SparkFun has introduced a brand new board which goals to supply connectivity — for each voice and information site visitors — in areas the place Wi-Fi networks merely do not attain, anyplace throughout North America: the SparkFun LTE Stick.
“[This] is a game-changer in the case of mobile IoT [Internet of Things],” SparkFun’s Chris McCarty claims of the corporate’s new board design. “Meet the SparkFun LTE Stick — LARA-R6! This little board is ideal for avoiding Wi-Fi useless zones, is able to connecting you anyplace (within the North American area) and at anytime, opening up a world of prospects.”
Primarily based on the u-blox LARA-R6 LTE Cat. 1 mobile module, the SparkFun LTE Stick is appropriate with LTE FDD bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 66, and 71 — which means out-of-the-box help for connectivity on AT&T, Verizon, T-Cell, and FirstNet networks throughout North America. Deciding on a supplier must be simple, too: simply pop a nano-SIM card within the board’s slot and also you’re prepared to attach.
The stick features a USB Kind-C connector at one finish and a pair of antenna connectors on the different, plus 0.1″ plated through-hole (PTH) pin headers for UART serial and I2S alerts — the latter supporting voice calls by the mobile modem, in addition to information messaging. “Because the LARA-R6401 helps information and voice,” McCarty factors out, “you should use the LTE Stick to the fitting elements (comparable to an audio codec, microphone, speaker, & microcontroller) and code; you may make your individual breadboard phone!”
The board breaks out UART and I2S to breadboard-friendly headers, with check factors for GPIO and a second UART. (📷: SparkFun)
Elsewhere on the board are 4 of the LARA-R6 module’s general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins and an I2C header, uncovered alongside a second UART bus on a “check level cluster” and at a 1.8V logic degree, and bodily power-on and reset buttons. All the standard options of the LARA-R6 are supported, SparkFun has confirmed, together with over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates and jamming detection.
The SparkFun LTE Stick is now out there on the corporate’s retailer at $149.95 earlier than quantity reductions; extra data is on the market within the half’s hookup information.