RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc (LSE:ECM), a global multi-channel distributor, is making IoT sensing projects even easier to start, and more affordable, with the latest UrsaLeo Pi development kit.

By combining the Silicon Labs Thunderboard™ 2 sensor module with a Raspberry Pi development board, UrsaLeo Pi delivers all the functionality of the UrsaLeo UltraLite development kit at a lower price. Trading only reduced debug support and restrictions on hardware re-use, it is ideal for cost-conscious development in sectors such as Industry 4.0, automotive diagnostics, healthcare, and general data monitoring.

The Thunderboard™ 2 module, as featured in the UrsaLeo UltraLite kit, contains temperature, humidity, UV, ambient light, barometric pressure, indoor air quality, and gas sensors, a 6-axis inertial sensor, a digital microphone, and a Hall sensor. The integrated Silicon Labs EFR32™ Mighty Gecko multi-protocol 2.4GHz radio supports Bluetooth® Low Energy, Thread, ZigBee®, or proprietary short-range protocols. Sample applications and APIs are provided to manage sensors, run diagnostics, and share information with enterprise software or business intelligence applications.

Like the UrsaLeo Lite, UrsaLeo Pi is ready to connect to the UrsaLeo platform, which allows users to view sensor data and launch IoT applications such as storage and analytics from within their own customised dashboard. Adding new sensors is simplified, and additional users can be invited, giving flexibility to share data and co-develop projects while protecting the owner’s Google Cloud account information.

UrsaLeo also provides a customisable dashboard and user-definable events to trigger alerts (texts, emails and actions). Up to 50MB of data per month can be sent to the cloud platform free of charge, by a single user.

The low-cost UrsaLeo Pi is now available from RS.