SIGFOX Makers Tour event in FabLab Barcelona 26.11.2015

1. #7 Barcelona — 26.11.2015

2. Program
• Slides
• Demo(s)
• Workshop
• Fun

3. Us
Nicolas Lesconnec
Developer & Maker Evangelist
Anthony Charbonnier
Startup Relations Manager
Jon Regueiro
Support Engineer

4. ABOUT SIGFOX

5. About SIGFOX
• SIGFOX has invented a radiocommunication
protocol
• SIGFOX is operating a global network
• SIGFOX does not sell hardware components
• SIGFOX does not build connected solutions

6. New possibilities
• Direct Internet connection.
• No battery drain. Years of autonomy.
• Detect. Send. Receive.
• No configuration

7. In a nutshell
• Power on
• Send a message
• It’s picked up by n of our base stations
• Instantly forwarded to your own server
• That’s it

8. Complexity
• AT$SF=0123456789
• No pairing or configuration of any kind
• HTTP request to your server

9. Proof

10. Why SIGFOX
• Hub-based technologies are not compatible with
independent devices
• Need for a protocol designed for the IoT, and
not one tweaked to address it.

11. Core concepts
• Energy efficiency
• Very Long Range
• Out of the box connectivity
• Outdoor + Indoor
• Two-way communication
• Low bandwidth, small messages
• Ultra Narrow Band

12. Energy efficiency
• Tx : ~25/30 mA for a few seconds
• 99.x% of the time, device is silent
• Idle consumption is key
• Idle : a few µA

13. Very Long Range
• Countryside : Tens of kms
• Cities : A few kms
• Direct line of sight : wow !

14. Out of the box
• Network is serving the devices, not the other
way round
• Device simply sends a frame, message is
detected by n base stations
• Message is validated / deduplicated by our
backend

15. Outdoor + indoor
• 868MHz has good propagation properties
• Radio waves are not magic
• Consider ~20dB of attenuation indoor, and
~30dB for light underground or tricky buildings

16. Two-way communication
• Send updates to your device(s)
• Default behaviour: wake up, send, back to sleep
• No passive Rx mode
• Device can receive a message upon request
• Every communication is instigated by the device

17. Low bandwidth
• 100 bits / s
• 12 bytes per message

18. 12 bytes !?
• Yes. Seriously. 12 bytes.
• This is the available payload.
• You can put a lot of info in 96 bits
• 2^96 is a 30ish-digit number.
• 8 billions of billions of billions of possible values

19. Payload examples
• Full GPS Coordinates : 6 bytes
• Temperature : 2 bytes
• State reporting : 1 byte
• Hearbeat, update request : 0 byte

20. How frequently ?
• 140 times a day

21. 140 times / day
• Not a technology limit
• Compliant with the European regulation: 1% duty
cycle

22. Money
• Most pricey subscription: €14/year
• A couple of devices, 140 messages/day
• The higher volume, the lower the price
• The lower number of messages, the lower the price
• Down to €1/year for large volumes & a couple of
messages/day
• Startup plan : €8/year, as if already 30k devices.

23. Security

24. Security
• Each device is identified by a unique ID on the
network
• Each message is signed
• Servers managed by ourselves, in 2 french
datacenters.
• Security is never finished, permanent effort.

25. Signature
• Each message is accompanied by an hashed
signature, made from :
• the device id
• the device PK (unknown to the user)
• the payload
• internal increment

26. Signature
• Replayed messages
• Altered messages
• Spoofed messages

27. Encryption
• By default, the payload is not encrypted
• Encryption cost a lot of energy
• No « one size fits all » solution.
• Up to you to use the encryption most suited to
your case

28. Radio properties
• Great resistance to interferors
• Very difficult to jam
• Interception is hard
• UNB
• Unpredictable frequency

29. Radio properties

30. Ultra Narrow Band

31. Ultra Narrow Band
• The SIGFOX protocol relies on the Ultra Narrow
Band technology
• A message : ~100Hz wide
• Each base station watch a 200KHz part of the
spectrum
• Hard part: detect message without knowledge
of the precise frequency or schedule

32. Ultra Narrow Band
• Why Ultra Narrow Band ?
• Easy analogy : cars vs motorbikes

33. Quiet Base station

34. Undesired signals

35. Message received

36. Frequency used
• SIGFOX uses unlicensed sub-GHz bands :
• 868MHz in Europe
• 902MHz in the US

37. Unlicensed != unregulated
• SIGFOX complies with both ETSI (Europe) &
FCC (US) regulations
• ETSI : 1% duty cycle
• FCC : duration of emission

38. Coverage

39. Global network
• Roaming is included in the basic subscription
• Your device can switch from one country to
another without additional charges.

40. Current - Nationwide
• France
• Netherlands
• Spain
• UK

41. Current - cities
• Bogota
• Dublin
• Milan
• Munich
• Santiago
• San Francisco
• …

42. Rollout in progress
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• Portugal
• USA

43. USA
• Currently: San Francisco
• Early 2016 : 10 majors cities, including Atlanta,
Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles
• And we’re just starting :)

45. Hello World

46. Hello World
• Send a dummy message
• Check it on the SIGFOX website
• Forward it through the callback mechanism
• Store message in a database
• Display list of recorded events

47. Use cases

48. IoT != Connected gadgets
Sexy Stuff
BORING
BUT USEFUL
IOT

49. Good use cases
• Not that talkative devices : small messages
every now and then
• Independent devices

50. Metering & utilities

51. Smart City

52. • Track the location of any good or equipment
• Post theft devices
Logistics

53. Ifttt-like
• Press the button, send an
empty frame & trigger any pre
determined action
• « Mom I’m home ! »
• « Get me a taxi»
• Replay last order, ~Amazon Dash

54. « Silver economy »
• Health monitoring, fall alerts, ..
• Without the locked-in effect of gateway-based solutions
• Track the community-payed services effectiveness
• Did the carer really come every day for 2 hours ?

55. • Know when some equipment is about to fail
• Schedule maintenance works efficiently
Predictive maintenance

56. Agriculture
• Monitor environment values all over an
exploitation : light, soil moisture, ..
• Animal health & location tracking

57. DIY Projects
• Connected wine cellar. Because french.
• Connected cat food dispenser. Because cats.
• Kitchen garden: temperature, moisture, …
• GPS Tracking of anything

58. You ?
• You can build a PoC very quickly
• Lot of funny stuff to make
• And lot of $$$ to make too ;)
• KISS, dumb device means:
• Cheap
• Less prone to failure

59. Hardware

60. Hardware SIGFOX
• SIGFOX is not a hardware vendor
• Many established partners offer SIGFOX-ready
chips: Atmel, TI, Silicon Labs, Axsem, Atim, …
• Most Sub-GHz radio transceivers are
compatible, it’s just about a software upgrade.

61. Prototyping
• Arduino : Snootlab, SmartEverything
• Raspberry Pi : Yadom
• Can be bought one unit a time
• Get started within minutes
• Not for industrial use

62. Modules
• Easy to work with : AT commands
• Price range from ~10 to 20€
• Evaluation boards available from
manufacturers : Adeunis, Telecom Design,
Telit, ..

63. SoC, transceivers
• Texas Instruments, Atmel, SiLabs, Axsem, ..
• Cheap, a few $
• More complex to work with if not familiar
• Certification needed if you don’t stick to the
provided ref design.

64. Antenna
• Critical when doing radio
• 868MHz -> best case is 17cm (lambda/2)
• Helicoidal, patch, … antennas possible.

65. Cloud

66. Get your data
• Part of the standard service.
• 3 ways
• View - website
• Pull - HTTP API
• Push - HTTP Callback

67. Common use case :
push callbacks
• Get notified each time of your devices send a
message
• Can trigger whatever you want : alarm,
notification, data processing, …
• Example here: http://github.com/nicolsc/sigfox-
callback-demo

68. Set up a callback

69. Downlink
• Message sent to a device can be
• Automatic with a pre configuration
• Sent from your own server

70. Downlink auto
• Simply set what message you want to send back
• Hardcoded
• Time, Station ID, .. for sync purposes

71. Downlink callback
• Same mechanism than the uplink callback
• Set up an URL
• An when called, send your 8-byte frame within
the response body

73. Real demo

74. Connected RFID reader
• Standard 125KHz RFID reader & tags
• Once a tag is detected, send its ID through
SIGFOX
• Update a live dashboard
• Do something else :)

76. Resources
• https://github.com/ameltech/
• + Checkout http://github.com/nicolsc for some
demos & sample codes

77. First steps with the
SmartEverything

78. Register
• http://backend.sigfox.com/activate
• Click SmartEverything
• Enter the device id of your board + the provided PAC
number
• Check http://192.168.5.38:1234/
• Operator : select SIGFOX_Spain
• Enter your personal info

79. Getting started
• Plug the SmartEverything board using a micro USB cable
• Plug the antenna ;)
• Check that it’s recognised by your computer
• $ ls /dev/tty.*
• Windows
• Launch Powershell
• > [System.IO.Ports.SerialPort]::getportnames()

80. Arduino setup
• Install the Arduino Zero core
• Tools > Boards > Board Manager
• Install the ASME core
• Tools > Boards > Manager (Again !), filter on type=Partner
• Choose the SmartEverything Board Type
• Tools > Boards
• Install the libs associated to each sensor (... and to the SIGFOX module)
• Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries ; Filter on
Type=Partner ; install each library

81. 1st Arduino Sketch
• Open the Arduino IDE
• Select Board Type > Smart Everything Fox (USB)
• Select the correct port
• File > Examples > SmartEverything > VL6180X >
AmbientLight
• Upload
• The blue LED on the board should blink

82. Hello World
• File > Examples > SmartEverything > Sigfox >
DataModeEU
• Upload

83. Check message
• http://backend.sigfox.com
• Navigate to the « device » menu
• Click on the device ID
• « Devices messages »

84. Set up a callback

85. Callbacks menu
• On your device page, go to Info & click on the
device type
• On the device type page, you have a Callbacks
menu
• Then, click New on the top right corner

87. Callback Setup
• You can choose to receive an email, or redirect
each message to a URL of your choice
• You can set the headers (content-type, ..), and
body format of the HTTP request

88. Downlink

89. How does it work ?
• The Module send the frame, then sleep for 20s
• Then it enters Rx mode
• Waits 20s for a response
• Quits Rx mode & goes to deep sleep

90. Request a downlink
• Use the AT$SF command, with an additional
parameters
• AT$SF = [hex byte]*, 2, 1

91. Set up the downlink

92. Handle the response
• When entering Rx mode, the module will display
• +RX BEGIN
• Received frame will be displayed as
• +RX=[hex byte] [hex byte]…
• When leaving Rx mode, it will display
• +RX END

93. Handle the response
• Detect an input line starting with +RX= & parse it
as a series of hex bytes
• If no downlink message has been sent, you’ll
have no +RX= line, just the BEGIN & END flags

94. Sample input/output
AT$SF=55 50 4c 49 4e 4b, 2, 1
OK
+RX BEGIN
+RX=44 4f 57 4e 4c 49 4e 4b
+RX END

95. Contribute

96. Share
• Please share what you’ll make with SIGFOX
• Hackster.io, instructables, github … your move.
• Q&A
• http://sigfox.cloud.answerhub.com/
• Keep in touch :
• nicolas.lesconnec@sigfox.com
• twitter: @nlesconnec