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New ultra-low power Arduino board with built-in RF (RFM69)

musskopf

Hi Everyone,

 

for some time now I've been designing and testing a new Dev board, which I've created to fulfill some requirements I normally have for our projects. I basically need good Wireless communication and, at the same time, be able to run my Arduino for some long periods on standard battery.

 

For that reason we've created the "Whisper Node", which I'm glad to announce it was successfully founded via Kickstarter and it's now a real product available to everyone. Additional details can be found on the following link: https://wisen.com.au/store/products/whisper-node-avr/

 

image

 

Please check it out, share with your friends and support this project if you believe it's interesting.

 

Update May/2017: After the success of the Whisper Node RFM69 version (Semtech SX1231), we're now producing the LoRa version, featuring an even more smart power management and using the RFM95 (Semtech SX1276) radio.

 

Thank you all!

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  • In your Kickstarter pitch you don't mention any RF testing, approvals or plans to get such approvals. Is this an oversight or are you just hoping for the best.  It is very unusual for an RF design to meet FCC or EU regulations without at least one test and tweak cycle.

     

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Hi , we're looking into FCC but it's nothing something we are promising for a few reasons, including the elevated cost for testing. This still a very small scale product and any additional cost would make the end-price prohibitive for our target public. Also being a development board it can be used on so many ways which would simply void the certification. As commented, the RFM69 module has some testing results for their product which cover the intentional emission component.

     

    Cheers,
    Mike M.

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  • in reply to michaelkellett

    Hi , we're looking into FCC but it's nothing something we are promising for a few reasons, including the elevated cost for testing. This still a very small scale product and any additional cost would make the end-price prohibitive for our target public. Also being a development board it can be used on so many ways which would simply void the certification. As commented, the RFM69 module has some testing results for their product which cover the intentional emission component.

     

    Cheers,
    Mike M.

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  • in reply to musskopf

    being a development board it can be used on so many ways which would simply void the certification

    That arguement was used by Raspberry Pi until they finally submitted them for FCC testing and approval.

     

    Your biggest enemy is the Australian Government who seem to have locked down every frequency.

    Because of the power and easily adjustable settings of the RFM devices, it might be hard to get a worldwide type approval as the user can simply program whatever they want.

     

    Most of the frequencies fall within the telemetry band, however we've seen that abused by people feeding continuous data streams.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    Hi sure when we hit the 5 millions units we'll have all our boards tested like RPI and Arduino image. For the moment it's difficult to guarantee it'll be done for less than 500 boards. If you have a look on many Dev boards, including some from big manufactures it's not common to find the "FCC" logo on all.

     

    Regarding the Australian Government, I don't consider to be the biggest enemy. I see it like any country to be honest. There are some frequencies/bands which can be used by any person in an open-class license arrangement so they can clearly specify what are the restrictions. A Dev board is like a car for me, I bet 99% of the cars can do almost twice the speed limit of any road, is up to the driver to use it within the legislation and don't do anything silly. Similar to that, I bet the Airport security will be very disappointed if you try to fly a FCC approved drone close to the runway.

     

    Finally, I agree with you that some people might abuse on those open frequencies, like that bad neighbor that listen loud music at 3AM.

     

    Cheers!

    Mike M.