Say you want to build a sun-tracking solar panel. You could add a tiny computer, like an Arduino, to control it. That might be all you need. But what if you need to connect to it to control it from somewhere else? Connecting it into your home Wi-Fi would work.
Now that it can connect to the Internet, a whole world of new possibilities open up! Want the solar panels to "park" if the weather forecast mentions hail? What about graphing the power output from day to day so you can see why the batteries aren't at full charge? We've now entered the world of The Internet of Things, or IoT for short.
Pycom devices are built for the Internet of Things. They can all connect to the Internet. The five main connection technologies available today are available in the Pycom range. If you want to try them all out, why not get the one device that can do (almost) everything? The Pycom FiPy includes the capabilities of all the Pycom devices except one: it doesn't do LoRa at 433MHz. If that's no impediment to you, then you get: Wi-Fi, LoRa, Sigfox, Cellular LTE data using either Cat-M1 or NB-IoT, as well as Bluetooth.
What to Get
I recommend using your FiPy with any of the Pycom expansion boards (see Pycom range) as this immediately adds a microSD card socket, battery connector with charge controller and micro USB socket for power and programming. If you want to add jumper wires to attach your own circuit, then the Expansion Board 3.0 is the one.
IMPORTANT!
You can use any of the Pycom devices on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth without having to install and external antenna. The reason is that there's an on-board antenna that is selected by default. For the other radio technologies: LoRa, Sigfox and cellular LTE, there MUST be an antenna attached before using the device. You can permanently damage the radios if they are started without an antenna. Since LoRa and Sigfox share an antenna, you at least need:
With those four items you're equipped to experiment with all the important Internet of Things (IoT) technologies of today. Once you get a taste for them you'll likely want more. Thankfully the other Pycom boards are cheaper than the FiPy!
Resources
When you're brand new to Pycom, you go to the Pycom Documentation and start reading from the top of the page. You quickly get a grounding in what is possible and how to go about it. Often there'll be a reference to Github where the code is stored. You don't need to learn how to use Github: go to the web page https://github.com/pycom/pycom-libraries and find the green Clone or download button, then click Download ZIP. That's it, you now have all the sample code to go with the documentation. Unzip it and put it in a folder for all your Pycom things.
Downloading Pycom Libraries from Github
If you're new to programming Internet of Things devices don't worry! Although there's a pile of things to learn, most people experimenting with IoT are going through the same thing. When you run into problems, there are tonnes of places to go for information.
Someone has usually struck the same obstacle as you before. They've likely asked, and had answered, the same question you have. Use Google, and learn to use Advanced Search. Finding the information for yourself will always be the fastest way to a solution.
Forums are a great place to ask a question that's relevant in that forum. Before posting your question, ensure you've searched the forum. You don't want a reply saying, "that's already been answered!" The Core Electronics Forum and Pycom Forums are great communities of helpful people.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Atom IDE is the ideal application to help you create MicroPython code to run on Pycom devices.
- Go to Atom IO and click Download
- Click the file you downloaded. Atom will install itself without needing to ask questions. When the installation is done, Atom will open.
- You'll then need pymakr. Of course the documentation shows how: 2.1.1 Atom
If you've done software development in the Microsoft universe before, you've likely used Visual Studio, or the simpler free version Visual Studio Code. Pycom supports this too and 2.1.2 Visual Studio Code in the documentation shows you how to set it all up.
Firmware
Even brand new devices can be months out of date by the time we receive them. It's best to do a firmware update on everything that can be updated. This means getting a fix for most of the problems that are known about up to today. So don't forget to read and do 1.2.2 Updating Firmware.
Trying Out Everything!
The first thing to experience is REPL. This Read-Evaluate-Print-Loop is how MicroPython works. You can write single lines of code in the "REPL Box" in Atom and the device will run them immediately.
Using REPL in the Atom IDE to talk to a Pycom device
From there, you need to get used to creating files in Atom. Save your files with the file extension .py so Atom will give you nicely coloured code to aid understanding. Head to 4. Tutorials and Examples in the documentation to learn to use all the amazing features that Pycom devices have.
Since the FiPy is the most capable and costly of the Pycom devices, I've left it until last to look at. The Pycom Tutorials are there to help you with everything you want to try out on your FiPy, except Sigfox which will be added later:
Wi-Fi
Internet of Things with Pycom and Adafruit IO - From Zero to Hero
LoRa
Building a LoRaWAN Nano Gateway to The Things Network
Your First LoRaWAN Node on The Things Network
IoT with LoRaWAN, Pycom, The Things Network & Node-RED
Cellular LTE
Pycom GPy & FiPy Cellular LTE Firmware Update
Bluetooth
Pycom Bluetooth (more an "about Bluetooth" than a how-to)
Sigfox
Pycom Documentation for Sigfox
More Information
To see how to do everything from start to finish, watch our video at Internet of Things with Pycom and Adafruit IO - From Zero to Hero. The accompanying tutorial has even more detail!
