Today we’re announcing two new accelerators are available:

• The Lightning Detector project lets you detect lightning strikes up to 40 km away, and send the detections to the cloud via a cellular connection.
• The Cellular Speed Radar and Camera project lets you detect speeding cars with a speed radar module and camera, and publish the speed and timestamps for these events to the cloud.

Additionally, the accelerators page now includes new categories and filters. You can use those filters to find the next project you want to build, or to find reference implementations of Notecard or Notehub features.

Learn about all the accelerators at blues.dev/accelerators.

A new version of note-arduino, our official library for interacting with the Notecard in Arduino projects, is now available.

The main feature of the 1.5 release is support for the Notecard’s new card.binary requests for sending and receiving large binary objects. The release also includes improved AUX serial throttling, improved I2C retry logic, updated examples, and a variety of other small updates.

Check out the full changelog in GitHub, and follow our installation instructions to start using the new version in your favorite editor.

Today is a big day at Blues as we’re happy to announce a new line of Notecards: Notecard Cell+WiFi, an updated Notecard WiFi, Notecard LoRa, and Notecard Chips Edition.

• The new Notecard Cell+WiFi includes on-board cellular and Wi-Fi, with the ability to enable one, or both, to ensure robust connectivity.
  
  
• The new Notecard WiFi is an updated, lower-cost ($10!), way to enable connectivity for indoor solutions.
  
  
• The Notecard LoRa can automatically connect to LoRaWAN gateways in range, offering the same ease of use and “it just works” level of provisioning as its Cellular and Wi-Fi counterparts.
• And Notecard Chips Edition is a “chip-down” design version of the Notecard, intended for organizations scaling to tens of thousands of devices and looking to reduce costs as much as possible.

Learn more more about the new Notecards on our developer blog.

A new developer release of the Notecard firmware, version 5.3.1, is now available. The release includes a ton of new features such as:

• Large binary payload transfers
• Primary-to-secondary SIM failover
• Notecard Outboard Firmware Support for MCUboot hosts
• The ability to update Notecard firmware via the In-Browser Terminal
• New APIs for validating Notecard requests and responses

Read the full writeup on our developer blog, and when you’re ready head to the Notecard’s firmware update page for instructions on updating your Notecards to the new version.

Today we’re excited to show you two new Notehub features.

Enhanced device filtering

A new series of filters are now available to filter devices by serial number, Device UID, tag, and more. To try the new filters start searching on any of your Notehub project’s devices pages and follow the provided hints. (Bonus: For added productivity, you can use the new / keyboard shortcut.)

Project cloning

Notehub project owners can now clone projects. The clone process copies project settings including environment variables, but not events or devices. Copying fleets and routes is optional.

You can try this feature today from your Notehub dashboard by selecting the Clone project option from your project’s menu.

Try these new features out, and let us know what you think!

Today we’re announcing three new accelerators are available:

• The Car Detector project lets you detect passing cars with a camera, and publish reports to the cloud via a cellular connection.
• The Cold Chain Monitor shows you how to monitor a medication, and send SMS messages for alert conditions, such as high temperature
• The Water Quality Monitor project helps you collect water quality metrics from various sensors, and upload them to the cloud at a configurable interval.

Check them out! And view the full list of Blues accelerators at blues.dev/accelerators.

Today we’re pleased to release Scoop, an accessory for Notecard designed to provide a backup power source that is more resilient than the traditionally used Lithium-Polymer Battery (LiPo).

Scoop features a 250 Farads 3.8V Lithium-Ion Capacitor (LIC), a special type of capacitor that operates in a wider range of temperatures than LiPos, has a lower self-discharge rate, and does not have the shipping restrictions familiar to anyone who has worked with Lithium-based batteries.

To learn more, read the full Scoop writeup on our developer blog, check out the Scoop in our store, or get the technical details in the Scoop datasheet.

Today we’re announcing five new fully documented reference applications:

• Greenhouse Monitor: Monitor ambient light, ambient temperature, soil moisture, and soil temperature within a greenhouse.
• Emergency Vehicle Lights Monitor: Monitor the activation of emergency vehicle lights and report vehicle location.
• Cellular Modbus Client: Send requests and receive responses from Modbus servers via cellular.
• Vending Machine Monitor: Monitor inventory and detect power failures in a vending machine.
• Heat Index Monitor: Monitor temperature, humidity, and heat index in an outdoor location.

Check them out, as well as the rest of our accelerators, and if you have any questions feel free to reach out in our forum.

Today we’re announcing a new Notehub route that makes getting your data to Slack a breeze.

The new Slack route allows you to connect to any Slack channel and app, and configure your routes to forward some or all of your events.

Try it out yourself by following our Configuring a Slack Route guide.

Notehub Connectivity Assurance automatically adds data to a Notecard SIM’s data plan when you’re running low on data.

Connectivity Assurance is enabled by default if the Notehub Billing Account associated with your Notecard has a payment method on file, but we now offer ways of controlling your Connectivity Assurance preferences within Notehub.

Learn more about how it works in Managing Connectivity Assurance.