Conexio Stratus Cellular-IoT Prototyping Platform

Conexio Stratus Cellular Kit Overview

Stratus is a tiny, yet powerful development kit for creating cellular-connected electronic projects and products. It is a battery-operated platform making it ideal for prototyping cellular IoT systems, for instance, asset tracking applications, environmental monitoring, and smart meter monitoring to name a few.

Equipped with the Nordic nRF9160 System in Package (SiP), it supports LTE-M, NB-IoT, and Global Positioning System (GPS). Stratus has two onboard external U.FL antennas, one for the GPS and the other for LTE-M/NB-IoT enabling it to support a global range of LTE bands.

Stratus has built-in battery charging, monitoring, and energy-harvesting circuitry which makes it easier to connect and recharge a Li-Po battery without having to replace the battery, creating fully energy-autonomous applications. In addition, Stratus incorporates an accelerometer and a temperature and humidity sensor for detecting movements and sensing the surrounding environment, right out of the box. Finally, Stratus provides 26 mixed-signal GPIOs for interfacing with external sensors, actuators, and other electronics.

To connect to the IoT cellular networks out-of-the-box, Stratus comes preloaded with 500 MB of data and a total of 250 SMS valid for 10 years with service in more than 100 countries worldwide without additional costs, making it the most versatile IoT development kit in the market.

Technical Features and Specifications

MCU: Nordic nRF9160 Microcontroller with ARM Cortex M33

• 1 MB Flash
• 256 kB RAM
• ARM® TrustZone®
• ARM® Cryptocell 310
• Up to 4x SPI, I²C, and UART with Easy DMA
• I²S w/ EasyDMA
• 4x PWM with EasyDMA
• 12 bit SADC with EasyDMA
• 2x RTC
• PPI (Programmable peripheral interconnect) interface

Modem

• Transceiver and baseband
• 3GPP LTE release 13 Category M1 and NB1 compliant
• 3GPP release 14 NB2 compliant
• GPS receiver (GPS L1 C/A supported) - Active antenna only.
• RF Transceiver for global coverage supporting bands:
• Cat-M1: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B8, B12, B13, B14, B17, B18, B19, B20, B25, B26, B28, B66
• Cat-NB1/NB2: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B8, B12, B13, B17, B18, B20, B25, B26, B28, B66
• Supports 4FF Nano SIM
• Pre-programmed MCUBoot bootloader

Micro USB

• For USB-to-Serial, DFU, and application firmware programming and debugging plus LiPo battery charging

Energy harvester IC

• AEM10941 solar energy harvester from E-peas Semiconductors
• Vin: 50 mV to 5 V
• Cold start: 3 μW @ 380 mV
• Power input: 3 μW to 550 mW
• Maximum power point tracking (MPPT)
• Supports battery types Li-ion and NiMH
• Max solar panels: up to 7 solar cells simultaneously

Board power supply

• 3.3 V Buck/Boost up to 0.9 A of current draw
• Operating range 2.8 to 5.5 V
• External LiPo battery connection (2 Pin JST type)
• Charge rate set to 300 mA with yellow LED indication
• Maximum output current: 800 mA
• Current consumption in low-power-mode: < 5 μA

Debugger & Programmer

• Supports J-Link and CMSIS-DAP based programmers
• 10-pin 0.05" (1.27 mm) pin connector

User I/O

• 32 Standard GPIOs (0.1" pitch)
• 26 user-programmable GPIOs
• 2 x push buttons (1 Reset, 1 General Purpose connected to P0.12)
• 1 x user-programmable Green LED connected to D7 (P0.03)

Antenna connections

• 1 x U.FL for LTE-M/NB-IoT with matching network
• 1 x U.FL for active GPS antenna

Onboard sensors

• Latest SHT4x temperature and humidity sensor from Sensirion
• ST Microelectronics LIS2DH MEMS digital output motion sensor: ultra-low-power high-performance 3-axis Femto accelerometer

Power switch

• SPDT slide switch for turning ON/OFF the power to the Stratus board

Physical

• 50.8 mm x 22.86 mm (2.0" x 0.9")
• Weight: ~5 grams.

Stratus Shield

For expansion and interfacing various sensors and hardware peripherals, Conexio Stratus also comes with a shield.

Forget about breadboard and soldering iron, working with a Straus shield requires no soldering and minimal wiring. Just plug the sensors, actuators, or displays into this shield via the standard cables, allowing you to focus on coding and application creation. Isn't that cool! The shield supports:

• 1 x mikro BUS: add-on board standard from Mikroe, allowing to connect over 800+ click boards.
• 2 x Sparkfun Qwiic connector: SparkFun's Qwiic Connect System, allowing to connect over 100+ Qwiic products.
• 1 x Grove I2C connector: Grove is a modular, standardized connector prototyping system by Seeedstudio.
• 1 x 2 Pin JST connector for plugging the solar panel input.
• 1x user-programmableLED
• 3.3 V operating voltage

Compatible with over 800+ sensor modules

Pinouts

The Conexio Stratus is full of all kinds of goodies. Let's take a look!

Battery + USB Power

We wanted to make the Stratus easy to power both when connected to a computer as well as via LiPo battery. There are two ways to power a Stratus. You can connect with a MicroUSB cable (just plug into the jack) and the Stratus will regulate the 5V USB down to 3.3V. You can also connect a 4.2/3.7V Lithium Polymer (Lipo/Lipoly) or Lithium-Ion (LiIon) battery to the JST jack. This will let the Stratus run on a rechargeable battery. When the USB is connected, it will automatically switch over to USB for power, as well as start charging the battery (if attached). This happens 'hot-swap' style so you can always keep the Lipo connected as a 'backup' power that will only get used when USB power is disconnected.

Power supplies

You have a lot of power supply options here! We bring out the VBAT pin, which is tied to the LiPo JST connector, as well as the USBwhich is the +5V from USB if connected. We also have the 3.3V pin which has the output from the 3.3V regulator. Plus you can harvest energy from solar and recharge the onboard battery creating a fully energy-autonomous deployment.

Useful From Smart Homes To Smart Industry

Stratus is perfect for connecting existing projects to the Cloud or as a gateway to connect other local endpoints without having to worry about the infrastructure cost, making it useful for both professionals and hobbyists.

For example, Stratus is perfect for environmental monitoring and smart agriculture like precision farming, crop monitoring, climate and food supply-chain monitoring, and farm analytics. It’s also excellent for smart energy and utilities and can ​​enable smart grids, smart metering, and remote diagnostics for easy monitoring and billing. You could use Stratus for fleet management, to ​​track your assets in real-time with seamless global coverage and end-to-end visibility, or for machine monitoring to enable predictive maintenance via cellular connectivity for Industry 4.0 applications. Stratus can be used in retail deployments, for smart checkout or supply chain management, or in the healthcare sector, to power mission-critical applications like remote patient monitoring and wearables.

Conexio Stratus also supports platforms like Edge Impulse, Memfault, and Golioth, leveraging machine learning (ML) to provide seamless Over-the-Air (OTA) updates to your devices. ML capabilities are extremely helpful in implementing predictive maintenance in scenarios where uninterrupted operation is particularly important, such as in smart factories. For easy data visualization and dashboard creation, Conexio Stratus also connects to Datacake, a low-code IoT platform that requires no programming.

Support & Documentation

For more information about the project visit the product page or the campaign page to grab yours and to support open hardware. For in-depth tutorials on how to get started and beyond, head to the blog posts here.Thank You!