Today we’re happy to announce the availability of our new “Midband” Notecard Cellular, based on the LTE Cat-1 bis protocol. Midband Notecards use less power and are less expensive than our Wideband Notecards, use a single antenna design, and are supported everywhere LTE is already available.

We can’t wait to see what you build with them. Read more about LTE Cat-1 bis on our developer blog, and then pick up a midband Notecard Cellular in our shop today.

A new developer release of the Notecard firmware, version 9.1.1, is now available.

The new version includes support for variable-length numeric arrays in Note templates, numerous reliability and efficiency improvements, and a variety of bug fixes.

The full release notes are available in the Notecard Firmware Releases documentation. And if you want to update to the new version, check out our documentation on Updating Notecard Firmware.

The latest LTS Notecard firmware is now available on Notehub! Full release notes and manual upgrade instructions can be found in Notecard Firmware Releases.

We're happy to invite all Blues developers to test their knowledge of Notecard, Notehub, Swan, and more by completing the Blues Developer Certification assessment. For developers, getting certified demonstrates a command of device-to-cloud solutions, data connectivity, and the Blues ecosystem. Learn more here!

Today we’re pleased to announce the release of Mojo, a new way to measure energy usage in battery-powered systems. Built around the low-power LTC2959 coulomb counter from Analog Devices, Mojo provides charge and current measurement at 1% accuracy—giving developers a clear view of battery performance, state, and health in remote deployments.

You can learn more about how Mojo works with Notecard in this release blog post. Once you have the basics down, you can pick up a Mojo in our shop and then try our new quickstart tutorial.

Today we’re pleased to announce the launch (or flight?) of Cygnet, a new STM32-based Feather-compatible host MCU from Blues. Cygnet is built around ST's ultra low-power STM32L433, and offers 256KB of flash memory and 64KB of RAM to meet the needs of demanding applications (while still being reasonably priced at only $15).
 
Read more about the flight of Blues Cygnet on the Blues Developer Blog, peruse the datasheet, and get your own Cygnet on the Blues store today.

Two new versions of the Notecard firmware are now available: 7.5.2, which is our latest developer release, and 8.1.2, which is a release candidate build and our first 8.x LTS release.

Both versions contain support for midband Notecards, support for using multiple SSIDs (on WiFi-capable Notecards), as well as many other features and bug fixes.

The full release notes are available in the Notecard Firmware Updates documentation. That same documentation page also has instructions for updating your Notecard’s firmware to the latest version.

A number of improvements to Notehub are live and ready for you to use today:

• JSONata improvements: Notehub has a new JSONata editor! The editor understands JSONata syntax, and points out any errors you make. Plus, you can now use JSONata in web proxy routes.
• Data exporting: You can now easily export data from your Notehub projects in JSON or CSV format.
• Integrations: There are two new integrations you can try out in Notehub: Arduino Cloud and Blynk.

Read detailed information about these updates in What’s New in Notehub.

Today we’re happy to announce the release of the Wireless for Arduino Opta, an expansion module that can quickly add cellular or LoRa connectivity to any Arduino Opta PLC (powered by the Notecard and Notehub!).

Once connected, you can leverage either the Arduino IoT Cloud SDK or our note-arduino library to configure the Notecard and its backhaul.

You can read more about the Wireless for Arduino Opta on our developer blog, or get started today with the Wireless for Arduino Opta Bundle, a kit that includes both an Arduino Opta Lite and a Blues Opta Expansion at a temporarily discounted price of $299.

A new developer release of the Notecard firmware, version 7.4.2, is now available.

The 7.4.2 release adds support for Notecard XP, adds the ability to disable the Notecard’s onboard LED (as part of the card.io API), and includes improvements to Notecard LoRa sync times.

The full release notes are available in the Notecard Firmware Updates documentation. That same documentation page also has instructions for updating your Notecard’s firmware to the latest version.