Nordic Semiconductor announced Dutch IoT R&D startup, Actinius, is now shipping a “plug & play” development board and firmware with Adafruit FeatherWing compatibility that is so fully engineered that Actinius claims there isn’t a simpler or easier path into cellular IoT prototyping available anywhere in the world right now. By early next year this simplicity will be further enhanced with full cloud connectivity that Actinius says will be equally fully engineered.
The tiny 50.8 x 22.8mm Actinius Icarus IoT Board retails for around $100 and employs a Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 System-in-Package (SiP) to offer low power GPS and multi-mode LTE-M and NB-IoT cellular IoT operation globally; a 64MHz Arm®Cortex™-M33 processor supported by 1MB of Flash and 256KB of RAM memory; support for both Nano SIM and embedded SIM (eSIM) technology; state-of-the-art ARM Trustzone®and ARM Cryptocell 310 security; and an over-the-air-update (OTAU) platform developed by Actinius that is said to support “always secure and up-to-date firmware”.
In addition, a vast range of sensor and peripheral interfaces includes an Adafruit FeatherWing compatible form factor and pinout layout to give users easy access to a vast range of add-on development options. The Icarus IoT Board also ships with fully-developed firmware that users can either customize themselves or employ Actinius to customize via what Actinius describes as “firmware as a service”.
It also includes a solar panel connection which could enable solar energy to supply most of the power (depending on application and duty cycle) and thereby allow the use of very small batteries.
