Product selection conundrum for remote sensing Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[Systembolaget]

Hi,

we're developing a course where two to five environmental factors shall be sensed remotely; we want to build PV solar powered/charged (Voltaic panels/20,000mAh Li-Po batteries) set-ups that can relay sensor data back to university; set-ups that may end up in the countryside (northern Scandinavia) where maybe a local farmer might allow access to WiFi or where only mobile telephony reception may be available.

We have always only used your Metro products and Arduino IDE, so ideally we want to continue that, as we have built many sensors and code for that. It seems we should get an Adafruit IO and IFTTT subscription - but what "transmitter product" should we try from your vast range of products? We're a bit lost as to what to chose, since there's no "can do/can't do" comparison matrix.

Thanks!


$9,95 Adafruit Radio FeatherWing - RFM69HCW 900MHz - RadioFruit
$49,95 Adafruit Radio FeatherWing - RFM69HCW 433MHz - RadioFruit
$19,95 Adafruit LoRa Radio FeatherWing - RFM95W 900 MHz - RadioFruit
$19,95 Adafruit LoRa Radio FeatherWing - RFM95W 433 MHz - RadioFruit
$12,95 Adafruit AirLift FeatherWing – ESP32 WiFi Co-Processor
$12,95 Adafruit AirLift – ESP32 WiFi Co-Processor Breakout Board


$9,95 Adafruit HUZZAH ESP8266 Breakout
$13.50 Adafruit HUZZAH32 – ESP32 Breakout Board
$19,95 Adafruit HUZZAH32 – ESP32 Feather Board
$16,95 Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266


$34.95 Adafruit Metro M4 Express AirLift (WiFi) - Lite
$24,95 Adafruit ATWINC1500 WiFi Breakout
$24,95 Adafruit ATWINC1500 WiFi Breakout with uFL Connector - fw 19.4.4
$34,95 Adafruit Feather M0 WiFi - ATSAMD21 + ATWINC1500
$34,95 Adafruit WICED WiFi Feather - STM32F205 with Cypress WICED WiFi


$24,95 Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69HCW Packet Radio - 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit
$34,95 Adafruit Feather M0 with RFM95 LoRa Radio - 900MHz - RadioFruit
$34,95 Adafruit Feather M0 RFM96 LoRa Radio - 433MHz - RadioFruit
$24,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 with RFM69HCW Packet Radio - 433MHz - RadioFruit
$24,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 RFM69HCW Packet Radio - 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit
$34,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 RFM95 LoRa Radio- 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit
$34,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 RFM96 LoRa Radio - 433MHz - RadioFruit


$17,50 Adafruit Bluefruit LE SPI Friend - Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
$17,50 Adafruit Bluefruit LE UART Friend - Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
$24,95 Adafruit Feather nRF52 Bluefruit LE - nRF52832
$24,95 Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express
$29,95 Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit LE
$29,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE


$44,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 FONA
$39,95 Adafruit FONA 800 Shield - Voice/Data Cellular GSM for Arduino
$39,95 Adafruit FONA - Mini Cellular GSM Breakout uFL Version
$44,95 Adafruit FONA - Mini Cellular GSM Breakout - SMA Version - v1
$49.95 Adafruit FONA 808 - Mini Cellular GSM + GPS Breakout
$49,95 Adafruit FONA 808 Shield - Mini Cellular GSM + GPS for Arduino
$79,95 Adafruit FONA 3G Cellular Breakout - European version

[muhammadalipete]

I, too, am in similar conundrum. I will be happy to hear a response from Adafruit.

[Systembolaget]

Yeah, there seem to be almost too many products that deliver sometimes, not always, similar functionalities. While this is great, it is difficult to filter. Here is how we filtered it for our education:

Via WiFi and likely coupled to an Adafruit IO account

$34,95 (WiFi all-in-one) Adafruit Metro M4 Express AirLift (WiFi) - Lite
$16,95 (WiFi all-in-one) Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266
$19,95 (WiFi all-in-one) Adafruit HUZZAH32 – ESP32 Feather Board
$19,95 (Ethernet) Adafruit Ethernet FeatherWing
$79,95 (3G) Adafruit FONA 3G Cellular Breakout - European version
Adafruit IO Arduino Library
Adafruit MQTT Arduino Library

Via LoRa plus small Yagi-Uda antenna for range

$19,95 Adafruit RFM95W LoRa Radio Transceiver Breakout - 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit (can do 868MHz Europe)
$34,95 Adafruit Feather M0 with RFM95 LoRa Radio - 900MHz - RadioFruit (can do 868MHz Europe)
$34,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 RFM95 LoRa Radio- 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit (can do 868MHz Europe)

Via packet radio plus small Yagi-Uda antenna for range

$9,95 Adafruit RFM69HCW Transceiver Radio Breakout - 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit (no LoRa)
$24,95 Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69HCW Packet Radio - 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit (no LoRa)
$24,95 Adafruit Feather 32u4 RFM69HCW Packet Radio - 868 or 915 MHz - RadioFruit (no LoRa)

[muhammadalipete]

Thanks systembolaget!

[Systembolaget]

Maybe a map of some possible network topologies is useful for some.

Some possible network topologies

IoT.png (183.25 KiB) Viewed 191 times

[adafruit_support_bill]

Very nice diagram! Thanks for posting. I think many will find that helpful. A guide on the topic would be very useful too. I will forward that suggestion.

[Systembolaget]

Thanks, yeah, I wanted to put the many different available Adafruit boards with wireless functionality in a context. Sometimes, remote means BLE is ok. Sometimes, packet radio is the thing. Sometimes, only LoRa is the answer.

For example, for handshaked reliable urban or rural TX/RX up to a few hundred metres, packet radio is underrated in my view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zGqXt-xKU8

However, the tricky thing seems to get reliable bridging to work, meaning to pipe data from several packet radio or LoRa nodes to WiFi and then to Adafruit IO or other Internet based services.

Hope you're all safe in NYC!

[ductsoup]

You didn't mention the distance (that I saw). BLE is very short range (a couple feet), WiFi is a little better (a hundred or so feet). Cellular has a very long range but is expensive and complicated. LoRa is low bandwidth but it's inexpensive and can go a mile or two line of sight.

https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-single-channel-lorawan-gateway

[Systembolaget]

I also didn't include RFID or Iridium SatCom ; )

Distance is in the eye of the beholder : )