Swan

$24.95
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Shipping calculated at checkout.

Accelerate your IoT journey with a low-cost, embeddable, STM32L4-based MCU.

Swan is a low-cost, embeddable STM32L4-based microcontroller designed to accelerate the development and deployment of battery-powered IoT solutions. It is especially useful for applications requiring a large amount of memory or a high degree of I/O expandability at an affordable cost, such as edge inferencing and remote monitoring.

Uniquely for Feather-compatible boards, we designed Swan to satisfy developers’ needs spanning from early prototyping to high-volume deployment. Developers can use Swan in conjunction with Adafruit’s myriad sensors and FeatherWing-compatible carriers. Due to its novel design, for high-volume deployment the low-cost Swan can also be soldered directly to a parent PCB integrating those sensors, utilizing the full range of Swan’s I/O capabilities.  

The board has three independent power options – USB, battery, or line power – and provides a software-switchable 2 Amp regulator for powering external sensors. When operating in its low-power operating mode, the entire Swan board draws only 8uA while retaining all of its memory, making it ideal for battery-powered devices.

Swan features support for C/C++, Arduino, and CircuitPython, and includes a CORTEX Debug connector, enabling the use of advanced development environments such as Visual Studio Code, IAR, and STM32CubeIDE. Be sure to add an STLNK-V3MINIE to get that step-debugging goodness!

Swan is available as a standalone board or in a Blues Starter Kit that includes a Notecard and Notecarrier.

Available Variations

  • Swan with Pre-soldered Headers (Datasheet)
  • Swan with Loose Header Pins and Swan Carrier Board (Datasheet)

Key Swan Specs

  • Ultra low-power Arm Cortex-M4 core clocked at 120Mhz.
  • STM32L4R5-based microcontroller.
  • 2MB of flash and 640KB of RAM.
  • Castellated-edge access to 55 GPIO ports including:
    • 8 analog
    • 16 digital
    • 4x I2C, 3x SPI
    • USB OTG full speed
    • 1x 14-channel DMA
    • tRNG
    • 12-bit ADC, 2 x 12-bit DAC
    • Low-power RTC, and CRC calculation peripherals
  • Qwiic/StemmaQT connector.
  • Support for Notecard Outboard Firmware Update.

Additional Resources

Blues Starter Kit for Cell+WiFi

$99.00
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Shipping calculated at checkout.

The Blues Starter Kit contains everything you need to start building connected solutions with the Notecard and Notehub. Start with the Swan (an STM32-based host MCU), slot it into the Notecarrier F (the Blues development board), and use the Notecard (with LTE Cat-1 Cellular or Wi-Fi) to build your connected app.

Kit Contents

Key Notecard Cell+WiFi Specs

  • Includes a secure element with a factory-installed ECC P-384 certificate, provisioned at chip manufacture.
  • Integrated GPS and accelerometer.
  • Designed to operate on battery power, be "always-on" to maintain time and location, while typically drawing less than 18µA@5V, when idle.
  • Bundled with 10 years of service and 500MB of cellular data.
  • No cellular subscriptions, SIM fees, or monthly minimums apply.
  • PTCRB Certified Module.

The Notecard Cell+WiFi included in the kit is designed to be used globally and uses a Telit LE910C1-WWXD modem that connects to LTE Cat-1 / WCDMA / GSM networks. See the Notecard Cell+WiFi product page and the Notecard Cell+WiFi datasheet for additional details.

Notecarrier F is a companion development board designed for rapid prototyping with Adafruit Feather-based host microcontrollers. It can be used with any Feather-compatible device and includes Qwiic ports for connecting I2C peripherals. See the Notecarrier F product page and the Notecarrier F datasheet for additional details.

Swan is a low-cost, embeddable STM32L4-based microcontroller designed to accelerate the development and deployment of battery-powered IoT solutions. It is especially useful for applications requiring a large amount of memory or a high degree of I/O expandability at an affordable cost, such as edge inferencing or remote monitoring. See the Swan product page and the Swan datasheet for additional details.

The flexible dual Cellular and GPS antenna has a supported frequency range of 698 MHz to 4.0 GHz with a u.FL terminator.

Additional Resources

Blues Starter Kit for LoRaWAN

$199.00
/
Shipping calculated at checkout.

The Blues Starter Kit for LoRaWAN contains everything you need to start building LoRa and LoRaWAN solutions with the Notecard and Notehub. Start with a WisGate Edge Lite 2 LoRaWAN Gateway (pre-configured on the Blues Things Stack tenant for out-of-the-box connectivity) and connect it to local Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Then, connect the three included Notecard LoRa devices to the included Notecarriers, place a LoRa antenna on each, and power them up with a LiPo battery. Use the Notecard API to configure the devices, and within minutes, you’ll have LoRa devices talking to Notehub!

Kit Contents

  • WisGate Edge Lite 2 LoRaWAN Gateway
  • 3x Notecard LoRa
  • 3x Notecarrier B
  • 3x LiPo Battery
  • 3x LoRa Antenna

Key Notecard LoRa Specs

  • Onboard ultra-low-power STM32WL LoRa MCU.

  • Compatible with LoRaWAN and The Things Network.

The Notecard for LoRa is a lower-cost version of the cellular-based Notecards for LoRa only, and is API-compatible with the cellular- and WiFi-based Notecards (with some exceptions). The Notecard LoRa works with gateways provisioned on The Things Stack. Included is a flexible Molex 211140 antenna that supports both 868 MHz (Europe) and 915 MHz (United States) frequencies.

With just two lines of code, you can send data to the cloud in minutes, no complex device registration or provisioning required. With a powerful JSON-based API, you can program the Notecard over USB, or control it from your preferred microcontroller or single-board computer using one of our open-source firmware libraries. Connect from your preferred host to the Notecard using Serial or I2C.

The Notecard is designed to work with a cloud service for ingesting and processing device data. Notehub provides secure device connectivity, project and fleet management, and simple routing to third-party cloud services.

Available Variants

The Blues WisGate Edge Lite 2 is a full 8-channel indoor gateway with full LoRaWAN Stack Support (v1.0.3), Built-in Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity. The gateways are pre-provisioned on the Blues Things Stack Tenant to enable out-of-the-box connectivity for Notecard LoRa. See the Blues WisGate Edge Lite 2 product page or RAKWireless documentation for additional details.

Notecarrier B is a small form-factor Notecarrier, only slightly larger than the Notecard itself. Unlike other Notecarriers, the Notecarrier B does not include an external SIM slot. It includes a Qwiic port for connecting I2C peripherals.

The flexible LoRa antenna has a supported frequency range of 868-870 MHz and 902-928 MHz with a u.FL terminator.

Additional Resources

Starnote for Skylo Starter Kit

$99.00
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Shipping calculated at checkout.

The Starnote for Skylo Starter Kit contains everything you need to add satellite failover to any cellular or Wi-Fi Notecard-based solution. Starnote includes satellite uplink and downlink data with the cost of the device in partnership with Skylo. Starnote for Skylo also provides a JSON-based programing interface consistent with the Notecard, providing developers with access to yet another major Radio Access Technology (RAT) using straightforward, accessible semantics. And with 18KB of data included and no monthly fees, it's an affordable satellite IoT backup device!

Starnote for Skylo is a Notecard accessory that is intended to disrupt the conventional wisdom that using satellite requires a high hardware investment (in the hundreds of dollars) of monthly device fees even when devices aren’t communicating with satellites.

As an accessory, Starnote for Skylo is not a Notecard. But is meant to be used with the Notecard, and works with Cellular, Cell+WiFi, and WiFi. From a developer’s point of view, Starnote for Skylo operates as an additional available RAT for the Notecard. A developer uses the Notecard API to specify in the Notecard’s mode of operations when to fallback to Satellite and the Notecard handles communications between itself and Starnote for Skylo.

Kit Contents

  • 1x Starnote for Sklyo u.FL

  • 1x Notecard WiFi

  • 1x Notecarrier XS

  • 1x Satellite Antenna

  • 1x GPS Antenna

  • 1x 500 mAH LiPo battery

The Starnote (Antenna) accessory is an optional add on available for purchase with the Starter Kit.

Key Starnote for Skylo Kit Specs

  • JSON-based API for configuration and communication with the Notecard

  • M.2 Key E connector for board-to-board usage and a six-pin JST for wire-to-board applications

  • External via u.FL connectors

  • NTN-capable satellite modem with zero-touch configuration.

  • Bundled with 18KB of satellite data from Skylo. Additional data is $0.75/KB.

  • No satellite provider subscriptions, fees, or monthly minimums apply.

Additional Resources

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