There’s no shortage of cheap single-board computers that you can use for development projects, media streaming, or even general purpose computing. But up until recently many of the most popular lacked built-in support for for WiFi or Bluetooth.
Now that the Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi Zero W include those, what’s next?
How about cellular connectivity? The Orange Pi 2G-IoT is a tiny computer-on-a-module with support for WiFi, Bluetooth, and mobile data connections. As the name suggests, you only get 2G data speeds… but that’s still a lot of connectivity for a device that sells for just $10.
The Orange Pi 2G-IoT is powered by a 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A5 32-bit processor with Vivante GC860 graphics and features 256MB of RAM.
It uses a miocrSD card for storage, and other features include a full-sized USB 2.0 port, a micro USB OTG port, a 3.5mm audio jack, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a Raspberry Pi-compatible 40-pin GPIO connector.
The Orange Pi 2G-IoT supports GSM/GPRS data connections and has a SIM card slot.
The system doesn’t have a a DisplayPort, VGA, or HDMI port, but there is an LCD connector that you can use to hook up an external screen.
The whole board measures about 2.7″ x 1.7″ and costs about $13 after you add shipping fees to the United States.
via CNX Software
2G ends in Singapore tomorrow, April 1st 2017 (https://www.imda.gov.sg/about/newsroom/media-releases/2017/2g-services-to-cease-on-1-april-2017). I do hope that Orange Pi has a 3G or better board.
2G? cool idea, but basically worthless. I have one of these coming soon, but it is a few more $ than this. https://www.pycom.io/product/fipy-preorder-shipping-april-2017/
I’d think it’s more along the lines of a headless SMS server or your scarecrow tweeting the temperature and humidity kind of board. Sure, 3G would be better, but come on, $10? What can you get for that?
it’s not the speed, but that 2G/GPRS frequency bands are all going away, so you will be hard pressed to get service in many places…
Somebody needs to tell them 2G is obsolete. AT&T has already turned off their towers, T-Mobile has set a date. Most of Europe is already discussing the turn off date for 3G.
Yep, in the USA 2G is almost dead. Not sure about the rest of the world.
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I was thinking about the possibilities of a slow data speed cellular connection and a board that could be powered by solar panels…
T-Mobile in the US is actively courting 2G IOT stuff who lost AT&T 2G this year, so it sounds like they expect their 2G to be around for a while in a low-bandwidth data-only sort of way.
In addition to T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint still have their own 2G networks up and running for a little longer too. But unfortunately, this board appears to be GSM only and won’t support the 1xRTT 2G networks of Sprint or Verizon.
2G bandwidth would still have been adequate for some cases. But if towers are off then.. it’s over.
The world does not end in the US. Most of the world population (Asia, Africa) still will have 2G for a long time.