Seeed Studio has unveiled its newest gadgets designed to be used on the Meshtastic mesh LoRa community: the solar-powered SenseCAP Photo voltaic Node P1 and P1-Professional.
“The SenseCap Photo voltaic Node [is] a solar-powered off-grid communication and positioning resolution based mostly on Meshtastic,” the corporate says of its newest launch, “to construct a wise community with out boundaries. “Ship real-time location and textual content messages in areas with out community protection. Function a mesh relay node to increase the protection of the present Meshtastic community. Be taught concerning the improvement of Meshtastic and LoRa decentralized networks.”
Seeed Studio has unveiled a lower-cost all-in-one gadget for deploying a solar-powered Meshtastic node: the SenseCAP Photo voltaic Node P1 and P1-Professional. (📷: Seeed Studio)
The brand new gadgets, delivered to our consideration by CNX Software program, are constructed across the pairing of a XIAO nRF52840 Plus microcontroller board with a Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 chip delivering a single 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 core operating at as much as 64MHz, 256kB of static RAM (SRAM), 1MB of on-chip and 2MB of on-board flash reminiscence, and a Wio-SX1262 module with Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver. It is designed particularly to be used with Meshtastic, an open supply neighborhood pushed firmware that turns low-cost microcontrollers and transceivers into nodes on a free-to-use mesh community.
The bottom SenseCAP Photo voltaic Node P1 equipment features a weatherproof housing connected to the rear of a 5W photo voltaic panel, designed for mounting on a wall or pole with the included mounting brackets. a 2dBi dipole antenna offers omnidirectional protection, whereas the gadget may be saved operating when the solar goes down by including a quartet of 18650 lithium batteries. The SenseCAP Photo voltaic Node P1-Professional consists of all the pieces from the bottom equipment plus a XIAO L76K GPS module and 4 18650 batteries pre-installed.
The housing consists of room for 4 18650 batteries, which come pre-installed within the P1-Professional variant. (📷: Seeed Studio)
The brand new gadgets come every week after RAKwireless introduced its personal solar-powered Meshtastic nodes, the WishMesh Repeater and Repeater Mini. Like Seeed’s model the gadgets are based mostly on a Nordic nRF52840 microcontroller and Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver pairing, however RAKwireless affords a extra compact single-box resolution alongside Photo voltaic Node P1-like bigger variant with separate photo voltaic panel and battery pack — at, admittedly, a significantly greater worth.
The SenseCAP Photo voltaic Node P1 is accessible to pre-order on the Seeed retailer now for $69.90, with out GPS module and batteries; the SenseCAP Photo voltaic Node P1-Professional, which incorporates GPS module and 4 18650 batteries, is priced at $89.90. Each gadgets are as a result of begin transport in early June, the corporate has confirmed.
