Your MCU design is good; your MCU design with Wi-Fi connectivity for IoT would be even better.
In other words, it’s good that you’ve built a microcontroller application that controls temperature, for example. But now your customers say, “Add Wi-Fi connectivity so we can control temperature from anywhere in the world.”
Do you really want to implement Wi-Fi yourself?
Thought not. That’s a build-or-buy question that’s pretty easy to answer.
Arrow Electronics is shipping the GT202, an IoT development platform based on the QCA4002 system on a chip from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI). With the GT202, you don’t have to design, build, test and manufacture your own Wi-Fi hardware. Now you can integrate it by adding the GT202 module.
Getting Wi-Fi for your MCU
Inside the GT202 Production Module is the QCA4002, a single-chip SoC for low-power, embedded IoT applications in the smart home or office, such as connected appliances, smart lighting, security, doors, locks, cameras and temperature control. The GT202 includes connectors and interfaces to add Wi-Fi to a variety of MCUs:
- Arduino – for popular MCU vendor development kits including Kinetis and ST Nucleo
- PMOD – Renesas development boards
- SPI – multiple popular MCUs
The GT202 makes it easy to add full-featured 802.11 b/g/n to a variety of products with minimal development effort and cost. It offloads to the QCA4002 a lot of the networking stack, Wi-Fi processing and even application-level security for communications.
Three flavors of development kit
The QCA4002 is now a component in three different IoT development kits:
- GT202 – This kit consists of a GT202 module and GT202 adaptor board that is designed to pair with Arduino compatible MCU development platforms, such as the NXP Freedom board and the ST Micro Nucleo board. If you want low-power Wi-Fi for a microcontroller, then the GT202 with its standardized connectors may be all your MCU platform needs.
- Renesas Wi-Fi Cloud Connectivity Kit – If you work on MCUs from Renesas, look at their Wi-Fi Cloud Connectivity Kit for developing IoT applications on the 32-bit RX111 microcontroller. Renesas chose the GT202 as the Wi-Fi component for this kit, which is ideal for node- and sensor-based IoT designs. The kit includes a pre-programmed IoT demo called Smart Garage Door.
- S7G2 IoT Enabler Kit – Beyond Wi-Fi support from the GT202, the S7G2 offers other connectivity options for end-to-end IoT applications including AWS IoT and Verizon ThingSpace. Again, Renesas chose the GT202 in this kit for Wi-Fi connectivity in order for developers to evaluate the Renesas Synergy S7G2 platform. The IoT Enabler Kit includes three demo IoT applications in the form of lab projects with instructions.
As a result, you have access to reference platforms that easily integrate the MCU, sensors, Wi-Fi module and other hardware to commonly used IoT components and architectures.
Next steps
Whether you just want low-power Wi-Fi with security or full, end-to-end IoT connectivity, there’s a QCA4002-based development kit for you.
Order your kit now and start adding Wi-Fi to your microcontroller designs.
In addition, if you want to learn first-hand how the GT202 can help with your IoT development, Renesas and Arrow Electronics will be hosting a series of IoT Enabler Workshops around the country from November, 2016 through March, 2017. For a complete listing of events, please visit our Events section here on QDN. Or you can register for an event at the IoT Enabler Workshop Series Registration site.
