After studying and working with Lora(wan) on different projects and having working with a number of sensors, I decided to spend time on NB-IoT. This is not a replacement of Lora, but each has it's unique place and you can now choose the best solution.
After a lot reading it seems that UBLOX has the good modules for this and I choose the SARA R410M. The good news, this module is used on a wide variety of boards. The bad news, if you get a module with old firmware, the support (despite many mails) from UBLOX is bad, really very bad, read: the worst of all companies I have been dealing with
They are an OEM supplier and do not want to support end users. New firmware was available, but they did not want to provide it. They do NOT want to help you. You had to go back to your supplier. Both the supplier and reseller did not have it. I was stuck, I have wasted weeks and returned my board.
I connected with SODAQ support department before buying and got extremely good, honest and fast answers. I decided to buy their SODAQ ARF/SARA board. Great online forum, good open source software all you want. Got the first project up and running in half a day.
Make sure to not only select the right technology, but as important choose the right supplier.
I plan to create a number of different examples to test NB-IoT. The Sodaq board I acquired comes with Vodafone backoffice ( Allthingstalk.com). I am using that for now, as it working smooth and easy. In later examples I want to look at others as well.
The projects :
Many of the examples have a .odt (open document) file in the folder.
This contains more detailed information about the setup and project. They
can be read with nearly any word processor (LibreOffice, Microsoft word etc)
Documented in the top of each sketch and open document in folder
Obtain the zip and install like any other
Please see the description in the top of the sketch and read the documentation (odt)
- Initial version with Example1, Example2 and Example3
- Update to example1, example2 (added SPS30 can be connected serial)
- Added example4 and example7
- Added example5 + Documentation
- Added MQTT forwarder AllThingsTalk to Luftdaten
- Added T-Mobile for Sodaq
- Added ABCL and CBOR data format
- Paul van Haastrecht (paulvha@hotmail.com)
This project is licensed under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE 3.0
Please make sure to read the Allthingstalk documentation, use the
information from Sodaq about the boards and examples
and use the Sodaq forum :