New ON Semi IoT solution: Remote Wireless Sensing, Battery-Powered, Node-to-Cloud

Designers take on a huge task when they begin a design challenge to create an architecture that will be able to sense remote parameters like motion/vibration, light, and environmental conditions with only a battery as the power source.  In addition, they will need to transmit the acquired data wirelessly to the Internet.

Researching the best sensors to implement the acquisition of the input parameters they will be sensing, selecting a low power wireless solution, designing an antenna, finding the proper hardware and software, and choosing a reliable power source that will last a long time in the field, are daunting and time-consuming tasks when time-to-market is critical.

Fortunately, ON Semiconductor has introduced a really neat, new platform that has all of the above and more: The RSL10-SENSE-GEVK and RSL10-SENSE-DB-GEVK (with a full debugger board and cable) node-to-cloud sensor platform enables a true end-to-end solution development. Both boards are shipped with ultra-low power firmware pre-loaded into the boards.

This system has a mobile app that interacts with the sensors, which are all Bosch sensors that are among the highest quality in the industry. The following sensors are part of the sensor platform:

·        NOA1305, ambient light sensor

·        N24RF64, NFC EEPROM

·        BME680, environmental sensor which includes temperature, humidity, pressure, and air quality

·        BHI160, an integrated, low power, smart hub with three-axis accelerometer and three-axis gyroscope

·        BMM150, a low power, low noise three-axis digital geomagnetic sensor

·        INMP522, a low-power digital audio microphone

These sensors provide motion, environmental, and ambient light sensing and they send their acquired data via the ultra-low power Bluetooth 5 Certified RSL10 which transmits its data over the air via the Near Field Communication (NFC) antenna transmitting at 13.56 MHz.  The RSL10 is also certified to international wireless regulations (CE, IC, KC, MIC, FCC) so there is no need for testing and certification time and costs.

Power consumption is extremely low with a deep sleep mode of just 20 microamps that gives a battery life of more than a year. There is even a software configuration wizard that enables an increase in battery life with flexible timing  configurations.

Designers will be able to cut their time-to-market down, thus saving design time costs, and get on to the next project sooner with this complete solution. They can ask ON Semiconductor for the Gerber files on the pc board if they will be integrating this board into a larger piece of artwork.