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Part of the cost issue is carrier approval for the modem/device. In the EU telcos require GCF approval http://www.globalcertificationforum.org/ of at least the modem and increasingly the device (Dash/Electron etc.) before it's approved.

With high street PAYG SIMS you don't get any SIM management tools as you do with M2M sims. My M2M provider charges £3.30 a month for 1Mb for a Global SIM. Also most M2M providers don't like talking to me as I'm a one-man-band not some "big corp". For me Konekt/Electron are like citizen band for the IoT.

It's not just Konekt hardware it's their whole platform that excites me. I've got some of their SIMs and should be able to test the beta platform next week so will let you know how I get on. BTW I had to draw this diagram to get my head around their platform http://industrialinternet.co.uk/iot-2/konekt-io-architecture it might be of help to others.

@CKnight this is great work thanks
I use Telit modems and used JS to talk to them...

LoRa is a brand name for long range wireless operating in the IMS band (868 Mhz) in Europe & 915 Mhz in USA. It's low bandwidth designed for sensors/devices that wake a few times an hour/day.

Range CISCO claim 20 miles from their HQ. Even with very cheap & poorly designed RF modules I got 350 meters in Urban and it works EVERY where in my house nothing has ever done that before! For a bit fun take a look at http://www.daveakerman.com

Whisker like quite a few modules provide an UART AT command interface. Others provide SPI radio interface. Take a look http://modtronix.com/products-modules-wireless-lora/.

General advice you won't get long range with CHEAP far Eastern modules. Most European module manf. are aimed at commercial & don't sell to makers. Both Whisker & modtronix have aimed to create quality boards at a good price for makers.

BTW LoRa modulation can only operate in certain radio bands and you must to keep a track of you transmission time or you will be braking the law.

Just to confuse everyone there is http://lora-alliance.org/ this is aimed at Telcos (public) and orgs. who want to build (private) wide area sensor networks. In the UK Vodafone are trialing this.

And finally to open a new can worms there is SIGFOX Telcos are operating SIGFOX in Europe but there'r aimed at commercial orgs & payload is only 12 bytes.

@StuntMonkeh I just found this. Your doing a lot of what I want from an general industrial board.
I was going to get someone to quote to the design I'm wondering if we could collaborate?

There is an example on this thread for a 4-20ma source generator
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/2905/4-to-20-MA-Source-Circuit-Diagram

Lawrence

@DrAzzy many thanks for the link.
Yes had fun with my 6yr old and Bear, much time hand scrubbing & impedance testing...

Have you seen this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/voltera/voltera-your-circuit-board-prototyping-machine

@DrAzzy apologies for off topic question what are you using for your prototype boards?
Looks like conductive ink? and what is the substrate?

Thanks in advance
Lawrence

Whisker aren't shipping 868 mhz yet and modules are undergoing CE testing. Like number of module manufacturers they have a simple AT command interface.

http://modtronix.com/inair9.html will do an 868 mhz they are more maker focused but you will need to implement the LoRa HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). May be something for Gordon :)

All the EU module manufacturers are commercially orientated. Some you have to buy their dev kits or they have MOQ in 100/1000s off.

I would support @allObjects in recommending LoRa.
Even with cheap Chinese modules I've got 350 Meters from my home in a residential area. Indoors I can't find a place where it won't work :)

These modules are popular http://www.hoperf.co.uk/shop/RFM92W-868S2-RFM92W_868S2.html BTW if your considering this module for commercial projects I've been told it will fail EMF testing.

@MetallixBrother your right a mesh wouldn't last long I've found this tool useful for rule of thumb battery calks http://oregonembedded.com/batterycalc.htm

You probably want to consider a site survey with your chosen hardware to make sure your getting the range you expect. I've learn't this the hard way even after doing a full paper based survey (using a floor plan) to identify poor signal paths.

MetallixBrother a few questions about warehouse is chilled and is full of metal racking?
Looks like your in the UK so a RF module in the 868 mhz band would be my choice (http://www.lprs.co.uk/). You can use 433 mhz but that can have issues for ham radio & others RF channels. As I'm sure you know lower frequency better the range in buildings.

Also look for modules that provide RSSI (Receive signal strength Indication) in their API. This will let you know how well you are connected to your temp sensors and log battery voltage. Both of these will help you run a robust wireless sensor network

As for your Raspberry PI solution, that's exactly what I use but run Nodred.org as it has all I need. I've just started using it with Espruino.

I experience the same as JumJum running Windows7

Icon is green, but anything I send is ignored.
Usually I have to disconnect/reconnect the board, sometimes twice.
As far as I can see, this is a problem of chrome.

I'm having repeated trouble getting the IDE to reconnect to my espruino.
After laptop sleeps Console shows
Connected >
Which assume is the terminal session to comport
But in About\Board information: Unable to get board information
Only a disconnect from the IDE & board reset does the job.

Is it best to close IDE if your Lapi is going to sleep?

Thanks will try that, but sending crtl-c helps. I found node-red/node.js hates the espruino reset button being pressed takes 90% cpu & stays there! Have to ctrl-c node.js then press reset as ttyACM0 gets permission locked.

That said NR & espruino work so well together! I wish I started down this route a year ago, even evil eval works a treat "eval(\"function foo() { console.log('foo'); }\");foo();save()\n"; then call foo().

Am planing an industrial IO board for the PICO.

Lawrence

This video describes Javascript event-loop it's in the context of JS in the browser. Espruino has some different IO events to the browser but shares others like timers. I might help get the gist of how Espruino handles stuff.

Help, I'm stuck in an event-loop

I'm starting to develop a Node-Red [NR] node for use with the Espruino
Even with echo(0); as the last command in my JS I'm getting some Echo back from the interpreter. I'm wondering what I might be doing wrong as this isn't the behavior of the IDE?

In attached image 1. I'm calling a Espruino function from NR be sending "getAna(0);\n" The interpreter echos the function name, followed by the JSON I want back plus return val and Cursor > 2. Espruino calls a function is every min which prints the JSON I want again followed by the Cursor >.

I still want \n back from the interpreter but not function name called or cursor symbol.

Lawrence

Couldn't resit ow what fun with Node-Red and espruino working in minuets, played for hours .... amazing! ok got light level & 1-wire temp going to node-red on RPI sending JSON via console.log :)

Some of the Node-Reders have backed Pico that includes one of the core team I think.
I've already done a serial based NR node for EnOcean wireless.
I make a start in the next few weeks for espruino.

// On PICO as an IO module.
It's more than just Analog, it's all the GPIO Libraries.
A recent RPI update killed i2c on node.js which killed 1-wire.
Getting event drive IO working on RPI requires skill that is beyond many.

For me with Node-Red & PICO I get perfect separation of concerns.
The former is socket oriented, the later GPIO, but both are JavaScript!

Gordon, that's great news thanks.
I use nodered.org on RPI so I'll write a node to do just that.
I hadn't properly engaged with the fact that JS on espruino is interpreted, obvious and very neat.
I've got one of the current espruino will try on that.

A lot folk use an arduino for IO handling with RPI.
Any others out there using espruino in the same way?

Dumb question alert!
I've been re-considering the IO boards (digital/analog etc) I use for projects.
And particular in terms of using USB-PICO with Raspberry PI (RPI).
Have got a number of PICOs on order.

How does the PICO present it's self to a RPI?
As a serial USB?
if so, could I write my own serial to IO control protocol?
Or would I have to utilise one of the other PICO's UARTS?

Thanks
Lawrence

Solutions Architect who can code..just!
http://www.industrialinternet.co.uk