Date: June 10, 2020
Device Compatibility: Arable Mark 2 Rev 3.0 and 3.1
Module Compatibility: Quectel BG96MAR02, A07M1G (AT&T 02A07_01.016 and Telstra 02A08M1GA)
Markets: For Deployment, US (LTE-M AT&T), Mexico (LTE-M & 2G AT&T), Argentina (AT&T 2G), Australia (LTE-M Telstra), Canada (LTE-M AT&T), France (LTE-M & 2G AT&T), Germany (2G AT&T), UK (AT&T 2G), Ukraine (2G-AT&T), Poland (AT&T 2G), Spain (AT&T 2G), Netherlands (AT&T LTE-M & 2G), Brazil (AT&T 2G). For homologation: Brazil (Claro LTE-M), US (Verizon LTE-M).
Impact: Medium
Type of Release: General
Version: 1.1.0.9
Release Overview
This firmware release is a general release targeted for commercial use with AT&T, Verizon and Telstra M2MOne SIM SKUs and Internet APNs. While the 1.1.0.8 firmware has been verified to communicate using Claro APN and SIM for LTE-M in Brazil, this will now go through homologation with each carrier before general release.
This release contains reset handling defect fixes. Other major improvements are related to test functionality for factory fixtures, audio data capture for model development, and data reduction (in preparation for NB-IoT). These latter capabilities will not be used in the field at this stage.
The release will be applied both in manufacturing and in over-the-air upgrades of the existing Mark 2 fleet in the field.
The use of Arable Mark 2 and Arable Solar with a 20-min sync interval for weather alerts is in a limited release as we build more field data for different geographies and conditions. Reach out to Arable Customer Success at support@arable.com to enable this on a seasonal basis for the new weather alert capabilities in Arable Mobile 3.0.0.
New Features
- A compression/decompression algorithm has been created and will be used for internal testing in preparation for a subsequent NB-IoT launch in a future release.
- Raw audio data capture capability that will help support further rainfall model development has been implemented. While it will be part of the standard firmware, it will by default be turned off and not used on customer deployments. When it is on, the firmware provides both binning and raw audio for up to 58s. The device shall be connected to power during such a test.
- An updated factory test fixture with all test logs is now being sent to the Arable backend. It is possible to set spectrometer limits, and all new hardware changes have been verified for test fixtures.
- The sampling period was brought down from 3.5 seconds to 3.0 seconds through a power optimization. The 20-sync interval setting was validated for an entire battery discharge cycle, and was shown to shorten the uptime by 4-5 days, depending on rainfall.
Sync Time > Days on one charge with no sunlight:
20-min > 15
60-min > 21
Defect Fixes
- If a Mark device experienced temporary communication slowdowns over the I2C bus to the relative humidity temperature board, this would cause missing hourly reads. This has now been optimized so that hourly reads are not impacted.
- In the previous release, a ‘reset8’-related to sensor data access problem could trigger additional reset0s due to a watchdog timer. This is now resolved.
- "Bad Header checksum" flash corruption would sometimes cause a data gap. This is now resolved.
- In rare circumstances, a System Error Reset could lead to sensor data corruption and deepening cycle duration. This is now resolved.
- SoS message failures now have an added retry so that the log data is provided to the backend in a timely manner.
- The modem command (APP RDY URC) was not handled correctly on the 2G network in the previous release and could impact modem communication. This is now resolved.
- To help troubleshooting, this new release now records battery voltage and percentage in the SoS log when reset occurs.
- The modem command (QIRD Error) was not handled correctly in the previous release and could delay responses for other commands from the modem. This is now resolved.
- Modem access mutex was changed to have a duration of greater than the default modem command timeouts.
- Datalogging was tuned to be close to 5-minute intervals.
- Longwave temperature values were added to the terminal menu to allow for continuous spectrometer readings.
- We now have the capability to limit firmware over-the-air upgrades to select devices with hardware and firmware revisions from earlier than a certain date.
Known Issues
- In order to ensure year-round operations with the firmware 1.1.0.8 idle power level at 900 μA, it is recommended to deploy with Arable Solar.
- The Mark 2 does not trigger redeployment when the mount is inserted, as it did for the first-generation Mark device. The Mark 2 redeployment is done by pressing the new user button.
- While native Claro LTE-M support has been validated, the ANATEL regulatory approach and Claro homologation are still ongoing.
- While native Verizon LTE-M support has been validated, the Verizon homologation is still ongoing.