We Listen and Take Action #9: A sense of engagement, Seeed builds the Wio-E5 CAN Development Kit together with the community.

During the past month, we received valuable feedback regarding the design of the vehicle monitoring device based on a Seeed Wio-E5 and CAN Bus from our community.

27th Apr 2022

We were at the design stage of a vehicle monitoring device based on Seeed Wio-E5 and CAN Bus recently, and before finalizing the design, on the 27th of Apr, we sent out our “Voice Needed” message to the community on our LinkedIn, Twitter, Dicord platforms and published the blog: Voice Needed! Should We Manufacture This Wio- E5 CAN Bus Vehicle Monitoring Device? calling for feedback on the product design, additional functions, and product price. We also welcomed the community to join Discord for a more in-depth discussion.

Gratefully, we received plenty of feedback from the community which included adding features, questions regarding product usage, and also the expectation towards product release.

A screenshot of some valuable input from the community by Lily

19th May 2022

After collecting valuable input from the community, we carefully evaluated the feedback with the product team. Meanwhile, our marketing colleagues were constantly updating the community. On the 19th of May, we moved a few more steps towards production with updates to the design.

Here are some of the most exciting changes we made:

Changed the USB interface to Type-C
Added support for CAN 2.0 and CAN FD
Added a waterproof case for the device
Added protection circuits, such as ESD, etc.
Added 485 communication interface

2nd Jun 2022

Soon after, two weeks later on the 2nd of June, we’re releasing our Wio-E5 CAN Development Kit, which is based on the Wio-E5 STM32WLE5JC Module and comes with additional CAN FD, CAN 2.0, and RS485 communication interfaces. With this module, you can build a Long Range sensor network using the onboard CAN Bus to read the sensor data of the car and send the data back via Long Range. The device comes with the following features:

Ultra-low power consumption and high performance
Extra new CAN FD and RS485 communication function
CAN Bus communication, MCP2515, and SN65HVD230
Easy testing and rapid prototyping
Full GPIOs to a rich set of interfaces, including RS-485, Grove, etc.
Global Long Range frequency plan supported
Long-distance transmission range of 10km (ideal value in open area)
User-friendly waterproof case & solar charging interface provided

Wio-E5 CAN Development Kit will be available to pre-order on 2nd June 2022. If you don’t know what exactly CAN-BUS is, or how a microcontroller and peripheral devices can control your automobile, click here for more information and see other CAN-BUS Hacking tools.

The engagement of our community makes the Wio-E5 CAN Development Kit more powerful and suitable for more prototyping projects. Here, we especially credit Ulrich Spizig, Felicito Escobar, Charles Cai, Thomas, and Dan for their help and for taking part in product development. And one more piece of good news is that we are going to send a sample to you for free as soon as it is in stock! If you don’t receive it for some reason, please contact [email protected] for support. And for someone whose suggestion did not make it into the final product, we still appreciate your support, and a coupon will be sent to your email later, please check it out. Please stay tuned for future updates and let your voices be heard in Wishing Well.

We have always endeavored to provide you with products and services that matter to you and meet your needs and expectations. Here are some of the actions we took based on your feedback, and there will be more to come. So please feel free to leave your comments in the Wishing well and thank you so much for sharing.