IoT Specialist inx Launches a Crowdfunding Campaign for the Multi-Format, Highly-Flexible WAN-4-ALL

No-code Internet of Things (IoT) specialist inx is crowdfunding an Espressif ESP32-S3-powered LoRa module designed to make building connected devices easier — and a multi-format carrier board to speed up prototyping, too: the WAN-4-ALL.

"WAN-4-ALL makes LoRaWAN more accessible and versatile than ever," claims inx director Pierre Drezet. "Supplied with pre-installed IoT firmware and no-code development tools to make sure you are productive in your first minutes of unboxing WAN-4-ALL. As well as being perfect for makers, the WAN-4-ALL module is the perfect stepping stone to commercial products as it can be provided at a low cost for integration into your custom smart products once the PoC [Proof of Concept] work is done."

The heart of the WAN-4-ALL is the "OEM Module," which combines an Espressif ESP32-S3 controller, featuring 512kB of static RAM (SRAM) and 8MB of SPI flash, with a Seeed Studio Wio-E5 Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, and LoRa radio module — itself driven by a dedicated STMicroelectronics STM32WLE5JC network processor. This, the company says, contains everything you need to build smart IoT devices with short-range, high-speed, or long-range connectivity — and is fully supported by the Lucid no-code development platform.

For ease of prototyping and experimentation, the OEM Module can be connected into a carrier that breaks out its various features — and if you haven't yet settled on an ecosystem for your add-ons, you'll find almost every angle covered: the carrier includes two mikroBUS expansion slots, an Adafruit FeatherWing-compatible header, an Arduino MKR-compatible header, six Grove ports (2× I2C, 2× analog, 2× digital), and a 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header, along with four user-addressable push-button switches and matching LEDs.

Both the module and its breakout board are, inx promises, to be provided as open-source "with permissive attribution-only licensing terms," Drezet explains. "The inxware firmware has a similar permissive open source SDK allowing all function blocks provided to be modified, extended or ported to new hardware" — though, Drezet warns, the software development kit does include "proprietary elements" provided as cross-platform binary blobs.

The WAN-4-ALL is currently funding on Kickstarter, with physical rewards starting at £25 (around $32) for a "super early beta" carrier board and OEM module bundle, rising to £49 for "early bird" backers and £55 for the rest (around $62 and $70 respectively); hardware will begin shipping to beta backers in January next year, inx says, with the early bird hardware shipping in March and the remainder in April.