Berlin, Germany – October 24, 2018 – Soracom, Inc. and UnaBiz today announced the launch of UnaMKR, the first global roaming Arduino Shield supporting Sigfox Monarch, at Sigfox Connect, a two-day conference held at the Arena Berlin.
UnaMKR combines connectivity, industrial-grade sensors, hardware and platform integration capabilities in a single, easy to program development kit. The kit supports both Sigfox and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and comes pre-configured with sensors, drivers, sample code, access to data storage and a data visualisation platform to accelerate prototyping and go-to-market.
“Offering a fully-integrated, out-of-the-box, global Sigfox-enabled Starter Kit is a big advance for the IoT community,” said Alexis Susset, Technology Director at Soracom and Sigfox Ambassador. “We look forward to all the amazing IoT projects that developers and innovators will build with a flexible product on a global, cloud-based platform.
Integration remains among the top concerns of IoT makers and developers. UnaMKR addresses this challenge with (a) a large variety of embedded sensors: temperature, humidity, air pressure, gas, light, accelerometer, magnetometer, etc, and (b) quick integration APIs that can be used by manufacturers, design houses and universities alike.
UnaMKR is the first development kit supporting Sigfox Monarch, a unique radio recognition service enabling devices to run seamlessly in all parts of the world. By automatically recognising and adapting to local radio frequency standards, the shield provides connectivity with no need for additional hardware such as a GPS or Wi-Fi chipset.
“This is another major milestone for UnaBiz and Soracom on our road to drive global IoT adoption,” said Philippe Chiu, CTO and co-founder of UnaBiz. “Built with the most advanced Sigfox features and equipped with industrial-grade sensors, UnaMKR will enable any maker, educator and learner, to build the next big IoT application, wherever they are located.”
“Our mission from Day 1 has been to create a global IoT ecosystem that allows developers to create new connected experiences without limits,” said Kenta Yasukawa, CTO and co-founder of Soracom. “UnaMKR demonstrates the value of partnership in IoT and frees developers to build new connected experiences across networks and geography.”
UnaMKR marks the first hardware collaboration between Soracom and UnaBiz since the Soracom IoT Fund announced a strategic investment in the Sigfox operator’s US$10 million Series A funding. The pairs’ joint effort will see further opportunities to develop new solutions and services for the international IoT community.
UnaMKR is available to pre-order now with delivery expected in early 2019. Please visit:www.unabiz.com/solutions/unamkr/ or www.soracom.io/unamkr/.
About Soracom
Soracom is the market-leading platform for cloud-native IoT connectivity-as-a-service, serving more than 10,000 customers worldwide. Launched as a venture-backed company in 2015, Soracom was acquired by mobile operator KDDI in August, 2017, greatly expanding the company’s resources for global expansion. More information is available at www.soracom.io.
About Sigfox
Sigfox is the world’s leading provider of connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). The company has built a global network to connect billions of devices to the Internet while consuming as little energy as possible, as simply as possible. Sigfox’s unique approach to device-to-cloud communications addresses the three greatest barriers to global IoT adoption: cost, energy consumption, and global scalability. Today, the network is present in 50 countries and on track to cover 60 by 2018. With millions of objects connected and a rapidly growing partner ecosystem, Sigfox empowers companies to move their business model towards more digital services. Founded in 2010 by Ludovic Le Moan and Christophe Fourtet, the company is headquartered in Labège near Toulouse, France’s “IoT Valley”. Sigfox also has offices in Paris, Madrid, Munich, Boston, San Francisco, Dubai, Singapore, Sao Paulo and Tokyo. For more information, visit www.sigfox.com.
