Sentrius IG60-BL654 + BT510 Starter Kit (+ optional LTE)

It is possible to bring up an AP on the IG60/SOM60 with network manager. If the connection is marked as "autoconnect" it will come up even after reboot. Property: connection.autoconnect: yes

However in so called APSTA mode (simultaneous station / AP operation) each connection (station and AP) need to have their own interface.

The standard interface is wlan0. For the AP it is necessary to define a secon interface, for example ap0:

iw phy0 interface add ap0 type __ap

This setting however is not persistent, hence it needs to be definded upon every reboot of the IG60/SOM60.

This could be achieved by adding above line to a script in /etc/profile.d. For example:

cat /etc/profile.d/add_ap0.sh

iw phy0 interface add ap0 type __ap

With this script being present the interface ap0 will be avaiable after each reboot.

AWM, if active, sets the regulatory domain and country of the 60 radio to the current location with the help of beacons it recieves from surrounding access points.

While it is mandatory to be FCC compliant, the routine to determine the location must run every 30min. This is a draw-back for softAPs created on the 60-radio as connections will be interupted every 30min. Some clients may take this less grazefully than others.

Running the AWM routine regularily is not mandatory for the other regulatory domains the 60-series is certified for, though. For those it is enough that the loaction is determined upon the first run of the routine and it as not to be repeated after that. That is what AWM-lite does.

So, for radios only deployed in regulatory domains ISED, ETSI, MIC, KC AWM-lite can be used, which also enables the seamless use of the 60-radio as softAP in conjunction with AWM(-lite).

It is also good practice to consult "app_note_60_summit_awm" which is located in the documents archive of a 60-radio software release.

The LTE modem inside a LTE equipped IG60 running Laird Linux can be enable with the following command:

echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/gpio/lte_on/value

A succesfull action will be indicated by two USB interfaces appearing:

# ip addr show

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000

    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00

    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo

       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

    inet6 ::1/128 scope host

       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000

    link/ether fa:87:d7:c4:c1:e3 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

3: eth1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000

    link/ether 36:42:a6:34:a7:4e brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

4: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000

    link/ether c0:ee:40:44:e1:b4 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

5: usb0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000

    link/ether fa:96:11:12:13:14 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

6: usb1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000

    link/ether fa:96:11:12:13:16 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

Only usb0 is used by the LTE modem. usb1 can be ignored.

To add files to a Laird Linux build, enable "BR2_ROOTFS_OVERLAY" in your config and provide it with an absolute path to the directory you would like to overlay.  Files in this directory will be inserted relative to "/".  For example, if you would like to add files to "/etc" and the path to the overlay directory is "/buildroot/overlay", create a directory "/buildroot/overlay/etc/<files>".

Adaptive World Mode should not be used when hosting an AP.  The channel hopping algorithm can cause disconnect issues in some cases.  The best option is to set the regulatory domain in firmware manually, but at the minimum the "adaptive_ww" service should be disabled.  

Laird has added custom packages to Laird Linux.  These can be found in "menuconfig", under the "Laird Connectivity" / "Packages" section.  

To enable a Wi-Fi bridge, select the package "BR2_PACKAGE_LRD_WIFI_BRIDGE" and then set the destination interface. For example, set the destination interface to "Ethernet" if you would like to bridge the Wi-Fi to a wired connection.  

The repo tool is often available to be installed using a package manager. In the case you're facing challenges with this method, or would like to directly add the repo files to your path, the following commands can be used:

sudo wget https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo -O /usr/local/bin/repo
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/repo


When you run the "repo init" command for the first time you will be asked to configure your name and email. You can also set these values with the following commands:

git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global color.ui true


Use Network Manager to set an IP address as static in Laird Linux.  In the example below the IP address of ETH0 will be set to 192.168.2.150.

nmcli con add type ethernet con-name "static-ip" ifname eth0 ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses 192.168.2.150/24
nmcli connection show
nmcli dev status

When an available LTE connection is configured along with WLAN profiles and/or one or more WLAN profiles, the Sentrius IG60 uses the following behaviour to establish network connections:

• If a WLAN like Wi-fi connection is established and available, it will be used when establishing a connection
• The LTE connection will be used for connections when a WLAN connection isn't available

After following all steps to register and commission your IG60-BL654-LTE trough Wi-fi then successively deploying BT510/610 into your Bluegrass account, go back to your IG60 Sentrius phone application to remove Wi-fi and enable LTE. After a couple of minutes the LTE connection should take over on sending BT510 data into your Bluegrass platform.

Please make sure to use a proper activated IoT SIM Card compatible with LTE Cat1 network.

Once a device has been provisioned into AWS Bluegrass platform, it should upgrade by itself. If the IG60 isn't being upgraded, it means that something is going wrong at a connection level.

Technically any magnet with sufficient field strength and proper field orientation can be used.
The magnet sensor used in the BT510 is a magnetoresistive sensor and hence the sensitive axis is in the sensor plane (other than for hall sensors where the sensitive axis is perpendicular to the sensor plane). Below picture indicates the sensitive axis. The sensor is NOT sensitive to the direction of the field!



More information about sensitivity and orientation recommendations from the sensor chip perspective is in the SM351LT data sheet. The below picture summarizes the most important aspects. It also shows the orientation of the sensor chip relative to the BT510 enclosure. The magnet coming with the BT510 is a rod-style magnet with axial magnetization and hence the field lines go from the short sides (top/bottom) of the magnet (more or less parallel) along the long sides of the magnet like indicated in the “magnet movement” section of the picture. This orientation ensures the field lines penetrating the sensor chip mainly along its sensitive axis. One can also see that rotating the magnet by 90° would lead to the field lines penetrating the sensor chip perpendicular to the sensitive axis and hence not generate any signal.



When selecting a different magnet than the standard BT510 magnet both field strength and orientation needs to be taken into account. A magnet with higher field strength can cover a larger operating distance to trigger the magnet switch. 

There exist a lot of standard round magnets on the market often used to stick/fix something onto metal surfaces and hence the magnetization is not critical and works for any magnetization type (like axial, vertical, diametrical…). However, often the magnetization type is not even specified for a particular magnet and cheap ones (like used for white boards) sometimes even have several magnetic poles in parallel over the area of the magnet. This actually helps for the common use-case of sticking well to metal surfaces but makes them quite unusable for reliably and reproducibly triggering a sensor chip.

How to best orientate your round magnet to get stable sensor near/far readings would depend on how the magnet is being magnetized and how the magnetic field lines would penetrate the sensor chip when applied. If the magnetization is unknown a magnetic field viewer (aka flux detector/viewer) can be used to "see" the magnetic poles and get the orientation of field lines.
 
The general advice would be to either use a rod-style magnet with axial magnetization in the above shown orientation or a round magnet with known magnetization type and then positioned in a way so that the field lines penetrate the sensor in its most sensitive axis. To ensure this, the magnetization of the magnet must be known before mounting.

Yes. There is a python script on the IG60-BL654 LL developer SD card image called
btpa_firmware_loader.py

This can be used to upload a new firmware to the BL654 inside IG60-BL654 LL.

IP stands for Ingress Protection. Its a standard we use to check the sealability of a product once it is installed.

It is composed as IP## , where first digit is for dust/solid objects and the 2nd digit, is for liquids.
Here is the meaning for each numerical code:

Yes, the BT510 Sentrius™ BT510 sensor is replaceable by removing the rear battery door cover.

The battery is a 3-volt lithium of CR2477 type.

The battery door cover has a gasket inside to keep out liquids.

The Sentrius™ BT510 is a Bluetooth 5 Low Energy multi-sensor and can last for months or years on its replaceable coin-cell battery. That battery life is dependent on lots of factors such as sleep time, ambient temperature, and more.

To estimate how long your BT510 application can go on a single battery, adjust the values at the BT510 battery life estimator

The Sentrius™ BT510 sensors range is dependent on a number of factors some of which are under user control.
You can configure a sensor using a Bluetooth connection and the Laird virtual serial port(vSP) service. The protocol sent over the virtual serial port is JSON-RPC version 2.This allows you to add new commands and features without changing the Bluetooth interface.
This includes being able to configure

• Tx power
• LE Coded (Long Range) PHY

More details are available via the BT510 user guide.

It is also possible to extend the range of the BT510 using the Laird BL654 Repeater/gateway smartbasic programs this allows the Laird BL654 module to function as a repeater or gateway for adverts from Laird’s BT510 sensors. It can also operate in AT mode where it can advertise, scan, connect, and offer GATT client and server capabilities. This application is controlled with the industry standard AT command protocol over a UART interface.

• BT510 Repeater Mode–The module listens for adverts from Laird’s BT510 sensors or other BT510 repeaters and rebroadcasts over the air so that a range extension can be facilitated. All other adverts are ignored.
• BT10 Gateway Mode–The module listens for adverts from Laird’s BT510 orBT510 Repeaters and sends them out in hex format over the UART interface so that a host can process them. It could forward to the cloud if it has the appropriate connectivity. All other adverts are ignored.
• Generic BLE Client/Server Mode–The module can be made to advertise, scan, connect, and pair. In addition, it can enable the creation of a GATT server table on-the-fly and, conversely can be a GATT client to interact with remote GATT servers.

More details are available via the BT510 Repeater/Gateway user guide.
The source code for all of these applications is hosted on our GitHub page:

The Sentrius™ BT510 advertises events. An event can be a temperature measurement, an alarm ,a battery measurement, a button press, a door opening/closing, or movement. The configuration of a sensor determines what kind of events it generates.

Access to accelerometer values is not possible but it is possible to configure the accelerometer sensitivity. You can configure a sensor using a Bluetooth connection and the Laird virtual serial port (VSP) service. The protocol sent over the virtual serial port is JSON-RPC version 2. This allows you to add new commands and features without changing the Bluetooth interface. The BT510 accelerometer creates a movement event.
More details can be found in the BT510 user guide.

Yes!

You can configure a sensor using a Bluetooth connection and the Laird virtual serial port(vSP) service. The protocol sent over the virtual serial port is JSON-RPC version 2. This allows you to add new commands and features without changing the Bluetooth interface.

This includes being able to change the PHY to LE coded for long range applications.
The Laird BT510 smartphone applications allows a user to select LE Coded PHY.
LE Coded PHY can also be selected from your own smartphone application using JSON over VSP BLE connections.
Details can be found in the BT510 user guide

Out of the box the BT510 is configured via a smartphone app but this does not allow a developer to reprogram the BT510. However the BT510 can be programmed by a developer using Zephyr in C. More details can be found at the following link.

The Zephyr OS is based on a small-footprint kernel designed for use on resource-constrained and embedded systems: from simple embedded environmental sensors and LED wearables to sophisticated embedded controllers, smart watches, and IoT wireless applications.

The BT510 sensor is configured using a smartphone via BLE out of the box. It is also possible for a developer to load their own C code onto the BT510 via a programming cable.

The BT510 board does not have an on-board J-Link debug IC as some nRF5x development boards, however, instructions from the Nordic nRF5x Segger J-Link; page also apply to this board, with the additional step of connecting an external debugger.

Laird Connectivity will provide the USB-SWD programming board that supports this connector layout, refer to the USB SWD Programmer product page

On the LairdLinux versions of the IG60 (455-00006, 455-00076, 455-00084 or 455-00088) you can access the console port by either attaching a USB to Serial adapter to the IG60 USB port and a null modem cable to your computer or by attaching a USB to serial cable to the IG60 USB port and a null modem adapter to your computer.

Also on the IG60-Serial (455-00006) or the IG60-Serial+LTE (455-00084), you can connect a null modem cable to the serial port on the IG60 and your computer.  

Note: You are not able to access the console on a GreenGrass version of the IG60 (455-00008, 455-00081, 455-00085 or 455-00089).

Laird Connectivity is committed to the long-term supply of all its standard embedded wireless modules and packaged products. Laird Connectivity’s products are specifically designed to meet the needs of the industrial and medical markets, which typically require 7 – 10 years product lifecycle. Although Laird Connectivity can’t guarantee that a component used in our products will not be obsoleted and cannot be reasonably substituted, Laird Connectivity can assure customers we will continue to sell our product when we have customer demand and can obtain the necessary components to build our products.

View our full policy here.