Who could be a better parter with a contest like this than our friends at Edge Impulse, the leading developer platform for ML on embedded devices! Enter “Build a Smarter World”.

Fast forward a few months (and many Hackster projects later) and I’m proud to announce our contest winners!

Be sure to check out all of the amazing projects on both the Blues Wireless and Edge Impulse Hackster pages!

 1st Place Overall

Appliances Identifier Smart Energy Meter

Our pick for the very best project comes from Christopher, who built a project that measures voltage, current, power, power factor, and energy from a variety of devices. Then, after building the ML model with Edge Impulse, the device determines which appliance is connected. Using the Blues Wireless Notecard and Notehub, a cloud-based dashboard is populated (with Ubidots) for monitoring.

 2nd Place Overall

IoT AI-assisted Deep Algae Bloom Detector w/ Blues Wireless

A close 2nd place comes from Kutluhan, who took a variety of images of deep algae blooms with a borescope, collected water quality data, trained an ML model with Edge Impulse, and relayed results to the cloud (and WhatsApp) via the Blues Wireless Notecard.

 3rd Place Overall

Smart Helmet powered by Blues Wireless Notecard

3rd place comes from Sobhit and Pratyush, who focused their efforts on safety: specifically by building a “smart” helmet that can determine if a motorcycle/scooter rider was in an accident. Not only that, but it can relay an SMS alert (with GPS location) using the Notecard and Notehub.

Be sure to watch their amazing video content in this project (especially the demonstration of the device in action):

 Honorable Mention: Most Creative Use of ML

Old MacDonald had a FARM, and became a safer driver

Our first honorable mention goes out to what we thought was a very creative use of Machine Learning. Justin built a Machine Learning model that learned how to identify a person, whether or not they are wearing a seatbelt, if they are traveling at a safe speed, if alcohol is detected in the car, and are they driving aggressively (e.g. hard acceleration and/or braking).

 Honorable Mention: Most Creative Use of Cellular IoT

Pothole Detection with Blues Wireless and Edge Impulse

Our other honorable mention is awarded to Michael and Gina for their engaging (and useful!) project that can detect potholes in the street (while driving). Even better, it can report the GPS coordinates of the potholes for future reference and repair.

 Honorable Mention: Most Views on Hackster

IoT AI-assisted Deep Algae Bloom Detector w/ Blues Wireless

The project that gathered the most views on Hackster (in the first month after publication) goes to our 2nd place winner, Kutluhan, with 1,567 views (and counting!).

Thanks!

A big thanks goes out to everyone who participated in the contest (your Blues Wireless and Edge Impulse swag packs are coming soon!).

For everyone else, stay on top of the latest in IoT news via the monthly Blues Wireless newsletter, grab your own starter kit, and join our community forum!

The post “Build a Smarter World” Contest Winners appeared first on Blues.

This secure transmission of data often happens using Notehub routes, which help to obfuscate the complexity of integrating with many popular cloud providers.

TIP: You can also use the Notehub API to programmatically pull event data out of Notehub.

We have extensive tutorials for routing data to these cloud providers (with more to come):

• AWS IoT Analytics
• Azure IoT Central
• Datacake
• General HTTP/HTTPS
• Google Cloud Platform
• Initial State
• MQTT
• ThingSpeak
• ThingWorx
• Ubidots

But what happens when your routes fail? Previously, the opportunity to re-route that data was effectively lost without some sort of manual intervention. 

Today we are pleased to announce improvements to Notehub routes that allow for automatic route retries after failures (and an easier way to manually route data).

What Exactly is a “Failed Route”?

First, it’s important to understand precisely what it means for a Notehub route to “fail” to route an event.

Event routing is considered a failure if one of the following occurs:

• Notehub is unable to connect to the remote endpoint after 30 seconds.
• After connecting to the endpoint, Notehub does not receive a response after 30 seconds.
• Notehub receives an invalid HTTP response from the endpoint.
• A 5XX-level HTTP status code is returned from the endpoint.

With that established, let’s take a closer look at some of the improvements for event routing.

Manually Route a Single Event

Previously there was no easy way to test a newly-created route. You set up the route, waited for new events to come in that matched the required parameters of the route, and hoped things just worked. 

Today, you can manually route an event to test a route, or even to route an event after the Notehub route was created.

To manually route a single event within the Notehub UI, navigate to the event detail screen and click on the Route event button. You’ll be offered a modal dialog of routes to use within that Notehub project.

Manually Route Multiple Events

Either while testing or if you want to manually re-try routing multiple events, Notehub now offers the ability to manually route one or more events. Any events can be selected, regardless of whether or not they were previously routed.

To route multiple events in the Notehub UI, navigate to the Events screen and select the event(s) you wish to route. In the modal provided, specify whether you only want to retry routing events that previously failed, or all the events you selected.

Automatically Retry Failed Routes

If the routing of an event fails for any reason, you may wish to have Notehub automatically retry the route. To enable this feature, simply check the “Enable automatic reroute on failure” box when creating or editing a Notehub route.

With this option enabled, Notehub will attempt to retry routing a failed route three times: after 5 seconds, after 1 minute, and after 5 minutes.

Please note that each attempt at routing an event consumes one consumption credit, regardless of whether it’s the first attempt or a retry.

Summary

We hope these new routing capabilities make it easier for you to manage your cloud data when using the Notecard and Notehub. If you have any feedback, or run into any issues, please reach out in our forum and let us know.

The post Improvements to Data Routing with Notehub appeared first on Blues.

But also to fail miserably at word-find team-building activities:

Recently the Developer Experience and Cloud Services teams of Blues Wireless met up in Boston to recap, review, and set the stage for 2023. We also hosted a one-day internal hackathon to see what sorts of connected projects we could build in a single day.

While it’s one thing to hear the joys and pains that customers tell us about, it’s another thing to experience those joys and pains yourself – especially in a time-constrained hackathon setting!

The Hackathon Projects

Teams of 2-4 built nine amazing projects using the Swan MCU, Notecard, and Notecarrier in creative ways (with a surprising number using Edge Impulse to integrate Machine Learning capabilities).

And those projects?

1. A Machine Learning-based fall detection and alerting system (inspired by this Hackster project).

2.  A bee hive temperature and humidity monitoring/reporting system.

3. A “jump-scare” spider, using a gesture recognition ML model to trigger the spider:

4.  “Portals” that send low-res images to each other over cellular (alas without GLaDOS).

5.  A Machine Learning-based person counter for walkways and trails.

6.  The world’s slowest guillotine (also using a gesture recognition ML model):

7.  A system to track patients who may walk off unbeknownst to their care providers.

8.  A project that can detect woodpeckers before they start damaging your house.

9.  A high-powered ML-based face detection system powered by the Jetson Nano.

These projects also inspired another “jump-scare” skeleton tutorial on Hackster. Just in time to scare your neighborhood kids on Halloween! 

Look like fun? Blues Wireless is growing and hiring!

Happy Hack-o-ween! 

The post Hack-o-ween with Blues appeared first on Blues.

More than just a revision of our previous Feather-compatible Notecarrier (the Notecarrier-AF), we’ve re-imagined the Notecarrier-F from the ground up. We spoke with many of you to learn how you were using the AF, and learned how we could best improve the design, layout, and performance of this new Notecarrier.

New to Blues Wireless and curious about what a Notecarrier even is? In short, Notecarriers are carrier boards designed to make it easy to prototype and deploy wireless IoT solutions with the Blues Wireless Notecard. Learn more about Notecarriers here.

Notecarrier-F Features and Benefits

Aside from just looking amazing, the Notecarrier-F provides significant enhancements and new features for Feather microcontroller users.

Be sure to consult the Notecarrier-F datasheet for additional technical details.

1. We redesigned the electrical system to be far more power efficient than the Notecarrier-AF and consume only ~15uA when idle (nearly matching the Notecard’s idle consumption of ~8uA).

2. The overall footprint is considerably smaller than the Notecarrier-AF, maintaining the same width as a Feather-compatible MCU (like the Blues Wireless Swan) and allowing for more flexible deployments:

3. We’ve added a V+ JST connector alongside the existing SOLAR and LIPO connectors, and oriented them horizontally for easier access.

4. We added two Qwiic connectors next to the Micro-USB port (again, mounted horizontally) which allow for easy addition of Qwiic-based I2C peripherals.

5. All of the pin labels on the Notecarrier-F PCB are available on the front AND the back, easing those frustrations when trying to find right pin!

6. Finally, there are no onboard antennas on the Notecarrier-F. Wait, this is a benefit!? Actually yes! We’ve found that many of you are using your own antennas, and the rest will be pleased to know that we will be offering a Molex 213353 LTE+GPS antenna, which provides outstanding performance in a variety of conditions.

Get Your Notecarrier-F Today

The Notecarrier-F is available TODAY in the Blues Wireless store! You can pick it up in one of the following configurations:

• Cellular & Wi-Fi Starter Kit for Feather (Swan)
• Feather Starter Kit for Swan
• Feather Starter Kit for ESP32
• Standalone Notecarrier-F

If you have any questions about the Notecarrier-F please reach out on the Blues Wireless community forum.

The post Introducing the New Feather-Compatible Notecarrier-F appeared first on Blues.

While ascertaining location is usually handled with a GNSS/GPS module, there are scenarios where GPS is not reliable or practical. In fact, I’ll give you three exact scenarios:

1. Indoor deployments where getting a GPS satellite fix is impossible.
2. Use of a physical enclosure that prevents a GPS fix.
3. Low-power solutions that can’t afford the power drain of GPS.

Here at Blues Wireless, when we talk about gathering lat/lon coordinates, we usually refer people to the onboard GPS capabilities of the Cellular Notecard, which we highly recommend as the first (and often only) way of ascertaining location.

However, today I want to look more closely at a lesser-known capability of the Notecard: Cell Tower and Wi-Fi Triangulation.

Triangulation

If you’ve taken basic trigonometry or geometry courses, you already know that triangulation is the process of determining a location by forming triangles to the point of interest, from a series of other known points.

The Notecard provides built-in capabilities of utilizing triangulation in a few different ways: cell tower triangulation, Wi-Fi triangulation, or both!

Cell Tower Location

If you’re experienced with the Cellular Notecard, you’ve likely noticed the tower_ parameters that show up in Notehub events:

"tower_when": 1656000634,
"tower_lat": 43.074087500000005,
"tower_lon": -89.44282812499999,
"tower_country": "US",
"tower_location": "Shorewood Hills WI",
"tower_timezone": "America/Chicago",
"tower_id": "310,410,17169,77315594",

The tower_lat and tower_lon values are an approximate location of the single cell tower this Notecard was connected to at the given tower_when timestamp. While this is a nice (rough) location, it’s not useful on its own when trying to determine the precise location of a device.

For example, here is the approximate position of the cell tower used in a recent request, relative to my location:

Cell Tower Triangulation

In scenarios where GPS is unusable, performing cell tower triangulation with the Notecard can provide a massive improvement, thanks to the magic of the card.triangulate API.

To enable cell tower triangulation on a Cellular Notecard, simply issue this request:

{
  "req": "card.triangulate",
  "mode": "cell"
}

The next time the Notecard establishes a new session with Notehub, information about every visible cell tower will be uploaded and processed. A new set of location data will appear in every Notehub event, prepended with tri_, like so:

"tri_when": 1656011112,
"tri_lat": 43.07113895,
"tri_lon": -89.43272533,
"tri_location": "Shorewood Hills WI",
"tri_country": "US",
"tri_timezone": "America/Chicago",
"tri_points": 16,

Here is the updated location estimate, based on cell tower triangulation only:

As you can see, the actual location has improved significantly, and will only improve as more cell towers are visible.

NOTE: It’s important to know that cell tower triangulation comes with a non-trivial power penalty because the modem scan for nearby cell towers can take almost as long as an entire sync. Triangulation also only occurs during a connection to Notehub and there is no way to “re-triangulate” during a continuous Notehub session.

Wi-Fi Triangulation

If your host MCU has an onboard Wi-Fi module (like the ESP32), you can perform a Wi-Fi access point (AP) scan and send this data to the Notecard to perform Wi-Fi triangulation.

NOTE: Wi-Fi triangulation is an experimental, technical preview feature from Blues Wireless that is free for use today, but may use Consumption Credits in the future.

The format of the card.triangulate call is a little different when using Wi-Fi triangulation. Note that you can use cell, wifi, or both with wifi,cell when enabling triangulation.

{
  "req": "card.triangulate",
  "mode": "wifi",
  "text": "+CWLAP:(4,\"Blues\",-51,\"74:ac:b9:12:12:f8\",1)\n+CWLAP:(3,\"AAAA-62DD\",-70,\"6c:55:e8:91:62:e1\",11)\n+CWLAP:(4,\"Blues\",-81,\"74:ac:b9:11:12:23\",1)\n+CWLAP:(4,\"Blues\",-82,\"74:ac:a9:12:19:48\",11)\n+CWLAP:(4,\"Free Parking\",-83,\"02:18:4a:11:60:31\",6)\n+CWLAP:(5,\"GO\",-84,\"01:13:6a:13:90:30\",6)\n+CWLAP:(4,\"AAAA-5C62-2.4\",-85,\"d8:97:ba:7b:fd:60\",1)\n+CWLAP:(3,\"DIRECT-a5-HP MLP50\",-86,\"fa:da:0c:1b:16:a5\",6)\n+CWLAP:(3,\"DIRECT-c6-HP M182 LaserJet\",-88,\"da:12:65:44:31:c6\",6)\n\n"
}

What’s that scary-looking text field? It’s a newline-terminated list of Wi-Fi access points that follows a pattern similar to the ESP32’s AT+CWLAP command output.

Deriving Access Point Data with Arduino

If you’re comfortable issuing AT commands to your host MCU, you can send AT+CWLAP and format the response per the above requirements. However, not many of us are so cozy with AT syntax, which is why we provide the Notecard Auxiliary Wi-Fi Arduino library for an easier way of programmatically pulling a list of Wi-Fi access points with your Wi-Fi enabled host MCU, and sending them to the Notecard in one command:

// Update Notecard Triangulation Data
aux_wifi.updateTriangulationData();

Deriving Access Point Data with CircuitPython

Developing with CircuitPython? Here is an example function that uses the built-in wifi library to gather the same WAP data when used with an ESP32 MCU:

import wifi
import binascii

def get_wifi_access_points():
    """ returns a set of visible access points, corresponds to esp32 AT+CWLAP format """
    # https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-at/en/latest/esp32/AT_Command_Set/Wi-Fi_AT_Commands.html#cmd-lap

    all_wifi_aps = ""
    
    for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
        
        wifi_ap = "+CWLAP:("
        
        if wifi.AuthMode.ENTERPRISE in network.authmode:
            wifi_ap += "5"
        elif wifi.AuthMode.PSK in network.authmode:
            wifi_ap += "6"
        elif wifi.AuthMode.WPA3 in network.authmode:
            wifi_ap += "6"
        elif wifi.AuthMode.WPA2 in network.authmode:
            wifi_ap += "3"
        elif wifi.AuthMode.WPA in network.authmode:
            wifi_ap += "2"
        elif wifi.AuthMode.WEP in network.authmode:
            wifi_ap += "1"
        else:
            wifi_ap += "0"
            
        bssid = binascii.hexlify(network.bssid).decode("ascii")
        bssid = ':'.join(bssid[i:i+2] for i in range(0,12,2))
            
        wifi_ap = wifi_ap + ",\"" + str(network.ssid) + "\"," + str(network.rssi) + ",\"" + bssid + "\"," + str(network.channel) + ")\n"
        
        all_wifi_aps += wifi_ap
        
    wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()
    
    return all_wifi_aps

Wi-Fi Triangulation in Action

How different are my results when using Wi-Fi triangulation? Well the only access point my ESP32 was able to find was my own router. However, even with just that one AP, here are the results:

"tri_when": 1656011112,
"tri_lat": 43.07113895,
"tri_lon": -89.43272533,
"tri_location": "Shorewood Hills WI",
"tri_country": "US",
"tri_timezone": "America/Chicago",
"tri_points": 16,

Which becomes amazingly accurate when displayed on a map!

Wi-Fi triangulation becomes even more valuable when you realize the power requirements are minimal, and it adds only 1-2 seconds to the sync time with Notehub.

Be sure to consult the developer documentation on Cell Tower and Wi-Fi Triangulation as there are additional settings in Notehub that you may want to change, depending on how you use triangulation in your solution.

Triangulation with Wi-Fi Notecard

Up until now, all of these instructions have revolved around using the Cellular Notecard. What about if you’re using the Wi-Fi Notecard (which doesn’t have an onboard GNSS/GPS module)?

Luckily enough, Wi-Fi triangulation is enabled on the Wi-Fi Notecard by default, no configuration changes required!

After setting up a Wi-Fi Notecard, here were the results in a given event:

"tri_when": 47,
"tri_lat": 43.07121864,
"tri_lon": -89.43263674,
"tri_location": "Shorewood Hills WI",
"tri_country": "US",
"tri_timezone": "America/Chicago",
"tri_points": 3,

Which, again, when plotted on a map, comes shockingly close to landing on my location:

Summary

While GPS is the de facto standard for identifying the precise location of an IoT device, and should always be the first option when gathering location data, the Notecard’s triangulation capabilities provide options when GPS isn’t available.

Happy Mapping with the Notecard and Notehub! 

The post Use Cell Tower and Wi-Fi Triangulation to Achieve Pin-Point Locations, without GPS appeared first on Blues.

While most of the time it is merely an annoyance, losing power (especially when we aren’t aware of it) can lead to disastrous outcomes. This could mean anything from loss of equipment due to current surges when power is restored, to lives literally being on the line in critical care settings.

In this tutorial on Hackster, I walk through how to build a globally-available, cellular-enabled, power outage detector, complete with instant SMS notifications powered by Twilio.

What’s in the Box?

We take a Blues Wireless Cellular Notecard, attach it to a Blues Wireless Notecarrier-A, and use a newly-released Notecard firmware feature that allows for autonomous reporting of GPIO state changes without a host microcontroller:

{
   "req":"card.aux",
   "mode":"gpio",
   "usage":[
      "input-pulldown",
      "off",
      "off",
      "off"
   ],
   "sync":true,
   "file":"power-outage.qo"
}

I also use a small LiPo battery with a JST connector (any capacity will do), and a micro USB cable (with a wall outlet adapter):

Let’s Build a Power Outage Detector

Check out the complete instructions in this Hackster tutorial.

Want to build one yourself? All you need to get started is the following hardware:

• Cellular Notecard
• Notecarrier-A
• LiPo battery (any LiPo will do)
• Micro USB cable (with a wall socket adapter)

Also, feel free to take 10% off your order of a Notecard + Notecarrier-A to build your own with this discount code.

Happy Hacking!

The post Build a Cellular-Enabled Power Outage Detector with Twilio SMS Notifications appeared first on Blues.

While Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are integrated into some ESP32 MCUs, adding cellular to the mix broadens the deployment options of any IoT project. Having a combination of connectivity options also enables you to use Wi-Fi when available, but fall back on cellular should Wi-Fi be unavailable or the physical location require it.

Developer-Friendly Cellular with the Notecard

The key to success with cellular IoT connectivity on the ESP32 is a secure and reliable System-on-Module, the Blues Wireless Notecard.

The Notecard is a 30mm x 35mm device-to-cloud data pump. With the included cellular and GPS capabilities (and a Wi-Fi option), the Notecard is an easy choice for securely syncing data with the cloud over a variety of global cellular protocols (specifically Cat-1, LTE-M, and NB-IoT).

And the cost? The Notecard comes prepaid with 10 years of global service and 500MB of data, starting at just $49.

But…what about the M.2 edge connector on the Notecard? How does that connect to an ESP32 microcontroller?

Probably not like this:

Easy Integration Options

Let me introduce you to the Blues Wireless Notecarriers. These are development boards that make it dead simple to connect virtually any MCU or SBC to a Notecard. You place the Notecard into the provided M.2 slot and the Notecarrier exposes all of the pins on the Notecard to the MCU.

Now it gets even easier if you’re using a Feather-based ESP32 (like I often do). The Notecarrier-F (part of the Feather Starter kit) has a Feather-compatible socket so you can insert your MCU directly onto the board, for wire-free connectivity.

This Notecarrier-F kit also includes a molex antenna, Qwiic ports, and JST connectors for solar and/or LiPo batteries.

Notecard + Notecarrier-F + ESP32 =

From Device To Cloud, Securely

A key component of the Notecard’s security architecture is that it doesn’t live on the public Internet. The Notecard doesn’t have a publicly-accessible IP address. You must use a proxy, accessed via private VPN tunnels, to communicate between the Notecard and your cloud application.

This is where the Blues Wireless cloud service Notehub comes into play.

Notehub is a thin cloud service that securely (over TLS) receives, processes, and routes data to your cloud endpoint of choice. This could be a big cloud like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud – or any IoT-optimized platform like Losant, Datacake, or Ubidots. Your own self-hosted custom RESTful API is fine as well!

As an added bonus, Notehub provides OTA firmware update capabilities along with full device fleet management and cloud-based environment variables for easily sharing data across fleets of Notecards.

When to Use Notecard, and When Not

It’s important to note that the cellular Notecard is a low-power, low-bandwidth, and high-latency device. Its design center is focused on sending small packets of data (e.g. accumulated sensor readings, generated ML inferences, and the like) on an occasional cadence to the cloud.

Scenarios when the Notecard makes sense:

1. Any low-bandwidth transfer of data over Cat-1, LTE-M, or NB-IoT cellular
2. Low-power edge computing deployments (agriculture, smart meters, environmental monitoring, and so on)
3. High-latency remote control solutions
4. When secure and encrypted communications are critical
5. When turnkey cloud integrations are desired

Scenarios when the Notecard doesn’t quite work:

1. As an “always connected” drop-in replacement for Wi-Fi
2. When you need sub-millisecond latency
3. Streaming HD video or high res images

Ready to See How it All Works?

With a Blues Wireless Feather Starter Kit for ESP32 you can follow the remainder of this blog post for a quick and easy getting started experience.

Be sure to browse our full developer site for Notecard datasheets and additional technical information.

After creating a free account at Notehub.io and initializing your first project, copy the provided unique ProductUID from the project and save it for the next step.

Programming ESP32 Firmware

The ESP32 supports commonly used languages like Arduino/C and MicroPython. While I’m an avid Python lover, most ESP32 developers are likely writing Arduino or C/C++, so we’ll stick with that path for now.

The API that powers the Notecard is completely JSON-based. So technically speaking, it doesn’t matter what programming language you use. We provide SDKs for Arduino, Go, C/C++, and Python and our community has built SDKs for .NET and Rust.

Whichever route you take, open up your preferred IDE and paste in this basic sketch:

// Include the Arduino library for the Notecard
#include <Notecard.h>
#define productUID "com.your-company.your-name:your_project"

Notecard notecard;

void setup() {
  delay(2500);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  notecard.begin();

  J *req = notecard.newRequest("hub.set");
  JAddStringToObject(req, "product", productUID);
  JAddStringToObject(req, "mode", "continuous");
  notecard.sendRequest(req);
}

void loop() {
  J *req = notecard.newRequest("note.add");
  if (req != NULL) {
    JAddStringToObject(req, "file", "sensors.qo");
    JAddBoolToObject(req, "sync", true);

    J *body = JCreateObject();
    if (body != NULL) {
      JAddNumberToObject(body, "temp", 25.6);
      JAddNumberToObject(body, "humidity", 48.2);
      JAddItemToObject(req, "body", body);
    }

    notecard.sendRequest(req);
  }

  delay(15000);
}

What exactly is happening in this sketch?

• We are using a hub.set request to associate the Notecard with the Notehub project.
• We are sending a JSON object (a Note) with mock temperature and humidity data to the cloud, over cellular.
• Wait 15 seconds and do it all again!

You can build and upload this sketch to your ESP32 now, then check your Notehub project to see it in the cloud.

Cellular Data in the Cloud

Once that note.add request is initiated, your Note is queued on the Notecard for syncing with the cloud. Since we are keeping this example simple, we are also using the sync:true option in the note.add request to immediately initiate a cellular connection and send the data to Notehub ASAP.

Go ahead and head back to Notehub.io and take a look at the recently uploaded events in the Event panel for your project:

But we don’t want your data to live on Notehub! The most important part of the story is securely routing your data to any cloud endpoint. Take a look at our extensive Routing Tutorials and pick your favorite cloud, such as Ubidots, and create an engaging cloud dashboard to interpret your data:

TIP: Communication with the Notecard is bi-directional in nature. This means the Notecard can also receive data from the cloud. See Inbound Requests & Shared Data Guide for more details.

Next Steps

We’ve barely even started our journey with cellular IoT and the ESP32! Hopefully you’ve seen that with minimal hardware and minimal firmware, you can easily add cellular connectivity to a new or existing IoT project.

Looking for some good next steps?

• If you haven’t already, pick up your own Feather Starter Kit for ESP32.
• Next, the real Notecard Quickstart does a MUCH better job getting you started.
• Consult the Notecard API reference to get a full grasp of the capabilities of the Notecard.
• Check out all the awesome Blues Wireless projects on Hackster for inspiration.

Happy hacking on the ESP32!

The post Easiest Way to Add Cellular to an ESP32 IoT Project appeared first on Blues.

To quote Apple’s Tim Cook, “I think you’re gonna love it.”

Skip over to the Notecarrier-A datasheet, buy a Notecarrier-A, or read on for more details.

The Notecarrier, Now in Black

The Notecarrier-A maintains the same form factor as the previous Notecarrier-A line (i.e. the AL, AE, and AA). Rest assured if you were embedding any of these in your project, the Notecarrier-A will fit in perfectly.

While the black Wi-Fi Notecard fits well into the new color scheme, the Cellular Notecard works with the new Notecarrier-A equally as well.

Aside from the dramatic black PCB, there are two other important changes in the Notecarrier-A:

New Antennas

The new Notecarrier-A has switched antennas to the Ignion NN03-310. Why? Well this was one of the most critical pieces of feedback we received from customers: the GPS performance of the previous Notecarriers just wasn’t adequate. With the new Ignion antennas, cellular performance is just as good as before and the GPS performance has proven to be >= 5dB better in our testing. This results in faster GPS fixes, including improving TTFF (Time to First Fix) from what was > 120 seconds to < 60 seconds.

Qwiic Ports

Everyone’s favorite peripheral connector is now on the Notecarrier-A! We’ve added two Qwiic ports to provide solder-free expansion of your IoT solution for communication over I2C.

If you haven’t used them before, Qwiic connectors are daisy-chainable and polarized so you can be certain your connection is correct the first time.

What About Notecarrier-AL/AE/AA?

The new Notecarrier-A helps to simplify our offerings and is a replacement for the AL, AE, and AA Notecarriers. However, we will absolutely continue to support those Notecarriers going forward.

The Notecarrier-A retains the connectors on the back if you want to solder your own AA battery harness as well.

Next Steps

1. You can read more technical details in the Notecarrier-A datasheet.
2. Buy your own Notecarrier-A on the Blues Wireless store.

The post Introducing the New Notecarrier-A appeared first on Blues.

Whether it’s as simple as tracking a cross-country road trip or as complex as monitoring global medical supply shipments, implementing an accurate, low-power asset tracking system is critical.

Recently we dove into Mastering Global Asset Tracking with a Cellular Notecard and Datacake. We covered topics such as:

Building a cellular-powered global asset tracker with (and without!) a host MCU
Pumping location and sensor data to a Datacake dashboard, showing off new mapping features
Supplementing GPS location data with custom sensor data
And sending one of our speakers on the road for a live demo!
You can watch the replay here and simply start building your own asset tracker with any Blues Wireless Notecard and Notecarrier!

The post Webinar: Mastering Global Asset Tracking with a Cellular Notecard and Datacake appeared first on Blues.