Learning

Small Battery-Powered Computers

DotNOW 1.0 External Ant RHouse0300 Transp

The latest offering in our family of wireless sensor network products. Featuring the leading-edge Micro Framework for small battery-operated computers, commonly known as "motes", developing applications is not just easy, it's pretty cool.

For more information about the eMote .NOW, including sample applications, see our Learning page.

eMote

eMote is the software that powers the .NOW platform. Along with an implementation of Micro Framework, we've leveraged our world-class research in mote-scale applications to include important, proprietary features that you won't find anywhere else.

  • Real-time support. The standard Micro Framework does not offer any timing guarantees. Our real-time support allows you to write programs that satisfy fairly strict timing guarantees.
  • Agressive power management. You have a lot of control over processor speed and sleep intervals, letting you write applications that can run for as long as a year without changing the battery.
  • Wireless link. We provide a wireless link protocol that lets you write fully peer-to-peer networking applications, automatically arbitrating wireless contention when two or more nearby nodes are transmitting at the same time.
  • Buffered ADC. Analog to digital conversion lets you sample analog data. At high frequency, program overhead becomes a limiting factor. With eMote on .NOW, the hardware can collect a batch of samples and deliver them to your program all at once.
  • Flash for storage. Flash memory is available on the .NOW, and eMote lets you use it as storage. This lets you write long-lived applications that collect data over time and at intervals transmit the data to a base station.

In addition, contrasted to many other Micro Framework products, you can do live debugging on the board with Visual Studio.

.NOW

.NOW is the hardware platform that runs eMote. Other platforms with different features are in the works. Here are key features of the .NOW.

  • Lots of on-board I/O: ADC and DAC, GPIO, SPI, SDIO, USB, I2C, UART.
  • Generous on-board flash that eMote can use as main memory.
  • An SD card slot so you can add your own memory.
  • ADC with buffering, letting you take advantage of eMote's buffered ADC capability.
  • Indoor vs. outdoor antenna options. With the on-board indoor antenna, you have a compact form factor that's easy to use. With the external outdoor antenna, you have a much longer range; and the antenna integrates well with the packaging you'll need for outdoor applications in general.
  • High-performance switching power supply. This, combined with eMote's agressive power management, helps extend battery life.

All the hardware components on the .NOW are of relatively recent design (within the last 3-5 years), so you're getting better performance. Contrast this with other mote platforms, some of whose hardware components are much older.

 
PURCHASE

.NOW with eMote.  The .NOW 1.0 platform running eMote. 

125.00 USD

 

 

DOWNLOADS

Documentation

Using the .NOW with eMote (pdf)

.NOW with eMote flyer (pdf)

.NOW with eMote spec sheet (pdf)

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Long Range Radio ANLCSNNF300A daughter board for the .NOW that includes a 2.4 GHz 802.15.4 radio chip with power amplifier and LNA for extended range operation. It uses a mezzanine connector interface.

 

PURCHASE

Long Range Radio Expansion Board

52.50 USD