
Arduino board adds Sigfox low power wireless for IoT - rbanffy
https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/distribution-world/arduino-board-adds-sigfox-low-power-wireless-iot-2017-04/
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Raed667
I have made a project with the SigFox network and I absolutely love it.

I have also worked with LoRa and wrote a blog post comparing working with both
networks: [https://raed.it/blog/iot-network-sigfox-vs-
lora/](https://raed.it/blog/iot-network-sigfox-vs-lora/)

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1001101
I would think that LoRa, with similar footprint and bandwidth, would be a
better adder for hobby boards, as you could own both ends of the system and
not have to interface with a third-party (SigFox), 2-years subscription
included not withstanding.

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mbanzi
LoRa is in the pipeline but it requires you to either setup your own gateways
or join somebody else's network ($$). SigFox is setting up networks globally
and this board also comes with geolocation included in the subscription. So if
you want to make a low power sensor node that works now this is s good product

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dbyte
Massimo this is great. LoRa client support and maybe also an Arduino LoRa
Gateway it will be amazing for rolling out nodes in agriculture. These areas
are often not served by existing networks so a DIY-solution will always have
its spot.

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mbanzi
There is a Shield + Gateway coming out soon , the Lora Alliance will use it as
a dev kit. In the summer we'll have a MKR format board. SigFox is good becaue
it can deliver now on a lot of use cases

~~~
rbanffy
A couple years ago, for a RHoK event, we imagined a network of seismic/motion
sensors using cellphone brains on top of poles that could be dropped from
planes and penetrate enough in the soil to remain steady and signal land
movements before landslides.

This could be a really cool way of deploying (or dropping) a network with a
mesh backbone.

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jbmorgado
Might be a very newbie question, but is there something like this for WiFi? I
mean, something that like SigFox can run "6 months on 2 AA batteries" for WiFi
for Arduino?

EDIT: I meant the same amount of data as with Sigfox, i.e. about 10K a day
(specifically I just want to fetch some local weather data basically, maybe
some traffic data as well).

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ecoqba11
6 months might be way too long for WiFi. A lot of factors come into place to
achieve at least one month. Just to mention the most obvious is the frequency
of data transfer.

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jbmorgado
Yes, that's missing from my original post, but I meant about the same amount
of data as with Sigfox but for WiFi.

So, max will be about some 10K per day.

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extra88
ESP8266 is a popular low-power WiFi chip, you can use it with a separate
micro-controller but for many applications you don't need one. "ESP8266
consumes less than 12uA in sleep mode and less than 1.0mW (DTIM=3) or less
than 0.5mW (DTIM=10) to stay connected to the access point." [0] Elsewhere it
says it can wake-up and transmit within 2ms but I'd take that with a grain of
salt.

I'm having trouble finding the same details about the MKRFOX1200 but for the
transmitter "Low current consumption: 32.7mA during telegram transmit [...]
Typical OFF mode current: 5nA." [1] The processor part is a SAMD21.

My guess is it's possible to get comparable idle/sleep power draw regardless
of transmission method but WiFi will require more power to establish a
connection and transmit the first byte.

[0] [https://cdn-
shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/ESP8266_Specificati...](https://cdn-
shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/ESP8266_Specifications_English.pdf)

[1] [http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-9372-Smart-RF-
ATA8520_Data...](http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-9372-Smart-RF-
ATA8520_Datasheet.pdf)

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jbmorgado
I see, thank you for the thorough explanation. Also because my first guess
would be to turn on an off the antena whenever I needed data, but after what
you described I see that's not as straightforward and depending on the number
of updates it may actually be better to leave it on for longer periods of
time.

~~~
extra88
I'm really ignorant about radio and even electricity so don't let my googling
and wild-ass guesses scare you off. There are many helpful "maker" fora
populated by people who can provide educated advice.

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yomansat
I tried to look for subscription costs, €1 to €15 per device per year
according to: [https://novemberfive.co/blog/internet-of-things-lora-vs-
sigf...](https://novemberfive.co/blog/internet-of-things-lora-vs-sigfox/)

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dheera
The article says it comes with a 2-year subscription for upto 140 messages per
day.

I can see this being useful for collecting field data of sorts, but
unfortunately probably only in select urban areas. Coverage outside a few
major cities is spotty or nonexistent.

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mbanzi
I believe it's possible to have an agreement with sigfox to run a base
station. We have it in the office, it's a 1 Rack unti device so it doesn't
take a huge amount of space and it has a pretty long range

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dheera
Are there any possibilities to have "private" base stations that don't need a
subscription? (Or in exchange for running a public base station, I get
unlimited communication to my own base station?)

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nicolsc
There is a network emulator (USB key), but we're not 100% happy with it. Which
is why it's not advertised for sale yet.

But if someone is interested to give it a try in not-yet-covered areas in the
US or elsewhere, let me know : devrelations@sigfox.com ; I could mail one for
free in exchange of test feedback

———

Hosting a public base station in exchange of discount/free subscriptions is
something that could be considered. Again, feel free to reach out :) One thing
to consider : Public base station means that other users will rely on it for
their own devices, with a need for reliability (uptime, backhaul connectivity,
..)

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patrickg_zill
Little reason to run anything other than ubiquitous Wi-Fi imho.

You can run an ESP8266 or ESP32 chip, or the Realtek RTL8710 chip which is $2
from Pine64, and probably have enough input and output pins to do the job.

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lima
Completely different use case. LoRa and Sigfox is for extremely low-bandwith,
low-power, mostly one way communication (think sensor data).

You pretty much cannot do this with WiFi due to power usage.

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patrickg_zill
It depends what you mean by low power. What is your definition of low power?

The WiFi enabled chips I mentioned have low power modes where you can wake up
either periodically or based on an interrupt , with most of the chip turned
off in the meantime. I'd have to read the docs to know about power usage in
different modes. The RTL8710 claims 30 mA...

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swiley
With good programming you can get many 8bit microcontrollers into the micro
and nano amp range.

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patrickg_zill
Sleeping for 60 seconds, waking up, then sleeping again gets the RTL chip at
least, into about 0.3 average milliamps. The 8195 is very similar to the 8710
[https://www.amebaiot.com/en/ameba-arduino-power-
management/](https://www.amebaiot.com/en/ameba-arduino-power-management/)

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lima
Yes, but that still doesn't give you years in battery life as with LoRa.

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trapperkeeper79
I'm curious what the fundamental underlying tech is that is driving Lora and
Sigfox? E.g. cdma has a few core ideas that make the magic work. What is the
equivalent fundamental concept that is driving the low-power, long-range, low-
bw communication?

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nicolsc
Sigfox relies on

* Ultra Narrow Band (100Hz) modulation

* Low data rate (100 bits/s in Europe, at 14dBm/25mW) + lightweight protocol

* High receiver sensitivity, mostly SDR based

We've got a few youtube videos explaining this ... but mostly targeted for a
generic audience. The "radio signal modulation" may have enough tech details
to match what you're looking for :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGvM6KEDIdE&index=6&list=PLc...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGvM6KEDIdE&index=6&list=PLcw1TnahFRW_EOHxnhEX9ETv3Sf4tUUfd)

We're also working on a publication of a standard UNB IoT protocol, Sigfox
being one of its implementations. Should come within a few weeks.

There is a draft about the network architecture here :
[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-zuniga-lpwan-
sigfox-s...](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-zuniga-lpwan-sigfox-
system-description/)

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aplomb
If only the US had decent coverage!

~~~
nicolsc
Working on it! It's a pretty big country ...

So far, you have solid coverage in some metro areas only : SF/North Bay,
Chicago, NYC, Atlanta, Houston (Miami & others are getting there)

Check out sigfox.com/coverage to get insights on the current production
coverage (Sorry for the colours ...)

