Seeed Studio Opens the Firmware Source for Its SenseCAP T1000-E Card Tracker, M2 LoRaWAN Gateway

Seeed Studio has announced a treat for anyone using its SenseCAP T1000-E Card Tracker or SenseCAP M2 LoRaWAN Gateway devices for experimenting with long-range low-power radio: the firmware for both has been released under an open source license.

"At Seeed Studio, we’ve always believed that innovation grows stronger in an open ecosystem," says Seeed's Zero Zhang. "That's why we’re excited to announce that we've officially open-sourced two key products from the SenseCAP LoRaWAN line-up: the SenseCAP T1000-E Card Tracker for LoRaWAN (not the Meshtastic version) and the SenseCAP M2 LoRaWAN Gateways. This move isn't just about transparency — it's about giving developers the tools they need to prototype faster, integrate more deeply, and bring tailored IoT [Internet of Things] solutions to market with confidence and agility."

The SenseCAP T1000-E is a credit card-sized tracker with integrated Bluetooth, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and LoRa radios. Packed in a sealed housing with an IP65 weatherproof rating, and featuring a single button, a buzzer, and an LED, it's designed for LoRa work in harsh environments — and has become a popular device for those looking to connect phones, laptops, and more to the Meshtastic community-driven mesh network.

The SenseCAM M2 LoRaWan Gateway, meanwhile, is built around a Semtech SX1302 transceiver and is designed as a fixed-position gateway or repeater for a LoRa network — making it ideal, the company says, for use in smart buildings, while Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support means it's easy to deploy with a single cable.

Now, both devices include open source firmware — meaning it's possible for developers to tweak their firmware, or use Seeed's offering as a jumping-off point to build their own. The company says that the release allows for "complete customization and functional expansion" for both devices — but while the source code is now publicly available, the company has not assigned a license, aside from mirroring the OpenWRT project's reciprocal GNU General Public License 2 on which the M2 firmware is built, beyond saying it encourages users to "explore, fork, adapt, and build."

The source code is now available on the SenseCAP T1000-E Card Tracker and the SenseCAP M2 LoRaWAN Gateway GitHub repositories; the former, however, cannot be applied to the SenseCAP T1000-E for Meshtastic device, which uses a separate firmware, only with the SenseCAP T1000-E for LoRaWAN variant.