Category Archives: Technology

Tips and test on technological product and components. Operating system, networks, hardware, security…
Astuces et tests autour de produits et composants technologiques, systèmes, réseaux, hardware, sécurité …

Manage sigfox device for consumer deployment

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sigfoxWhen you plan to deploy / sell sigfox based solution to consumer, you have to manage you device park. The sigfox network have a restricted radio medium to ensure you will not emit more than what you payed for you will be charged by them if a device you own is emitting, even if it is emitting out of your control. There is no network subscription like in 3G before being able to emit so anyone can emit.  That is why, to ensure every one is clear, you have an extra cost if you emit more than you are allowed or if you emit from a non registered device.

When you are designing end-user system you have no control on the device and if you propose a monthly fee to use your solution you will never sure the end user will unplug it once he stop to pay for your service. It means you could have a consumer stopping to pay for your service but a device continuing to emit and sigfox request you to pay for it.

Since the network allow you to have downlink message, now you have the capability to send order to your device and as a consequence allowing you to kill the device remotely. This is a good solution !

Next you have a new scenario where your end user finally decide to reuse your service and want to reactivate the device. At this step you won’t be able to communicate with it and you will have to find another way to reset its state to normal. You can eventually add a “factory reset” button or request to reflash it. There is another funny when : playing with the reboot time.

This post will describe how to lock a device to stop emit on network and how to play with the startup sequence to reset it. Read more !

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Download Arduino 1.5.8 Beta for Mac Os X

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arduino_logoAfter having update my Mac Os X, the java 6 have been removed and unfortunately Arduino request to use it. Personally I’m not really happy to install this not even more supported version of Java on my machine.

I was looking for the 1.5.8 Beta made for Java 7. I was not able to download it as the download stops in the middle even if I have a really good transfer rate at the beginning.

It seems that there is no mirror for Arduino (waouhou !! what that sh*t ?!?) and it seems this download problem is not really new. Here is the solution obtained from here. Use command line curl program:

curl -LOGC - http://arduino.cc/download.php?f=/arduino-1.5.8-macosx-java7.zip

The last step to be able to use it is to install Java from java.com

Draw breadboard circuits on Mac Os X

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Tp7_schema_bbTo prepare some lessons on Arduino I was looking for a solution to draw breadboard schemas. I found fritzing open-source tool really great.

The tools works on Max Os X but also many other platform. It includes many standard component libraries with arduino board and shields and standard components.

The time to be ready for using it is not really more than a minute. It exports your design is PNG, JPG, SVG. It also includes different display to create circuit schema and PCB printout. But I did not use them, preferring kicad for such things. By-the-way, this is a really great tool.

Telecom Design sdk – track your stack usage

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When trying to see what is happening with your code, you could try to follow stack size and current running time. Here is a simple function for doing the work :

void dsk_printDebug() {
#ifdef DEBUG
    uint64_t time;
    uint32_t msec, t;
    uint16_t hour, min, sec;
    time = TD_SCHEDULER_GetTime();


    msec = time & 0x3FFF;
    time >>= 15;
    t = time;

    sec = t % 60;
    t = t / 60;
    min = t % 60;
    t = t / 60;
    hour = t % 24;
    t = t / 24;


    #ifndef __ICCARM__
        extern char __cs3_stack[];
        char *limit=__cs3_stack;
    #else
        extern char CSTACK$$Limit[];
        char *limit = CSTACK$$Limit;
    #endif
        uint32_t *sp = (uint32_t *) __get_MSP();

    tfp_printf("[debug] Time:%d.%02d:%02d:%02d.%3d || Stack size : %d / %d \r\n",
        (uint32_t) t, hour, min, sec, (msec * 1000) >> 15,
        ((uint32_t)limit - (uint32_t)sp), CONFIG_STACK_SIZE
    );
#endif
}

Telecom Design SDK – TD_USER_Loop working way

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After some discussions this afternoon with TD support and get a good advice from them, this post details some notice about TD_USER_Loop working way and power saving.

For those like experienced with Arduino, Telecom Design loop is not working like

while(1) {
   loop();
}

But it is called on Interrupt ; I don’t know why but I was expecting it to be called every tick (32KHz) which was a wrong assumption. In fact, this procedure is called on wake up from any interrupt. The frequency of call can’t be determined, it can be not called in a minute if no events occurs. That is why schedulers helps you to have a predictable call.

Telecom Design TD1207 – low cost sigfox transceiver

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TD1208/TD1207

TD1208/TD1207

The Telecom Design TD1207 has been released. In fact this chip is a TD1208 you can’t reflash and you have to use with the builtin modem firmware. The datasheet is the same as 1208 the main difference is that you have no information about RAM and FLASH size. The TD1207 is at a lower price than the TD1208 (about -2$).

SigFox Down-Link is now available for TD chips

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I was waiting for it since a long time, now it is ready ! The down-link code is available on the Telecom Design SDK version 5.0.0.

Thank to this upgrade we are now ready to receive 4 messages a day on a device and ready for device actions !

I recommend to reinstall the SDK or at least to clean all the previous build as in my case, updating from github created a lot of build issues.

Stay tuned, I’ll try and give some feedback soon !