Meet The First Joint-effort Device between Seeed and Paul (disk_91): #WioLoRaWANFieldTester Powered by Helium

Latest Shipping Info Update:
WioLoRaWANFieldTester 1st batch has been sold out in a couple of hours, now all have been shipped! The 2nd batch is also available to pre-order now, the estimated shipping date is 2022-06-09. Preorder Now!

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We are thrilled to announce the successful launch of the first device made in collaboration with Paul (disk_91) —— Wio Terminal LoRaWAN Field Tester Kit, a truly plug-and-play LoRaWAN field tester for the Helium network combining Seeed technology and firmware from Paul (disk_91). With this field tester, you can find the best place to deploy new Gateways. No setup is required, just power it on and you are ready to explore the Helium Network. Furthermore,  it’s never been easier to contribute to the Helium Mappers and Coverage Map!

A Dramatic Opening to our Miraculous Journey

Paul is an active member and expert in the Helium and LoRa community and we were impressed by his awesome projects, so we invited him to test our LoRa E5 series. In an awkward turn of events, we accidentally sent him the wrong package containing Wio Terminal instead of Seeed LoRa-E5. Thus we embarked on our miraculous journey to the Wio Terminal-based field tester. Please check Paul’s first article in 2021 on how to build a low-cost LoRaWAN field tester using Wio Terminal.

Impressed with Wio Terminal’s all-in-one IoT device feature, Paul chose to keep the Wio Terminal to develop the backend of a LoRaWAN Field Tester with a user-friendly interface.

Paul built the first version with an 868/915 antenna to send and receive signals and connected a LiPo battery to power Wio Terminal. At this stage, it is hard to call it a mobile tool with the protoboard construction. However, the prototype inspired us to move further.

Taking advantage of Paul’s UI, we integrated the Seeed LoRa-E5 module with the GNSS module into a Wio Terminal chassis and launched it in August 2021. The whole device looks much sharper!

However, with so many parts and open-source firmware, and the fact that users need to flash the firmware into the device, configure the helium console with many steps and purchase DC themselves. Setting up the device was not particularly user-friendly, especially for regular device users.

At the time, we could feel the enthusiasm of the community and the support from Helium regarding this project. Therefore, we initiated a new collaboration with Paul(disk_91) to provide a truly plug-and-play device for the community. Paul utilized his expertise in firmware and our team was responsible for testing and hardware modifications. The way to use WioLoRaWANFieldTester was described more in detail in the LoRaWan Field Test, Github project page.

Will be Serving the Helium Community Soon!

In January 2022, the truly plug and play Wio Terminal LoRaWAN Field Tester Kit was released and it has been received warmly by the community with the first batch selling out in a few hours.

We are glad to be able to fully support Paul, it is momentous cooperation for us! Paul also shares his thoughts about this partnership:

I started building that project as open-source and with open-hardware to address the DIYer community but quickly I saw that we needed a ready-to-go product to spread it over the Helium community. Seeed was so motivated to support this idea that they quickly created the first prototypes on the LoRa-E5 chip and I was super positive on our partnership together. A few weeks later we have been ready for the first batch of devices and now I’m super excited to see the hex world map becoming green!

Quote from Paul(disk_91)

Join us to Redefine the Device by Your code

This extraordinary collaboration with Paul (disk_91) has been very uplifting. Not only has it brought a practical and highly desirable device to the community, but it has also proven that we can collaborate to turn what was a side DIY project, into a physical and profitable device. We are also building another exciting product for enabling remotely hotspot monitoring for Helium community. Hope to share with all of you more details soon! But now let’s keep it a bit mysterious.  🙂 

We look forward to working with more community developers to develop more LoRaWAN nodes based on the devices we already have and facilitate the development of the Helium network. 

About Seeed

Seeed is a hardware innovation platform tailored for makers to help grow inspirations into differentiating products, by providing accessible technologies with quality and delivery guaranteed. We combine Shenzhen’s agile manufacturing resources with Seeed’s global sales experience, including sourcing, manufacturing, marketing, logistics, and warehousing services. All developers are welcome to join us to explore more IoT possibilities! Seeed is keen on providing more practical hardware and reliable services to support the Helium ecosystem. We always look forward to collaborating with innovative community developers to bring more unique ideas to life. 

It is Seeed’s mission to become the most reliable hardware platform and to empower everyone to achieve their digital transformation goals.

Whether you just came up with a great idea but don’t know how to implement it, or you are looking for robust customization and manufacturing services, or you need to bring your product to market with the necessary certifications, Seeed is the best platform to launch your products. We always have a shared goal with our community developers!

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