Serbian embedded technology company MikroElektronika has launched the NB-IoT 4 Click, a compact add-on board for IoT applications such as smart metering, intelligent wearables, security and asset tracking, home appliances, and environmental monitoring.

The Click board includes a cellular wireless communications module with integrated digital SIM (eSIM) delivering global data connectivity even in regions without the latest communications infrastructure.

NB-IoT 4 Click uses the C1-RM from Cavli Wireless. This three-band NB-IoT IoT and 2G wireless communication module supporting bands three, five and eight mainly targets low power data transmission applications. The module also supports the 3GPP Release 13 standard and meets almost all M2M requirements thanks to its small size.

Devices have a standby power consumption of less than 1mA, and in deep sleep mode this can be as low as 5µA. External interfaces, protocol stacks and a complete range of SMS and data transmission services meet client-side demands.

“This module is specially designed for countries with less than 100% NB-IoT coverage, enabling LPWAN deployments to be possible using 2G, and then switching to NB-IoT when the network is ready,” said Nebojsa Matic, CEO at MikroElektronika. “The integrated eSIM feature ensures that the module can be deployed worldwide.”

The board is supported by a MikroSDK compliant library, which includes functions that simplify software development. It comes as a fully tested product, ready to be used on a system equipped with the MikroBus socket.

MikroElektronika releases a new Click board nearly every day at 10am, and many microcontroller companies including Microchip, NXP, Infineon, Dialog, STM, Analog Devices, Renesas and Toshiba now include the MikroBus socket on their development boards. NB-IoT 4 Click costs $55.

MikroElektronika invented the MikroBus development socket standard in 2011, and the compact Click boards use the standard to cut development time. Now the company offers 1000 Click boards and the MikroBus standard is included by microcontroller companies such as Microchip, Renesas and Toshiba on their development boards. SiBrain is the firm’s latest standard for MCU development add-on boards and sockets. The company also makes compilers and provides development environments, development boards, smart displays, and programmers and debuggers.