Wirepas Massive has proven to be a great technology to build large scale mesh networks. Even though the problem of transmitting messages through a large mesh network is a very complex problem Wirepas has been very successful to do it in a robust way. 

Today, we are super excited to announce that Wirepas Massive v5.1 is now available. This release has many great new features, but the focus has been to dramatically improve the developer experience. The new release provides new and improved tools to develop a wireless product. It provides better API’s for backend development, better documentation and better software examples to get started. These changes should significantly shorten the time it takes to get a product to the market. 

And of course we have improved the stack itself. We improved some features and developed new ones:

  • Improved Over-The-Air-Programming update mechanism (OTAP)
  • Support for heterogonous networks having different radio SoC’s with different Tx Power in the same network
  • Support for products without 32.768 kHz crystal in Low-Latency mode
  • New Node Radio Installation Quality indicator to help to evaluate, how well a device is positioned in the network

And of course the release enables to use two new radio SoCs:

  • Silabs EFR32xG21 for all use cases
  • Silabs EFR32xG22 as an non-router Low-Energy device, such as an asset tracking tag

A new developer portal focused on helping to build the best product with Wirepas

The developer portal is updated to improve the development journey. We added new documents to explain better how Wirepas Massive works and how it should be used. We also improved the How-to guides to help get started rapidly. We will improve the developer portal continuously by adding new application notes and design guides.

Wirepas Massive v5.1 key new features 

Please find below a list of the key new features we have introduced in this new release:

New OTAPv2

Renovation of the OTAP does not remain only on the MQTT API. We also renovated the OTAP on the stack side (keeping the backward compatibility).

OTAP has been a key feature of Wirepas Massive because it allows to update every device in the network remotely. The new version of the OTAP improves the speed and robustness of the update process. We removed some manual controls thus it’s much more automatic and more robust.

With the new MQTT API and the updated OTAP feature in the stack, updating the software in a Wirepas Massive network is made as simple as possible.

Heterogeneous network 

Wirepas Massive v5.1 allows to mix radios with different performances from different vendors in the same network. So with Wirepas Massive 5.1, the network can be built by mixing all the supported SoC’s leading to more flexibility to select the best chipset for a given product. In addition Wirepas Massive v5.1 supports the addition of Front End Modules (FEM) in case a more custom Radio design and performance are needed.

New Wirepas MQTT Library

Wirepas Massive network is controlled from the backend via a gateway in most of the cases. The default communication transport is MQTT with Protocol Buffer format. To support the backend development we developed a new Wirepas MQTT Library. The library provides functions to send and receive messages with the mesh network. It also has helper functions and an example application to do the OTAP. 

Wirepas MQTT library is open source and can be found in the GitHub: https://github.com/wirepas/wirepas-mqtt-library 

API documentation can be found from: https://wirepas.github.io/wirepas-mqtt-library/ 

Silabs EFR32xG21 and Silabs EFR32xG22

We’ve added support for two new Silabs SoC’s in the v5.1 release. 

  • EFR32xG21 supports all the Wirepas Massive features.
  • EFR32xG22 allows a new Wirepas node category, an ultra low-cost end device. Because of its limited memory, the xG22 does not have enough resources to support routing and it cannot be used in Low-Latency mode. However because of the low price point, it’s an excellent choice to build an asset tracking tag or a lighting control switch.

Radio Installation Quality indicator

In an optimal case in a mesh network, every device has multiple neighbor devices with a good radio signal. In reality, this might be hard to achieve and hard to measure.

In the v5.1 release we bring a new variable, node radio installation quality, which tells in one value (0-255) if the device is well positioned. The value is derived from the amount of neighbors and the signal strength between them. With simple thresholds, an installation engineer can easily see if the device has a good physical position to communicate with the rest of the network robustly.

Support for products without 32.768 kHz crystal in Low-Latency mode

In the lighting control industry, most of the radio-controlled LED drivers are built without a 32.768kHz clock crystal. Now in the 5.1 release, we allow to use Wirepas Massive without the clock crystal. This opens up the possibility to use most of the LED drivers in the market with Wirepas. 

The feature is only available in the Low-Latency mode, Low-Energy still needs the clock crystal.

Gateway

To support the new OTAP, some new functionalities were needed on the gateway side. These changes are not necessarily visible for the user, but a gateway update is needed to support the new OTAP. 

The new gateway software version 1.4.0  is available in GitHub: https://github.com/wirepas/gateway 

Get started today!

The release is now available for all our licensee including full online documentation. Please refer the the Wirepas Massive Firmware v5.1.0 Release Notes for more information about the release.

A replay of our Wirepas Massive v5.1 Launch Webinar is also available here.

Wirepas Customer Success team is available to answer any of your question regarding this new release. We are available to assist you to migrate or start with Wirepas Massive v5.1!