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Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

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Re: Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

#21

Post by siliconwitch »

audunw wrote: post #20

I don’t see any mention of what LTE SoC is used anywhere? Even if you’re abstracting away the hardware in this application, isn’t it relevant for many potential users what the chip is?

It’s the nRF9151 from Nordic. We’ll include a detailed section on the SoC and a full schematic once the documentation is up

The platform as you said aims to abstract away a lot of these details (though they’ll still be available if needed). Each of the IO ports will be configurable as GPIO/Analog/SPI/I2C, etc. Since these are all accessed via the Lua API anyway, we expect folks to not have to dig through the SoC documentation in order to figure things out. All the relevant settings for each mode will be available through the API. But yes, if you need more info, then it’ll be available in the docs

Re: Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

#22

Post by siliconwitch »

RickS wrote: post #18

I started out very interested. I tried the particle photon when it first came out years ago, and this feels like a spiritual successor, somewhat. Good demo video. Various thoughts: 1. Consider defining best practices for solar and selling harder around that. I've got enough use for the board in hardwired environments, and can otherwise solve outdoor power issues, but having a recommended solution that I can trust to…

Completely understand. This is really good feedback. I can start off by saying that there will absolutely be a free tier within the platform where you can buy a board and that’ll include some amount of data allowance per month. It’ll also include some amount of AI usage too (even if that’s not so relevant for your application)

We’re modelling the hardware pricing such that the cost of the AI isn’t baked into the board cost. I understand that for some users, they might not necessarily need these features and it makes no sense for them to have to pay for it.

I’m expecting that we can have the boards competitively priced around the ~$70 mark, but often the distributors will try to price it in line with similar products they carry. I didn’t want to mention it in the video as we’re still negotiating this with them.

Going up from there, the subscription pricing will be split into several tiers that allow for higher data usage, AI usage and the ability to connect higher numbers of boards to one deployment.

It’s interesting that you mentioned that you’d like the data forwarding as a base feature. Our initial thoughts around that was to fulfil the requirement for companies who need to own their data. Ie we can’t store it for them. To be clear, you’ll still have access to the data via an API even in the free tier, and you’ll also be able to send data to devices via a REST API. It was just the live data forwarding from devices to your server that was intended to be limited to companies

Re: Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

#23

Post by siliconwitch »

999900000999 wrote: post #19
siliconwitch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SoC we use will also be gaining support for non-terrestrial networks soon. It’s the same feature that new iPhones have for Satellite based SOS when you’re outside of cell range. We’re not sure when it’ll be ready yet, or what the power consumption will be, but perhaps that could be something useful for this sort of use case. As far as I know it’ll support regular data traffic too, not just for emergencies.

Anyway to make a solid voice call? I know you probably have better things to do, but I have mockups and some rough designs if you’d like to talk

Voice is possible over LTE-M but it’s sort of the wrong technology for it. It’s designed for low power so the data rate is quite slow and the latency won’t work for two people trying to talk to each other.

It’s a similar speed to Bluetooth LE (not Bluetooth audio which headphones use). Sub 100kBps

NTN will be even slower. Few kBps. Really intended for sensor data or machine related actions

Re: Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

#24

Post by siliconwitch »

h1t35h wrote: post #10

What do you mean when you say consistent response is a problem ? Is it that each time the response varies or that the response cannot be relied upon. Have you tried fiddling around with temperature or SQL specific finetuned models?

We haven’t tried SQL specific models actually. That’s quite a good idea. Will try it out.

Yeah it mostly seems to be inconsistent at generating the SQL queries themselves. I guess my question was if this is even a good way to do it in the first place, or if we’re better off trying to analyse the data in a different way

Re: Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

#25

Post by xtiansimon »

Not a hobbyist in this area yet, but I’m curious. Hehe. The use cases I’m interested in are weather and water monitoring for fresh water fisheries. And in a completely different domain, I’m interested in noise analysis overnight. My neighbors are super noisy, and it’s difficult to demonstrate the breadth and depth of the disturbance to neutral parties.

Re: Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

#26

Post by 999900000999 »

siliconwitch wrote: post #23
999900000999 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway to make a solid voice call? I know you probably have better things to do, but I have mockups and some rough designs if you’d like to talk

Voice is possible over LTE-M but it’s sort of the wrong technology for it. It’s designed for low power so the data rate is quite slow and the latency won’t work for two people trying to talk to each other. It’s a similar speed to Bluetooth LE (not Bluetooth audio which headphones use). Sub 100kBps NTN will be even slower. Few kBps. Really intended for sensor data or machine related actions

Hmm.

As long as it can signal emergency services it'll be fine for what I'm thinking of. Texting emergency services a preset message like "Paramedic requested, at GPS cords..."

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