RAKwireless Launches the RAK11720 All-in-One Bluetooth Low Energy and LoRa Microcontroller Module
Designed to cut down on the bill of materials, this compact module handles microcontroller, BLE, and LoRa duties all by itself.
Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity specialist RAKwireless has launched a new module which combines LoRa and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity in one: the WisDuo RAK11720.
"Making the IoT easy isn’t easy! But we believe we have done it again with the launch of our new hybrid WisDuo module," the company claims of its latest module design, "which usefully combines LoRa and Bluetooth BLE 5.0 capabilities. We are confident that the RAK11720 will empower IoT developers to create new applications, and we’re excited to see the business use cases it will inspire."
The new RAK11720 module, brought to our attention by CNX Software, combines the ultra-low-power Ambiq Apollo3 Blue system-on-chip (SoC) with Semtech's SX1262 LoRa transceiver. The former gives the module a single Arm Cortex-M4 processor core, with floating-point unit, running at up to 96MHz, 16kB of on-die and 1MB of on-chip flash, and 384kB of RAM, plus Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (BLE) connectivity; the latter offers LoRa connectivity, including peer-to-peer and LoRaWAN support.
"Other advantages of the RAK11720 are its size and its pin-to-pin compatibility with our popular module RAK3172," RAKwireless adds. "The RUI3 framework API [Application Programming Interface] allows code to be shared between these modules and simplifies the porting process between them. Since they have a standard hardware footprint, the user can start with a LoRaWAN-only module and then upgrade to BLE capability without making many changes to the PCB or coding."
The RAK11720 module is now available on the RAKwireless store for $7.99 plus shipping — a $2 premium over the company's LoRa-only RAK3172 — or $18 with breakout board. The device arrives running RAKwireless' own RUI3-based AT-command firmware as standard, with support for custom firmware development in the Arduino IDE via the RUI3 API.