- About the demo components
- Video
- Limitations:
- Useful Links
- Required Items:
- Hardware Diagram:
- Step-by-Step Guide
- Results:
About the demo components
For this demo, we are using the Sigfox kit, which includes the FRDM-KL43Z and the OM2385 board.
Sigfox is an inexpensive, reliable, low-power solution to connect sensors and devices.
With our dedicated radio-based network, we are committed to giving a voice to the physical world and making the Internet of Things truly happen.
The Sigfox protocol focuses on:
- Autonomy. Extremely low energy consumption allows years of battery life.
- Simplicity. No configuration, connection request or signaling. Your device is up and running within minutes!
- Cost efficiency. From the hardware used in the devices on our network, we optimized every step to be as cost-effective as possible.
- Small messages. there are no large assets or media allowed on the network. Only small notifications up to 12 bytes are allowed.
- Complementarity. Thanks to its low cost and ease of configuration, you can also use Sigfox as a secondary solution to any other type of network, e.g.: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS, etc.
You can read more about Sigfox in What is Sigfox? | Sigfox build.
The OM2385/SF001 is a development platform dedicated to SIGFOX Wide Area Networking applications. It includes an OL2385 wireless sub-GHz transceiver running the preprogrammed SIGFOX library and is mounted on an FRDM-KL43Z development platform that serves as a host processor for the user's application.
The FRDM-KL43Z is an ultra-low-cost development platform for Kinetis L families KL43, KL33, KL27, KL17, and KL13 MCUs built on Arm Cortex-M0+ processor running at 48 MHz.
Video
Limitations:
Sigfox is only able to send a small amount of data every day for free, so if your application requires more data to be sent, you need to get a connectivity plan from Sigfox Buy .
Useful Links
FRDM-KL43Z and NXP Sigfox OL2385 Board : OM2385/SF001 - SIGFOX Development Kit | NXP
Sigfox Backend Account: Sigfox Buy
Download MCUXpresso: MCUXpresso IDE|Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) | NXP
Download SDK: https://mcuxpresso.nxp.com/en/builder
| NXP Product | Link |
| FRDM-KL43Z and NXP Sigfox OL2385 Board | OM2385/SF001 - SIGFOX Development Kit | NXP |
| Sigfox Backend Account | Sigfox Buy |
| Download MCUXpresso | MCUXpresso IDE|Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE) | NXP |
| Download SDK | https://mcuxpresso.nxp.com/en/builder |
Required Items:
|
|
 |
Hardware Diagram:
| SPI OL2585 |
KL43Z FRDM |
UART GPS |
|---|---|---|
|
MOSI ---------- MISO ---------- SCK ----------- ACK ----------- CS ------------- |
PTD07 PTD06 PTD05 PTD02 PTD04 PTE23 PTE22 |
----------- TX ----------- RX |
This picture shows the board connections made for the project
Step-by-Step Guide
- After we get the Required items, we need to activate the Sigfox account and register our board: Sigfox Buy
- If you are having trouble registering your Sigfox device, don't hesitate to write your question in our NXP community.
- We register the board in our backend account, and we should see the device on our device list.
- When we have our board registered, we will start building the application on MCUXpresso.
- Download the project attached at the end of this document and import it into MCUXpresso IDE.
- In the video, how to import the sigfox_console example from the SDK is shown, and a brief explanation of the modifications is given.
- If you want to download the SDK example to start your project from scratch, you need to add the Sigfox software component to the SDK.
- After importing the project to our workspace, the only thing left is to make the respective hardware connections and flash the device.
- Then try your new project in a building-clear area.
- To be sure your new project will function properly, you should avoid tall buildings to get a stronger signal.
- The data sent should be seen in your Sigfox backend session.
- Teraterm console prints the data obtained from the GPS module for your viewing purposes.
Results:
This is the data sent from the Sigfox transceiver to the user backend account. The sent frames are floating-point coordinates converted to four byte-hexadecimal strings.
After the attached project is flashed to the KL43Z, this should be the results seen in the Teraterm console.
