Arm’s Jan Jongboom has announced the addition of a LoRaWAN stack to Mbed OS, as one of the new features added to the latest Mbed OS 5.8 release.

“Arm is heavily invested in advancing the LoRaWAN standard. We’re an an active member of the LoRa alliance, and we were the first company to demonstrate multicast firmware updates over LoRaWAN,” Jan explains. “Arm’s partners have been using Mbed as their main development platform for LoRaWAN devices for a long time. Semtech – the company that invented the LoRa modulation technique – has been publishing their stack on Mbed since the first LoRaWAN specification came out, and Multi-Tech’s certified mDot and xDot modules are among the most popular modules on Mbed. But up until now, every vendor has had to build their own LoRaWAN networking stack. That is changing in Mbed OS 5.8.

“In Mbed OS 5.8, Arm is adding a native, pre-certified LoRaWAN stack that works with any Mbed OS 5-enabled development board, and any available LoRa radio. The stack is integrated with other features that are important for IoT devices, such as Mbed TLS, Mbed RTOS, tickless mode, and deep-sleep APIs. This will allow device and module manufacturers to dramatically shorten their time to market, without having to develop their own networking stack. This is becoming more and more important, as the LoRaWAN standard is increasing in complexity with LoRaWAN 1.1 and adding features such as multicast and firmware updates.”

The stack is currently compatible with the L-TEK FF1705, Multi-Tech xDot, mDot EVB, and mDOT with UDK2 add-on development boards with built-in LoRa transceivers, or with any Mbed OS 5-compatible development board with either the SX1276MB1xAS or SX1272MB2xAS shield. The company has also published a guide to building a private LoRa network to help developers get started.