Extreme low power consuming BLE sensor beacon dev kit for wide IoT applications
Date: 27/06/2023
For an environment friendly electronics design engineer, use of battery in portable electronics is forcible acceptance due to non-availability of any other green energy source. If there is an option to use solar PV, or any other energy harvesting techniques at least battery size can be reduced. In some cases such as beacons which need to work at a particular time of the day, battery less designs can be achieved by using pure harvested energy.
Here is a beacon product jointly developed by low power chip makers e-peas and InPlay which works without battery or a simple coin-cell. Applications for this kind of device can be IOT farming/agriculture applications, industrial remote sensors or any such remote sensors.
InPlay and e-peas, has unveiled this new ground-breaking development kit which is an autonomous, maintenance-free, low BoM BLE Sensor Beacon powered by energy harvesting.
“InPlay is thrilled to partner with e-peas to bring this innovative product to market,” says Jason Wu, Co-founder and CEO of InPlay Inc. “Our Bluetooth connectivity solution represents a significant advancement in the IoT space, designed with the aim of delivering unprecedented convenience and efficiency.“
"This development platform could potentially save millions of batteries from being discarded in landfills. The collaboration of InPlay and e-peas was a perfect match, trending in the right direction.” said Christian Ferrier, Chief Marketing Officer of e-peas.
BLE sensor beacon platform uses InPlay’s IN100 NanoBeacon technology and e-peas’ AEM10330 Power Management IC, with a solar photovoltaic (PV) cell and an ultra-miniature storage element, ensuring consistent, uninterrupted operation.
“The device’s ability to run in darkness for weeks once fully charged is a testament to its impressive low energy consumption capabilities,” emphasizes Jason Wu. Christian Ferrier, Chief Marketing Officer of e-peas, also praises the device, stating, “e-peas strongly believes in autonomous beacons with maintenance-free operations. This development platform could potentially save millions of batteries from being discarded in landfills. The collaboration of InPlay and e-peas was a perfect match, trending in the right direction.”
Designed for convenience, the device comes ready to be programmed with a compact 2 square inches Bluetooth beacon PCB design, programmer interface, and easy addition of miniature harvester and storage elements via on-board connectors.
Once programmed, the device operates perpetually, even in harsh lighting conditions, maximizing the use of available energy. The e-peas AEM10330 ensures optimal voltage management, significantly enhancing energy efficiency.
To ease development InPlay offering a no-code development tool, the "NanoBeacon Config Tool" to rapidly create applications to suit their specific needs and a NanoBeacon BLE scanner app, a platform for users to scan, test, and interact with their prototypes in real-time.
The product’s flexibility extends to accommodate a variety of sensor connections, making it ideal for applications such as BLE-based beacons, miniature asset tracking, maintenance-free tags, and connected sensor nodes.
InPlay wrote in it page that its NanoBeacon chipset family is the first of its kind SoC family that is set to redefine Bluetooth beacons, with a focus on beacons, active RFID, and wireless sensor applications. The highlighted features include ultra-low power, ultra-low cost, programming-free interface. It supported sensor interface protocols such as iBeacon, Eddystone, and custom beacon formats. It can interfaced through I2C, ADC, 1-wire, and GPIO.
Applications suggested include variety of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications, including asset management, active RFID, smart sensors, and smart healthcare. Though not exclusively mentioned IoT based farming is also an application for this device. IN100 is the first of the NanoBeacon family integrating latest Bluetooth 5.3 technology and features a firmware-less design.
Core Features of IN100:
2.4GHz RF frequency band, MedRadio band (2.36GHz)
Long-range transmission: up to several hundred meters
Sleep current: 650nA (with RC on)
Wide operating voltage range: 1.1V ~ 3.6V
Single 1.5V coin battery support
Enhanced security
Authentication of beacon ID
Privacy of advertising payload
Memory: 4 KB SRAM + 4 Kb OTP memory
Package: DFN8 2.5x2.5mm; QFN18 3x3mm
Operation Temperature: -40C ~ 125C
It is possible access this device from your gateway, tablet or smartphone from hundreds of meters.
This part can be purchased from DigiKey and sparkfun.
For more info visit: https://inplay-tech.com/in100
