NarrowBand-IoT functionality added to enable cellular connection to the cloud

Arrow Electronics has extended its ARIS platform for developing IoT devices by introducing the ARIS-EDGE-NB-IoT shield. The shield, made by Shiratech, has a Quectel BG96 module and plugs onto the ARIS-EDGE-S3 board, based on the low-power Renesas Synergy S3A3 microcontroller. The mixture of these two boards allows users to evaluate the streaming of sensor data to Microsoft’s Azure cloud via a cellular connection (2G/3G, NB-IoT or CAT-M1 dependant on network availability), easily and fast. The new shield has an Arduino form factor and features the low-power Quectel BG96 LTE CAT-M1 and NB-IoT modem and built-in GPS plus an antenna. Download speed up to 300kbit/s and upload up to 375kbit/s are supported. The board provides a radio module with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE 4.1/4.2), Thread, and ZigBee stacks. The new combo kit is ideal for use in applications such as home automation, smart lighting, smart meters, wearable electronics, medical monitors and industrial sensing. The company also plans to add a LoRa shield as well. David Spragg, vice president engineering of Arrow`s components business in EMEA commented: “With the addition of this new shield, our expanding ARIS family has become a great option for effectively deploying devices and IoT nodes with cellular connectivity. This capability is underlined further by the complementary software included with the ARIS platform.”