NBSN95 is a Long Range NB-IoT Sensor Node. It is designed for outdoor data logging and powered by Li/SOCl2 battery for long term use and secure data transmission. It is designed to facilitate developers to quickly deploy industrial level NB-IoT solutions. It helps users to turn the idea into a practical application and make the Internet of Things a reality. It is easy to program, create and connect your things everywhere.

NarrowBand-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a standards-based low power wide area (LPWA) technology developed to enable a wide range of new IoT devices and services. NB-IoT significantly improves the power consumption of user devices, system capacity and spectrum efficiency, especially in deep coverage.

NBSN95 uses STM32l0x chip from ST, STML0x is the ultra-low-power STM32L072xx microcontrollers incorporate the connectivity power of the universal serial bus (USB 2.0 crystal-less) with the high-performance ARM® Cortex®-M0+ 32-bit RISC core operating at a 32 MHz frequency, a memory protection unit (MPU), high-speed embedded memories (192 Kbytes of Flash program memory, 6 Kbytes of data EEPROM and 20 Kbytes of RAM) plus an extensive range of enhanced I/Os and peripherals.

NBSN95 is an open source product, it is based on the STM32Cube HAL drivers and lots of libraries can be found in ST site for rapid development.

1) ISP: upgrade mode, device won't have any signal in this mode. but ready for upgrade firmware. LED won't work. Firmware won't run.

2) Flash: work mode, device starts to work and send out console output for further debug

The NBSN95 is equipped with a NB-IoT module, the pre-loaded firmware in NBSN95 will get environment data from sensors and send the value to local NB-IoT network via the NB-IoT module.  The NB-IoT network will forward this value to IoT server via the protocol defined by NBSN95.

The diagram below shows the working flow in default firmware of NBSN95: 

To use NBSN95 in your city, make sure meet below requirements:

Below figure shows our testing structure.   Here we have NB-IoT network coverage by China Mobile, the band they use is B8.  The NBSN95 will use CoAP(120.24.4.116:5683) or raw UDP(120.24.4.116:5601) or MQTT(120.24.4.116:1883)or TCP(120.24.4.116:5600)protocol to send data to the test server

Insert the NB-IoT Card get from your provider.

User need to take out the NB-IoT module and insert the SIM card like below:

Make sure the switch is in FLASH position, then power on device by connecting the jumper on NBSN95. NBSN95 will output system info once power on as below, we can enter the password: 12345678 to access AT Command input. 

Note: the valid AT Commands can be found at:  https://www.dragino.com/downloads/index.php?dir=NB-IoT/NBSN95/

This feature is supported since firmware version v110, it supports only plain MQTT now it doesn't support TLS and other related encryption.

To save battery life, NBSN95 will establish a subscription before each uplink and close the subscription 3 seconds after uplink successful. Any downlink commands from server will only arrive during the subscription period.

MQTT protocol has a much higher power consumption compare vs UDP / CoAP protocol. Please check the power analyze document and adjust the uplink period to a suitable interval.

NOTE:

1. By default, the device will send an uplink message every 1 hour.

If we use the MQTT client to subscribe to this MQTT topic, we can see the following information when the NSE01 uplink data.

By default, the Device ID equal to the last 6 bytes of IMEI.

User can use AT+DEUI to set Device ID

Example:

AT+DEUI=A84041F15612

The Device ID is stored in a none-erase area, Upgrade the firmware or run AT+FDR won't erase Device ID.

Specify the software version: 0x64=100, means firmware version 1.00.

For example: 0x00 64 : this device is NSE01 with firmware version 1.0.0.

Check the battery voltage for LSE01.

Ex1: 0x0B45 = 2885mV

Ex2: 0x0B49 = 2889mV

NB-IoT Network signal Strength.

Ex1: 0x1d = 29

0        -113dBm or less

1        -111dBm

2...30 -109dBm... -53dBm

31      -51dBm or greater

99      Not known or not detectable

05DC(H) = 1500(D) /100 = 15%.

Get the temperature in the soil. The value range of the register is -4000 - +800(Decimal), divide this value by 100 to get the temperature in the soil. For example, if the data you get from the register is 0x09 0xEC, the temperature content in the soil is

Example:

If payload is 0105H: ((0x0105 & 0x8000)>>15 === 0),temp = 0105(H)/100 = 2.61 °C

If payload is FF7EH: ((FF7E & 0x8000)>>15 ===1),temp = (FF7E(H)-FFFF(H))/100 = -1.29 °C

Obtain soluble salt concentration in soil or soluble ion concentration in liquid fertilizer or planting medium. The value range of the register is 0 - 20000(Decimal)( Can be greater than 20000).

For example, if the data you get from the register is 0x00 0xC8, the soil conductivity is 00C8(H) = 200(D) = 200 uS/cm.

Generally, the EC value of irrigation water is less than 800uS / cm.

Digital Interrupt refers to pin GPIO_EXTI, and there are different trigger methods. When there is a trigger, the NSE01 will send a packet to the server.

The command is:

AT+INTMOD=3    //(more info about INMOD please refer AT Command Manual).

The lower four bits of this data field shows if this packet is generated by interrupt or not. Click here for the hardware and software set up.

Example:

0x(00): Normal uplink packet.

0x(01): Interrupt Uplink Packet.

NSE01 will enable +5V output before all sampling and disable the +5v after all sampling.  

The 5V output time can be controlled by AT Command.

AT+5VT=1000

Means set 5V valid time to have 1000ms. So the real 5V output will actually have 1000ms + sampling time for other sensors.

Examples:

If the payload=0100003C, it means set the END Node's TDC to 0x00003C=60(S), while type code is 01.

Payload:    01 00 00 1E    TDC=30S

Payload:    01 00 00 3C    TDC=60S

If payload = 0x04FF, it will reset the NSE01

Downlink Payload: 06000003, Set AT+INTMOD=3

The NSE01 has an internal LED which is to show the status of different state. 

• When power on, NSE01 will detect if sensor probe is connected, if probe detected, LED will blink four times. (no blinks in this step is no probe)
• Then the LED will be on for 1 second means device is boot normally.
• After NSE01 join NB-IoT network. The LED will be ON for 3 seconds.
• For each uplink probe, LED will be on for 500ms.

Choose the proper measuring position. Avoid the probe to touch rocks or hard things. Split the surface soil according to the measured deep. Keep the measured as original density. Vertical insert the probe into the soil to be measured. Make sure not shake when inserting. https://img.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/2005165265/O1CN010rj9Oh1olPsQxrdUK_!!2005165265.jpg

https://www.dragino.com/downloads/index.php?dir=NB-IoT/NSE01/firmware/

The NSE01 battery is a combination of an 8500mAh Li/SOCI2 Battery and a Super Capacitor. The battery is none-rechargeable battery type with a low discharge rate (<2% per year). This type of battery is commonly used in IoT devices such as water meter.

The battery is designed to last for several years depends on the actually use environment and update interval.  

The battery related documents as below:

Dragino battery powered product are all runs in Low Power mode. We have an update battery calculator which base on the measurement of the real device. User can use this calculator to check the battery life and calculate the battery life if want to use different transmit interval.

Instruction to use as below:

Step 1:  Downlink the up-to-date DRAGINO_Battery_Life_Prediction_Table.xlsx from: https://www.dragino.com/downloads/index.php?dir=LoRa_End_Node/Battery_Analyze/

Step 2:  Open it and choose

And the Life expectation in difference case will be shown on the right.

The Li-SICO battery is designed for small current / long period application. It is not good to use a high current, short period transmit method. The recommended minimum period for use of this battery is 5 minutes. If you use a shorter period time to transmit LoRa, then the battery life may be decreased.

The default battery pack of NSE01 includes a ER26500 plus super capacitor. If user can't find this pack locally, they can find ER26500 or equivalence without the SPC1520 capacitor, which will also work in most case. The SPC can enlarge the battery life for high frequency use (update period below 5 minutes).

Users can directly access the AT command set of the NB-IoT module.

The AT Command set can refer the BC35-G NB-IoT Module AT Command: https://www.dragino.com/downloads/index.php?dir=datasheet/other_vendors/BC35-G/  

User can upgrade the firmware for 1) bug fix, 2) new feature release.

Please see this link for how to upgrade:  http://wiki.dragino.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Firmware%20Upgrade%20Instruction%20for%20STM32%20base%20products/#H2.HardwareUpgradeMethodSupportList

Notice, NSE01 and LSE01 share the same mother board. They use the same connection and method to update.

NSE01 is calibrated for saline-alkali soil and loamy soil. If users want to use it for other soil, they can calibrate the value in the IoT platform base on the value measured by saline-alkali soil and loamy soil. The formula can be found at this link.

Please see: http://wiki.dragino.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/Firmware%20Upgrade%20Instruction%20for%20STM32%20base%20products/#H3.3Troubleshooting

In the case if user can see the console output but can't type input to the device. Please check if you already include the ENTER while sending out the command. Some serial tool doesn't send ENTER while press the send key, user need to add ENTER in their string. 

Package Includes:

• NSE01 NB-IoT Soil Moisture & EC Sensor x 1
• External antenna x 1

Dimension and weight:

• Size: 195 x 125 x 55 mm
• Weight:   420g