Gumstix has added LoRa add-ons to its Geppetto board design service that work with a RisingHF LoRa module, and launched Overo, Pi, and Arduino LoRa boards.

We’ve seen growing adoption of long-range, low-power LoRa modules that work over LoRaWAN networks, including Arduino’s LoRa Gateway Kit and Dragino’s OpenWrt Linux-ready LoRa Gateways. Now Gumstix is offering more customizable LoRa solutions by offering a connector module within its Geppetto D2O online embedded board design service that can integrate RisingHF’s RHF0M301 LoRa Gateway and Concentrator Module. They have also added a LoRa Transceiver module and an Arduino-ready Atmega32U4 module that can similarly be integrated into customizable Geppetto SBC designs with various compute modules and wireless and sensor extensions.

RisingHF’s RHF0M301 (left) and pinout
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In addition to the new LoRa options available in Geppetto, Gumstix has launched three new boards that house the RHF0M301 LoRa gateway module. The boards can be used for prototyping, or can be further customized within Geppetto. The Linux-driven Overo Conduit and Pi Conduit boards let you add an RHF0M301 module and either an Overo AirStorm or Raspberry Pi Compute Module, respectively. The Strata Weather Station board offers pre-integrated ATmega and LoRa transceiver modules, as well as environmental sensors.


Pi Conduit, front and back
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The new LoRa products are designed for applications including automated meter reading, home and building automation, wireless alarm and security systems, industrial monitoring and control, and other long range IoT applications including “wisdom agriculture,” says Gumstix. The power-efficient LoRa technology offers ultra-long range spread spectrum communication with high interference immunity, and can work in both indoor and outdoor settings.

RisingHF’s RHF0M301 LoRa Gateway and Concentrator Module enables 5 to 15km LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Network) communications, including LoRaWAN networking. The module provides high stability, as well as multi-channel and multi-spread factor receiving, says Gumstix.

The 63 x 49mm RHF0M301 offers 10 channels — 8x Multi-SF plus single Standard LoRa and FSK channels — and supplies a 24-pin I/O header. It’s available in European and American frequency bands.

Block diagram for the Microchip RN2903, which forms the basis of the Gumstix LoRa Transceiver
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Gumstix’s $4 LoRa Gateway and Concentrator Geppetto Module is a simple header interface module designed to connect the RHF0M301 to Geppetto boards. The $28.75 LoRa Transceiver is a surface-mounted module built around a Microchip RN2903 (PDF), a 915MHz LoRa transceiver module to which Gumstix has added an SMA antenna connector. Alternatively, you can use Microchip’s European-style, 868MHz RN2483 (PDF) module.

The $12.25 ATmega module comprises Atmel’s ATmega32U4 MCU, which is compatible with the Arduino Leonardo and Micro. The module also integrates 32KB flash, 2.5KB SRAM, 1KB EEPROM, plus capacitors, resistors, and a 16MHz oscillator.

 
Overo Conduit, Pi Conduit, and Stratus

The $56 Overo Conduit board incorporates a Gumstix Overo AirStorm COM built around an up to 1GHz Cortex-A8 TI Sitara AM3703. The AirStorm COM also includes WiFi and Bluetooth.

The Overo Conduit board adds a 10/100 Ethernet port, dual 70-pin AVX connectors, a power jack, a micro-USB port, and an RS232-over-USB serial terminal interface. There’s also a connector for the RHF0M301 module. The Linux stack includes a Yocto 1.7 filesystem running Linux kernel 3.17 with an Xfce desktop environment and U-Boot.

Overo Conduit, front and back
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The $84 Pi Conduit is designed to add a RHF0M301 module and either the original Raspberry Pi Compute Module or the latest, quad Cortex-A53 Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 (CM3). There’s no WiFi, but the Conduit board includes a NimbeLink Skywire connector for an optional LTE module.


Gumstix Overo AirStorm-Y (left) and Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3

The Pi Conduit supplies a micro-USB port, an Ethernet port, and an RS232-over-USB interface, as well as a two-port USB 2.0 hub interface. There’s no custom Linux stack, so you can presumably use Raspbian or any other compatible distribution.


Strata Weather Station, front and back
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The $105 Strata Weather Station board differs in that it’s designed for LoRa weather station nodes instead of gateways, and you don’t have to bring your own LoRa module or compute module. The Arduino-driven Strata board pre-integrates the aforementioned ATmega and LoRa transceiver modules, as well as barometric and temperature sensors aimed at LoRa node weather monitoring.

The ATmega MCU is supported with a USB 2.0 full-speed/low speed device interface, a 12-channel, 10-bit A/D-converter, and a JTAG interface for on-chip debug. The Strata Weather Station board is further equipped with a micro-USB port, RS232-over-USB interface, and an antenna.

LoRa development in Geppetto D2O
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The three boards can be further customized in Geppetto D2O to quickly create custom LoRa gateways or nodes using different wireless and sensor devices. If you’re instead working from scratch with the LoRA modules, you can mix and match compute modules, network connections, and other hardware features.

Geppetto users can compare alternatives for features and costs, create multiple projects, and receive complete custom BSPs and free automated documentation on demand with all saved designs. Designers can go straight from a design to an order in one session with no engineering required, says Gumstix.

Video overview of Gumstix’s new LoRa products

 
Further information

Gumstix’s LoRa products are now available at the following prices, with links to product pages: Overo Conduit ($56), Pi Conduit ($84), and Strata Weather Station ($105). More information on the $4 LoRa Gateway and Concentrator Geppetto Module, the $28.75 LoRa Transceiver, and $12.25 ATmega32U4 module may be found at this Gumstix Geppetto page. Quantity discounts are available.