (Near Field Communication) module; and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transceiver module. The SmartEverything PCB measures only 68.8mm x 53.3mm with the USB connectors, power jack and antenna extending beyond the board. The board can be powered in three ways, via: two AA 1.5V batteries (1.4V to 3.2V); a 5 to 45V external power supply; or the 5V mini-USB connector. Enabling fast and easy software development, the SmartEverything Fox board is supported by the Arduino IDE and Atmel Studio IDE (Integrated Development Environment).