POWER-UP PCBA #16 Invigorate your Inspiration for IoT with Wio-E5 and FREE Seeed Fusion PCBA Prototypes

BIG NEWS!! To accelerate the development of IoT, Seeed is sponsoring Wio-E5 projects with the Seeed Fusion PCB Assembly Service for all hardware enthusiasts, designers, makers, and engineers around the world!

Explore Wio-E5 & the Seeed Fusion PCBA Service

Wio-E5 is the first SoC to combine a Long Range RFIC (SX126X) with an MCU (STM32WLE5JC) embedded on a single module. Designed with low energy but high performance, low cost and compact applications in mind, the FCC and CE certified Wio-E5 LoRaWAN® module is ideal for long-distance, ultra-low-power applications such as airport tracking, smart agriculture, smart city, wireless meter reading, sensor networks, wireless communication, and other low-power wide-area IoT scenarios.

Orkhan AmirAslan, a hardware engineer from The Things Network (TTN) recently developed a feather-style breakout board for the Wio-E5 module, which was manufactured with the Seeed Fusion PCB assembly service, a one-stop-shop for electronics manufacture.

Good ideas need to be discovered, and good projects deserve to be recognized, realized and widely disseminated.

If you have an interesting concept for Wio-E5 and are willing to share it with the community, share it with us and we can help you make it a reality with Seeed Fusion’s one-stop-shop capabilities. Get 2 boards fabricated and assembled completely free with Seeed Fusion’s turnkey PCB Assembly service.

Furthermore, choose all your parts from the PCBA Open Parts Libraries (OPL) and reduce the lead time to as little as 7 working days.

Meanwhile, if you have mass production requirements, we highly recommend taking advantage of the Seeed Fusion PCB Assembly service and getting the Wio-E5 modules for only US$5.90 (40% discount, original price US$9.90).

Take your Wio-E5 project to the next level!

How to apply:

Each person is limited to two PCBA boards 100% completely FREE for one design, including PCB fabrication, the cost of parts, assembly and shipping. The design must include Wio-E5.

When preparing the BOM file, just add the Seeed SKU 317990829 or the part number Wio-E5 to your BOM file. Add the order to the cart then contact our customer support ([email protected]) to obtain the corresponding cash coupon for settlement.

By participating in this event, you agree to review your experience with us and allow us to share it and the design with the community on our social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc.). The design does not need to be open-sourced and production files will not be shared with the public (unless you want to). We hope your experience will go on to inspire more users to embrace IoT, LoRaWAN® and its capabilities.

Further Cooperation With Seeed

Seeed can assist designers with an established project plan with product development and mass production. Furthermore, we can assist with sales and distribution using our global sales network, and designers can obtain the licensing fees through sales by becoming a senior partner.

We hope to see more Wio-E5 application cases involving smart agriculture, smart logistics management, smart water meter, smart home and smart parking system, etc. Furthermore, if you are very interested in our product, but do not want to draw schematic and lay out by yourself for some reason, you are welcome to experience our ODM service. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our customer support at [email protected] for further consultation. We look forward to hearing from you!

Since the Wio-E5 Sponsorship with Seeed Fusion campaign launched, designers and engineers from all over the world have enthusiastically participated in it, we’re glad to have received a wide range of interest and great feedback from the community. Moreover, we’ve been delighted to witness the successful and meaningful projects that many designers have made. Here are some case studies that have been made by various participants.

Case Study 1: A LoRa® Boat Monitoring System based on Seeed Wio-E5: NENA™

NENA™ is a LoRa®-based tracking device that monitors unattended anchored and docked boats for excessive roll/pitch angles due to unexpected weather conditions, anchor drift, and boat intruders. Onboarded with several sensors to measure targeted factors, the device will send alert notifications immediately to the boat owner whenever abnormal conditions are detected.

Sponsored by the Seeed Fusion Power-up PCBA service, Thanos Pelekoudas is able to build a LoRa® monitoring system with the Seeed Studio Wio-E5 wireless module that keeps track of boats’ certain conditions remotely.

Case Study 2: Private Communication Device – directMessage: A LoRa® Navigation System based on P2P Network

DirecMessage is a communicator for exchanging peer location through a private channel by using LoRa® technology in a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) configuration. By integrating with the Wio-E5 wireless module from Seeed Studio, It communicates with the other same device over a secure 865MHz (EU868/US915/AU915/KR920/IN865) channel. This will also help to establish the link between the devices without dependency on the other systems(like a gateway). The device is equipped with GPS to get the device’s location, and a magnetometer to direct the user to the desired location.

Similar to a two-way pager, the directMessage has various advanced features, such as live navigation and sharing of location, altitude, and attitude.

“My overall experience with the Seeed Fusion team is awesome. Their technical team is conscious and thoroughly examines your design. They even helped me to outsource a few critical components. Without their help in sourcing the components, I might have compromised on a few features of the ‘directMessage.’ Their assembly service is super fast. And they helped me in clearing the customs. Once again, thank you to the Seeed Fusion team.“

Case Study 3: Solar-Powered Outdoor Air Quality Monitor transmits data over LoRaWAN

Gerrit Niezen from the United Kingdom, realized the seriousness of the environmental problem early on and started to take action to make efforts to solve it. He was looking for Long Range modules with LoRaWAN built-in. Seeed Studio’s Wio-E5 is one of the first modules that use the STM32WL, which contains both a microcontroller and Long Range RF in the same chip. It comes preinstalled with a LoRaWAN stack, so it was very easy to integrate into the air quality monitor.

At the same time, Gerrit was also kind enough to share his thoughts after trying the Seeed Fusion PCBA one-stop service.

“I bought my first batch of Wio-E5 modules directly from their web shop, and they arrived relatively quickly. For my second prototype revision, I used Seeed’s Fusion PCB assembly service, as Seeed currently has an offer for two free PCBA boards if it contains a Wio-E5. I thought it was too good to be true.

During the design check Seeed even found a footprint issue that wasn’t discovered by other manufacturers during the first prototype run, and where parts were out of stock Seeed worked with me to find suitable alternatives. Seeed Fusion is such a reliable and convenient one-stop prototype service that I’d love to work with them again”. 

Case Study 4: Low-Power Snow Depth Sensor Monitoring for IoT Smart City Based On Wio-E5 Applied in Norway

As the Civil and Structural Engineer Todd Fratzel wrote in Maintenance, Roofing, Safety: “Each year heavy snowfall is responsible for severe damage to homes. Deep snow can cause structural damage and water damage. In addition, deep snow can cause carbon monoxide poisoning and serious fall injuries.” Thus, effectively monitoring the accumulated snow cover over time can facilitate the road traffic, expressway, aviation industry, and meteorological personnel to better understand the meteorological disaster caused by snow cover, and to make corresponding prevention plans to ensure the safety of people and property.

Eivind Holt, a software developer in the field of e-health, used a Seeed Wio-E5 mini (STM32WLE5JC) Dev Board and a MaxBotix Inc. HRXL-MaxSonar MB7374, and made a Low-Power snow depth sensor device that can measure how much snow has accumulated on the ground. It is able to run on small batteries for years, survive sub-zero (Celcius) temperatures, and uses LoRaWAN to transmit measurements to the internet for further processing. The device has a watertight enclosure 3D-printed with resin SLA, and it has been applied to real uses for a month now with an achievement of 2600 transmitted measurements. The project even got coverage in a local newspaper Norwegian, and several municipalities have shown interest in adapting the device to their specific scenarios. In the upcoming future, our team will join Eivind to explore how our Fusion prototyping and customization services can help scale up the project.

If you want to learn more about the project story, click here: https://lnkd.in/g5VK9M97 

Case study 5: Former Ph.D Researcher At OSU Developed Stream Runoff Monitoring Sensors Using Wio-E5 to Measure The Temperature, Quality and Flow

“Changes in streamflow can directly influence the supply of drinking water and the amount of water available for irrigating crops, generating electricity, and other needs. In addition, many plants and animals also depend on streamflow for habitat and survival.” the United States Environmental Protection Agency mentioned in a report “Climate Change Indicators: Streamflow”.

This is exactly the reason why William Dillon started a project many years ago to develop cost-effective sensors to measure the quantity, temperature, and quality of stream runoff over the course of a year with the support grant from the GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, UNITED STATES DEPT OF. And now William is taking the project further along with a friend and colleague by applying Seeed Wio-E5 to make it possible to have a low-power communication with many years of battery life!

“Science for a changing world, technology for a better life! ”William and his team are the epitomes of this USGS Slogan as he said, “I’ve been working on it as much as I can on weekends and at night because I believe in improving our environment as much as we can. I believe we can only succeed in improving the environment by understanding it, and measuring it.”

Want to learn how William worked with Seeed Fusion to bring this device to life for Free? Click here: https://lnkd.in/gx5azJp6

Case study 6: Monitoring Indoor Air Pollutants – The Silent Issue for Smart City IoT using Seeed Wio-E5 and Fusion PCBA

During the Covid-19 pandemic, most people were forced to spend a lot more time at home and might be unaware of how the air that they breathe might influence their well-being. A polluted room or house can lead to irritation of the eyes, headaches and long-term exposures can lead to respiratory diseases or even cancer.

This project is intended to provide an insight into the air quality within a room or house or even office, making use of an IAQ sensor with AI capabilities. This sensor uses a “breath-VOC” mixture to detect exhaled human breath and it measures the concentration of volatile organic compounds, using the BSEC 2.x library to output an IAQ. This could alert the user to let’s say open a window or if the conditions are extreme, look into purchasing an air purifier.

The final year student Mircea-Iuliu Micle at the University of Plymouth UK, after a long search of integrated packages or MCU + RF trans receivers combos, the Seeed Wio-E5 choice was easy. It provides the Long Range RFIX(SX126X) with the STM32WLE5JC MCU on a single module, providing high performance and low energy consumption in a tiny package. On top of this, all it needs are 2 capacitors and an antenna!

With plenty of peripherals and memory available, the module is also capable of running Arm’s Mbed Os ( https://os.mbed.com/mbed-os/ ), making it a perfect choice for rapid prototyping and IoT.

Case study 7: Loko-The Tiniest GPS Tracker with Built-In Wio-E5 Module Can Track Any Wild Animals and Drones with Seeed Fusion PCBA

GPS tracking is the newest technology being used to fight the fear of getting lost. However, as we noted most traditional GPS trackers work with SIM cards and the problem is, GPS trackers with SIM cards work as long as they get signals. Out of the network area, they become useless. However, unlike traditional location trackers, Loko doesn’t work with SIM cards. It has its own radio transmitter specially designed for mountains, forests, the sea, and other humanly unreachable destinations.

You can interpret Loko as the tiniest GPS tracker with a built-in Long Range|LoraWAN radio transmitter, developed based on the Seeed Wio-E5 module as a core microcontroller and Long Range Radio chip. Furthermore, Loko is designed to track important instruments/vehicles like drones, expensive equipment, even wildlife and farm animals, etc. 

When we interviewed Tomi Piriyev, the developer of the Loko project, why he chose the Seeed Wio-E5 Module without hesitation. He said that: “When we started the Loko project,  our main requirements were ultra-low power and super small. After some research, we discovered the STM32WJ SoC chip which has MCU and radio chip on the same chip, but as the STM32WJ is BGA it is very difficult to work with, which requires very difficult and costly PCB design. Then after some research and with the help of professional engineers from Seeed Studio, we found a breakthrough and helped solve the project’s biggest dilemma. We found the Wio-E5 module which is a simple-to-use module based on STM32WJ and the coolest thing about Wio-E5 is that it is FCC, CE certified which makes the product certification process 100 times simpler and less costly!”

Case Study 8: AGRIWEISS ® Remote Sensing IoT Device for Agriculture in Australia – Collecting Soil Moisture and Temperature Data using Seeed Wio-E5 and Fusion PCBA

“In Australia, building an IoT application is a challenge.” Said AGRIWEISS®. Especially when it comes to making an IoT device for agriculture, it is expected to have a network with both stable connection and wide reach, considering that the device needs to work within huge areas of land in remote areas. AGRIWEISS® noticed that, in Australia, some farmers in rural and remote areas grow plants and crops over large areas of land, which is a hassle. So they decided to build low-power remote monitoring soil sensors to provide measurable insights into soil moisture and temperature data.

In order to monitor a large area and reduce energy consumption, AGRIWEISS chose Seeed Wio-E5 and Fusion PCBA service to add LoRaWAN® connectivity to the IoT device. The IoT device enables farmers to access data of the land via SMS and email, managing land and energy would become much more efficient without having to leave their homes.

When we interviewed AGRIWEISS about the Seeed Fusion PCBA service, Chilumba, the Chief Technology of AGRIWEISS, kindly shared his feelings: “Our development board is manufactured by Seeedstudio who has a wonderful team and great customer service – they provided us with Design for manufacturing checks to ensure our design was the appropriate standard for manufacturing. If you are looking to manufacture good quality products look no further than Seeedstudio PCBA.”

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