Along with Arduino MKR GSM 1400, Arduino has released another board specifically designed for IOT, extending wireless connectivity using LORA Technology. MKR WAN 1300 is a small, yet powerful board combining the MKR Zero and LORA Technology in a single piece of hardware.
LORA WAN is an emerging Wireless Networking Technology, which is designed for IoT devices that are running on battery. LORA provides very long-range wireless connectivity, up to a distance of 15 KM and the devices communicating through LORA consumes very little energy.
Specifications
The specs are similar to that of MKR GSM 1400 which is powered by SAMD21 Cortext MO, 32 bit ARM MCU with a Flash memory 256 KB of which 8KB is used for Bootloader and a 32 KB of SRAM. The entire specifications are giver below.
MKR WAN 1300 have 8 Digital I/O Pins, 7 Analog Input Pins, 1 Analog Output Pins and 12 PWM Pins and supports SPI, UART and I2C Communication protocols. The input voltage to any input pin should not exceed 3.3 V or else it will damage the board. Proper level shifters should be employed before connecting them to a 5V power supply.
Power
Vin for this board should lie with in the range of 5V and 6V, but note that the operating voltage of the board (voltage required for the functioning of the circuit) is 3.3V. We can connect an external lithium polymer battery which will be automatically switched if the main power source is not available. The batteries connected should have a persistent voltage of 1.5V. Battery can be easily connected by unscrewing the battery terminal blocks.
Note: One thing to keep in mind while playing with this board is, the circuit uses 3.3V unlike other boards which uses 5V. So providing a voltage greater than 3.3V to any input pin could damage the board. In order to use this board with a 5V sensor, proper level shifting circuits should be employed.
Get One
This board is available for pre order in arduino official site. Follow this link to get one yourself.
