Dual-Radio Bluetooth®/LPWAN IoT Development Kit from STMicroelectronics Enables Creatively Connected Smart Devices

By supporting concurrent communication over Bluetooth^® Low Energy (BLE) and Sub-1GHz wireless, the STMicroelectronics STEVAL-FKI001V1 dual-radio development kit gives unrivaled flexibility to envision, build and connect IoT devices like smart sensors, finders and trackers which can be configured, updated, remotely monitored and tracked using various network topologies, protocols and services.

Built to unleash extra creativity for smart-home or smart-building scenarios as well as asset-tracking, energy-management, smart-farming and industrial monitoring and control use cases, the STEVAL-FKI001V1 brings together ST’s BlueNRG-1 Bluetooth System-on-Chip and S2-LP sub-1GHz transceiver. The powerful dual-radio architecture enables simultaneous operations on a variety of radio-frequency bands and protocols such as Bluetooth LE or proprietary 2.4GHz, Sub-1GHz, and Sigfox.

Users can quickly create smart objects that connect to each other locally through mesh or point-to-point connections and support flexible ways of connecting to the Cloud. For instance, a convenient sensor ecosystem for smart-home could be easily forged with local sensor networking leveraging either BLE or Sub-1GHz wireless link and the whole system connected to the Cloud through a local gateway or directly via a seamless Sigfox ubiquitous link, for surveillance or remote monitoring purposes – all based on same STEVAL-FKI001V1 kit.

The BlueNRG-1 Bluetooth 5.0 certified solution ensures convenient setup, configuration or modification of device settings during installation or maintenance and permits monitoring of networked node sensors through a stylish app running on any Android or iOS device.

The sub-1GHz S2-LP transceiver allows local networking as well as LPWAN installations including global Sigfox connectivity, which allows capabilities such as real-time notification of events. Moreover, users can leverage out-of-the-box Sigfox-ready networking to track and remotely localize devices or assets.

The kit can readily be expanded through its Arduino™ Uno V3 connectors with the vast and comprehensive ST X-NUCLEO offering, including expansion boards with MEMS sensors, motor control, GNSS receivers or industrial input/output and power drivers.

The STEVAL-FKI001V1 development kit is also fully interoperable with the recently announced BlueNRG-Tile board, to further empower developers’ creativity to easily build end-to-end smart-sensor solutions including the sensor node, local gateways and global Cloud connectivity.

Leveraging the BlueNRG-1 SoC’s versatile interfaces and ultra-low-power Arm^® Cortex^®-M0 core with 256KB of embedded program memory, users can connect their own choice of external sensors and process the data acquired locally in real-time. The STEVAL-FKI001V1 comes with an easy-to-use SDK that simplifies development and compresses time-to-market while preserving flexibility, scalability, and extensibility. In fact, it could also be used in conjunction with the ST BlueNRG-Mesh software package to create extensive networking on a large-scale installation. OTA firmware update is possible via the BLE connection.

Based on a ready-to-use WS2118 RF dual-radio module from Jorjin, the STEVAL-FKI001V1 provides a convenient, pre-certified solution for developers to quickly move from early concept-feasibility phase to prototyping, field trials and volume production. The programmable ultra-low-power radio module has flexible power management and wake-on-event capability that allows multi-year lifetime from a small primary battery.

The STEVAL-FKI001V1 development kit is available now from ST distributors, or directly through st.com, priced $56.00.