First Steps with the Nordic Thingy:91 X

A hands-on first look at the Thingy:91 X cellular IoT prototyping platform from Nordic Semiconductor.

Chris Wilson
21 days agoInternet of Things

In December 2024, Nordic Semiconductor launched the Nordic Thingy:91 X, an exciting new addition to their Thingy family of rapid prototyping platforms for IoT applications. The new battery-powered Thingy:91 X is an evolution of the original Thingy:91, specifically designed to enable rapid development of prototypes for cellular IoT applications, such as asset tracking and environmental monitoring.

One of the most interesting – and frankly understated – aspects of the Thingy:91 X product launch is Nordic’s novel approach to the traditional development kit “Getting Started” experience. Gone are the days of spending hours installing gigabytes of toolchains just to blink an LED. Instead, just pop in a SIM card, power on the device, and Bob’s your uncle – you can blink an LED from the cloud!

Here’s a hands-on look at first steps with the Thingy:91 X and some tips for next steps on how to get started developing your own applications for the device.

Hardware overview

Thingies are intended to showcase Nordic’s flagship silicon and the Thingy:91 X is a prime example of that philosophy–the board packs five different Nordic devices into a small handheld package!

At the heart of the system is the nRF9151, a low-power cellular IoT System-in-Package (SiP) which supports LTE-M, NB-IoT, GNSS, and DECT NR+. The board also features Nordic’s nRF7002 Wi-Fi 6 companion IC and the nRF5340 SoC that supports Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth mesh, NFC, Thread and Zigbee. Even the onboard power management is handled by Nordic nPM6001 and nPM1300 PMICs, which provide battery charging and fuel gauging functionalities.

A series of on-board environmental monitoring and movement tracking sensors enable rapid development of proof of concept (POC) IoT applications early in the product development lifecycle. Unlike typical development boards, the Thingy:91 X comes ready to be deployed in real-world test environments. The hardware has been designed to last for months or even years on the built-in LiPo battery and the PCB is protected by a tough, splash-proof case.

Although the device is designed to look and feel like a product, it has all the affordances that embedded developers would expect from modern development hardware. In addition to built-in USB and SWD connectors, the board also provides a connector interface for an included breakout board, enabling trace debug and current measurement with Nordic’s Power Profiler Kit. It even includes an I2C expansion port for hooking up external boards compatible with the popular Qwiic and STEMMA QT ecosystems.

Connecting to nRF Cloud

With all the hardware features packed into the Thingy:91 X, getting to a working proof of concept for an IoT product might initially seem like a daunting task. Even a simple IoT POC deployed in the field for testing requires the development of both firmware and cloud services that support device management, secure data transmission, and over-the-air updates. In the past, it could take weeks just to get a device like this sending basic sensor data to a cloud service.

Nordic has invested significant effort into making it simple for new users to get their device securely connected to Nordic’s nRF Cloud in minutes, without having to write a single line of code. The Thingy:91 X comes preloaded with custom firmware that automatically connects to hello.nrfcloud.com, a new browser-based application built on top of nRF Cloud. Included SIM cards from Onomondo and Wireless Logic come pre-activated with 5-10 MB of data, enabling the device to connect without any prior registration or activation.

Connecting a new Thingy:91 X to hello.nrfcloud.com is a simple three step process:

  • Insert the SIM card into the Thingy:91 X.
  • Switch the power switch to “ON."
  • Scan the QR code on the device to open the device’s management page.

That’s it!

Once the device is connected to the network, the page automatically updates with real-time data sent from the remote device to nRF Cloud.

At the top of the management page, some basic device info is displayed: cellular network type (LTE-M or NB-IoT), SIM vendor, data remaining on the SIM card, remaining battery life, as well as temperature and air quality indicators. There’s even a small widget for setting the color of the onboard LED.

A historical graph view shows device usage metrics over the last hour, day, week, or month. This view also demonstrates an integration with Memfault that displays recent device reboots within the same graph.

More detailed device management configuration and metadata is displayed at the bottom of the device management page. This includes the firmware version information used by the nRF Cloud firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) update service for wireless firmware update.

Location tracking

The Thingy:91 X is an ideal platform for prototyping asset tracking applications, and hello.nrfcloud.com includes a built-in interactive map for real-time location tracking out of the box.

Multiple complementary location tracking methods are supported:

  • GNSS
  • Wi-Fi
  • Cellular (single-cell and multi-cell)

Each of the supported location tracking methods provides a different tradeoff between location accuracy and the power consumed by the device.

GNSS locationing is the most accurate method, providing meters of accuracy, but it has the highest power consumption. Typically, the time it takes a GPS modem to get a fix on a group of satellites from a cold-start can be on the order of minutes, quickly draining precious battery life. However, by using Assisted- and Predicted-GPS (A-GPS and P-GPS) services provided by Nordic’s nRF Cloud Location Services, the Thingy:91 X can find the satellites in just seconds, drastically reducing the time required to obtain a precise location.

In cases where a GPS signal is not available–for example, when the device is located indoors – an alternative location method uses Wi-Fi to scan for nearby SSIDs and send them to nRF Cloud where they are matched against a Wi-Fi database to determine location. While only effective in populated areas, WiFi-based locationing can provide tens of meters of accuracy on a much lower power budget than GNSS-based positioning.

Finally, the device can be located by periodically sending information about nearby cell towers to nRF Cloud, where the location is calculated using a database of cell tower locations. This can be done using just the single cell tower the device is connected to (SCELL), or by scanning for neighboring cell towers to calculate a more accurate location (MCELL). Cellular-based locationing is the lowest power and least accurate, providing hundreds or thousands of meters of accuracy.

This ability to seamlessly switch between a combination of location tracking methods allows the Thingy:91 X to dynamically trade-off accuracy against battery life in the most optimal way for each application.

Next steps

If you’ve just received your first Thingy:91 X, hello.nrfcloud.com is by far the easiest way to get the device connected to the cloud and experiment with the hardware capabilities. However, at some point you’ll need to jump out of the sandbox and start developing your own application for the Thingy:91 X.

Here are some resources and tips to help you get started.

First, head to nordicsemi.com/start-thingy91x and follow the instructions to install the nRF Connect for Desktop application onto your PC. The included “Quick Start” application will walk you through the process of programming the device with a couple pre-compiled sample applications.

For example, the nRF Cloud multi-service application will allow you to evaluate multiple services provided by the full nRF Cloud: device onboarding, data collection, FOTA updates, location, logging, and alerts.

When you’re ready to start writing your own application for the Thingy:91 X, make sure to check out the Nordic Developer Academy. The academy provides free self-paced training on the fundamentals of using the nRF Connect SDK to develop Zephyr RTOS-based IoT applications. There are additional training modules covering Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, and cellular IoT fundamentals.

Finally, if you want to learn how Nordic built the hello.nrfcloud.com firmware and cloud application, the source code is published as a collection of repositories on GitHub.

Now that you know how to get started, go build something cool with the Thingy:91 X!

Chris Wilson
Chris has over a decade of experience building low-power embedded systems for the Internet of Things.
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