Page Comparison

The Sparrow family consists of one or more Sensors which communicate JSON-formatted Notes using a LoRa radio to a Gateway with which they have been manually paired. A Sparrow Gateway will forward messages received from its paired Sensors to the cloud via Notecard. Conversely, it will also forward messages received from the cloud via Notecard to an associated Sensor.

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Understanding the Hardware

At its core the Sparrow is a single piece of hardware, which comes in one of three configurations:

• Sparrow Core Board

  The most basic configuration, it comes completely depopulated. It is the theoretical starting point for someone to take the hardware, prototype with their own sensors, and then make their own PCB based on our design.

• Sparrow Essentials Board

  Designed for rapid prototyping, it comes populated with the following items:

  • Cortex Debug Connector

  • Female Pin Headers

  • RESET/BOOT Buttons

  • LiPo JST Connector

  • Qwiic Connector

  • Coin-cell Battery Holder

• Sparrow Reference Sensor Board

  Just add batteries and go. The reference sensor board comes with an integrated BME280 and PIR sensor. Once this device has been paired with a Gateway, then this device will start automatically capturing real data that you can work with while configuring your Notehub project.

  It comes populated with the following items:

  • Bosch BME280 (temp/humidity/pressure) Sensor

  • PIR (motion) Sensor

  • Cortex Debug Connector

  • RESET/BOOT Buttons

  • (2x) AAA Battery Holder

Unified Firmware, Split Personality

All the different Sparrow configurations run off the same firmware. Once the firmware boots, it looks for a Notecard (of any flavor) on the I2C bus. If it finds one, then it decides that it is an Essentials Board which is wired up as part of a Sparrow Gateway. If not, it then looks for a BME280 environmental sensor on the I2C bus. If it finds one, then it decides it is a Reference Sensor Board. However, if it finds neither, then it defaults to behaving as a Core Board.

Hardware Setup

Sparrow Gateway

Construction

On boot, the Sparrow firmware will begin looking for a Notecard on its I2C bus. If it discovers one, then it will assume the “Gateway” personality.

To construct a Sparrow Gateway, connect your Sparrow Essentials Board to your Notecarrier using the Qwiic cable and Qwiic connectors.

• You must connect the LiPo battery to the JST connector on Notecarrier, and not the JST connector on the Sparrow.

• Notecarrier DIP switch must be set to 3V3, instead of 1V8.

• Oh no, my hardware doesn’t have a Qwiic Connector!?!

  Pin Mapping Table

NOTE: If you have a Qwiic connector breakout, you can connect to the Qwiic connector of the Sparrow, and the same pins on the Notecarrier as above.

Connect to Notehub

If you are using a Wi-Fi Notecard, be sure to connect to your local network.

{"req":"card.wifi","ssid":"<ssid name>","password":"<password>"}

There are two ways to connect your project to Notehub (choose one):

1. Configure the Notecard to connect to your Notehub product directly over USB (as you normally would).

   Code Block
   {"req":"hub.set","product":"<your_product_id>"}

2. Update the NOTECARD_PRODUCT_UID variable in sparrow-lora/Application/config_notecard.h to force your Sparrow Applications to connect to the desired Notehub product.

NOTE: If neither your Notecard nor the settings file are configured, then the Gateway will prompt you to configure the Notecard using a hub.set request.

WARNING: The dip switch on the Notecarrier-AL MUST be set to 3V3 when using a Wi-Fi Notecard.

Sparrow “Application Host” Node

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WARNING: For legal use in the US and Canada, the Sparrow DIP switches MUST be set to the OFF position on all boards.

Pairing

Pairing requires a Sparrow Gateway and a Sparrow Node. This means each Sparrow device must have assumed the correct personality. This is a requirement, because the Gateway is responsible for storing the encryption keys and topology related to the hub and spoke network.

Pairing is straight-forward and easy to do, just follow the pairing instructions below.

Sparrow Usage/Operation

Understanding Hardware Behaviors

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• Blue (PAIR) - Pairing mode.

  • The Gateway will accept incoming requests

  • A Node will be pinging, searching for a Gateway.

• Green (RX) - Receive mode, waiting for an application to send it data.

  Red (TX) - Transmit mode, actively sending data.

  Blue & Green - Scanning for gateway (red will blink with each ping).

  Red & Green - Attempting to send, but waiting for clear air (i.e. listening before speaking).

• Red & Green & Blue

  • steady on - booting.

  • crawling

    • on start up - Gateway is connecting to Notehub.

    • on PAIR button hold - SoftAP is active.

  • flash - Last operation acknowledgment.

    3 flashes - Factory reset has completed.

Pairing a Sensor to the Gateway

1. Press PAIR on the Sparrow Node

   Press PAIR on the Sparrow Gateway

Pairing the devices is easiest when they are separated from each other (opposite sides of the table should be fine). Once the PAIR button has been pressed, the LED lights will begin to crawl until the devices have been paired. Once the devices have paired, the lights will flash to acknowledge success.

Building/Flashing/Debugging the Firmware

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