New Murata lora chip with integrated STM32

Just came across this lora chip "Murata CMWX1ZZABZ-078" and wondered if there were any plans to make a Espruino LoRa board with it? Its basically a ST Microelectronics' STM32L082 32 MHz Cortex M0+ MCU with 192 kByte of flash and 20 kBytes of RAM and Sematech's SX1276 LoRa.
Could be a great compliment to the Esprino rage.
I see that there is already an Arduino board called a Grasshopper with this.
I guess that there is a way to get Espruino on it but I am not sure how?

There aren't any plans to create a board around it at the moment I'm afraid. Murata are one of those suppliers that really don't care much about you unless you're ordering millions - which makes them very hard to deal with.

There are plans to add support for the RAK813 module (which is an nRF52 and SX1276 LoRa though) as RAK themselves are sponsoring the port. It's got more RAM, Flash, has Bluetooth LE, and there are breakout boards available for it.

It probably wouldn't be too hard to get a build working for the Murata module yourself, however I don't think there are any STM32L0 parts supported by Espruino yet so it'd probably require some fiddling to get Espruino building against the correct header files. SX1276 is already supported by Espruino but LoRaWan isn't - however support will get added as part of support for the RAK813 I imagine

Thats great news, the RAK813 actually looks much better.

Thanks Gordon. I will look forward to getting my heands on one in the future. Any rough idea when it may be out?

cheers,
Nigel

Hopefully it'll only be a month or two away. RAK want me to look at another LTE-based tracker first (I'm already doing RAK8211), but then next on the list would be the RAK813.

Hmm, cool module. Maybe I should start selling a breakout board for the RAK813 modules like I do for RN2483?

Could do - however they do sell the RAK815 (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/RAK815-Hybrid-Location-Tracker-LoRa-Bluetooth-5-0-Beacon-GPS-Sensors-LCD-LoRaWAN-1-0-2/32849717052.html) which is a pretty full-featured breakout already... something simpler/smaller might be popular though?

@Gordon that RAK8211 looks interesting. But expensive. Would you be able leverage your clout with RAK if as a forum we wanted to set up a group buy? Just thinking out loud.

Also, at risk of asking a dumb question. The lack of a bootloader means we need another expensive piece of kit to work with these and this seems to be common on any BT boards you don't directly produce. But when OTA firmware updates on Puck and Pixl are so easy why is a bootloader not standard feature for these other boards?

why is a bootloader not standard feature for these other boards?

I know :) I think one reason is it's a pretty steep learning curve to get it working - I spent a long time bashing my head against a wall getting it working, and a lot of companies aren't that bothered.

However RAK have said that they will be adding one to new boards, so we'll see what happens...

Group buy

That may well be possible if enough people are interested. I'd have said the RAK813/RAK815 was probably a better contender for that though. The Quectel modems on the RAK8211 are pretty pricey all by themselves, so it may be that RAK don't actually have that much wiggle room :)

However RAK have said that they will be adding one to new boards, so
we'll see what happens...

Strategically that would be very smart IMO. This stuff has to be OTA updatable.

I'll check out those other boards and go from there.

Hi Gordon,

Any update on the LoRaWan support for SX1276 ?

Nothing yet, no. Realistically it depends on whether RAK are willing to pay me to work on it, although the SX1276 module can transmit and receive, so nothing would stop someone else from making a JS module that implemented LoRaWAN

hello all,
Concerning Lora Module compatible with Espruino, I take this post opportunity to ask fews questions.

My goal : use Lora module hardware and LoraWan to connect my nodes running Espruino to The Things Network gateways or later to a private network, like a gateway builded with my friend RasperryPi + openSource Lora server.

Actually Only the RN2483 module has a Espruino "driver" to achieved this (lora.LoRaWAN(.....) ). But , after long researches, I'm afraid I can no more order this device (Chinese online store, googleing....). I presume this piece of hardware is to old ?

On the other hand, the SX1276 can be found, I'll say , easily, but there no driver implementation for create a loraWan "communication?!".

My questions :

• Do you guys, have a secret links to order the un-reachable RN2483 868Mhz for EU ?
  
• @Gordon when you say
  
  

"... so nothing would stop someone else from making a JS module that
implemented LoRaWAN"

how can I try to achieve this?, I mean, from a webdev guy, rather JS than C/C++ skills like I am, well, I don't know where to start learning "how to convert C/C++ code to Espruino Module". there a "Writing and Submitting Modules" on this site, but , from my poor skills, it's not enought reading to understand the magic of how Espruino interpreter works to drive microcontroller chip.

A word for my first message on this forum :
What you've done at Espruino team and clever forum user with JS on MicroController is HUGE !!, coming from near zero skill in C/C++ , i've tried small sketch with Arduino IDE & ESP - with Espruino i've tested nearly all thing I wanted to do so quikly. I meanly use esp8266, but I've just purchase an Puck.js to contribute to this excellent project, I'm sure I'll find cool things to do with.

wizzz

Actually Only the RN2483 module has a Espruino "driver" to achieved this (lora.LoRaWAN(.....) ). But , after long researches, I'm afraid I can no more order this device (Chinese online store, googleing....). I presume this piece of hardware is to old ?

It has been replaced by the RN2483A version: https://www.digikey.ch/product-detail/fr/microchip-technology/RN2483A-I-RM104/RN2483A-I-RM104-ND/8602364

cheers mate !

@larry, take a look at @DrAzzy 's Tindie place, where @DrAzzy has breakout boards - both bare and populated / tested... lorawan-rn2483rn2903-breakout-board-assembled for both European and non-
European operation locations.

It's worth to go for the complete built modules, because the soldering is not everyones fun... for sure I had my challenges...

Fri 2018.09.14

Hello @larry,

re: 'how can I try to achieve this?'

Did you take a peek at the actual RN2483 module code?

http://www.espruino.com/modules/RN2483.js

This is on the order of what would be necessary. Study that and if needed some simpler ones to get an idea:

http://www.espruino.com/modules/
http://www.espruino.com/modules/Ping.js
http://www.espruino.com/modules/GroveRelay.js

Pick a tutorial with which you have some familiarity and check out that code
https://www.espruino.com/Tutorials

@allObjects, yeah cool!, I'll purchase the DrAzzy's stand alone plate for the RN2483 as I use to solder stuff for my crappy projects (I mean sometimes). I've seen your test fields from the RN2309A module, I'll try to do the same way but with an SMA antenna and a node connected to the The Things Networks. Hopefully, some geeky guys have setup gateways here in Paris.

@Robin, thank's mate, I'll follow you links concerning the use of the RN2483 module , but I think the things I wanted is in the official repo , where some .md file explain the core concept, where I'm afraid, I must learn how to program in C/C++ before start anything else ! (far, far away from my JavaScript skills)

Hope coming soon to talk about my test

thank's a lot folks, Espruino Rocks!

Sat 2018.09.15

re: ' but I think the things I wanted is in the official repo'

@larry, aren't you seeking to code what a module will do,

http://www.espruino.com/FAQ#how-do-modules-work-

http://www.espruino.com/Modules

much simpler, and with Javascript, rather than starting at rebuilding the core?

http://www.espruino.com/Internals

I'll read this pages, sometimes I've get lost in Espruino documentation :) , internals page sound very interesting !

@larry, the antenna soldered right on he board was for initial test only... on the other hand, my antenna guru told me that the connection from the board to the antenna should anyway be as short as possible... so I'm thinking to put all - including an Espruino, power pack and other electronics in a little box with solar cell attached and all mounted just below the antenna radials - up on a pole 10..12f / 3..3.6m above ground. For the (ground) sensors, this 10..12f / 3..3.6m wiring should not be an issue for the protocol (i2c).

@Jean-Philippe_Rey thanks - I'll make sure I update the RN2483 page to mention the replacement part number.

@larry the issue is that the SX127x JS driver only handles transmit/receive of simple LoRa packets. To get on LoRaWan you need to implement the LoRaWan protocol on top of that functionality.

There is an existing library in C that others seem to use, so add do that you'd have to have some knowledge of C and how to extend Espruino. However it should be possible to implement it all in JS (without any C coding) - it's a matter of going through the LoRaWan spec and implementing it. I believe there's some stuff about which frequency you send on, how often you send, when you turn on the radio to receive, and then you need to encrypt the data as well.

I wouldn't worry about modules though - if someone got a working Espruino source file that will connect to LoRaWan I would happily go through and turn it into a module for them! :)

@Gordon, ok, now I understand that LoRaWan is built on top of transmit/receive stuff that is already available.

Well, from now, as I've ordered some RN2483A at this place, with some cool plates made by @DrAzzy, I'll first try implementing loraWan to TTN with Espruino !