Blues Expands Notecard Offerings for Enhanced IIoT Connectivity

MANCHESTER, Mass., Sept. 20, 2023 -- Blues, a leader in IIoT technology enabling global connectivity solutions, today announced a series of enhanced offerings based on its flagship product, Notecard. The expanded Notecard offerings include Notecard Cell+WiFi, Notecard WiFi, Notecard LoRa, and Notecard Chips Edition options that enable additional reliable and hybrid connectivity, positioning accuracy, and scalable development.

Customer demand for connectivity within a broad variety of real-world environments is driving the need for multiple wireless technologies. While cellular connectivity by far remains the preferred option for global "low power wide area" (LPWAN) wireless connectivity, the diversity of real-world commercial applications often requires hybrid solutions that also encompass technologies such as WiFi and LoRa. The ability for communications products to readily adapt to multiple radio access technologies such as cellular, WiFi, and LoRa is referred to as wireless harmonization.

"Blues understands that multiple connectivity options are necessary to empower businesses to transform physical products into data-driven intelligent services. With the expansion of our Notecard offerings, companies now have the flexibility to optimize their connection method for sending and receiving information between devices anywhere, at any time. Whether our customers are developing ten devices or vastly scaling operations, or have devices located in fixed, remote, or mobile locations, our expanded Notecard offerings are affordable, accessible, and customizable."

Jim Hassman, Blues' President and Chief Revenue Officer

Blues' industry-first Notecard Cell+WiFi offering integrates cellular and WiFi connectivity options into one device. Its dynamic fallback modes deliver a more resilient and reliable network, enhanced geolocation, and expanded coverage and provide the flexibility to combine or switch between connectivity options. Blues' Notecard LoRa provides enhanced wireless penetration, as well as an inexpensive way to deploy large fleets of devices.

All Notecards seamlessly integrate with Notehub, Blues' software service designed to securely route Notecard data to the customer's cloud application of choice. Additionally, Notecards are plug-compatible and field upgradeable, enabling even non-technical users to easily swap between connectivity options or 'generations' of radio access technologies, such as from 2G to 5G.

Blues is introducing three new Notecard options beyond its existing Notecard Cellular offering:

• Notecard Cell+WiFi – The new Notecard Cell+WiFi incorporates both cellular and WiFi support out of the box. Customers can default to cellular and turn off WiFi, vice versa, or enable both to ensure highly reliable connectivity despite location. The offering also provides expanded international and domestic coverage with enhanced carrier support.
• Notecard WiFi – The new Notecard WiFi addresses customer demand for a simple, low-cost way to connect localized clusters of indoor devices securely to the cloud.
• Notecard LoRa – The new Notecard LoRa offering addresses customer demand for connecting potentially large clusters of outdoor devices to the cloud. Packaging low-power LoRaWAN technology in a novel form, the offering shares the same ease of use and just works provisioning as its Notecard counterparts.

The Notecard Cell+WiFi offering is available for purchase immediately. The Notecard WiFi and Notecard LoRa offerings are available for beta testing by interested customers, and will be available for purchase later this year.

A challenge facing organizations when they scale to hundreds of thousands of devices is the need to reduce costs by whatever means possible. One approach to reducing costs is a process known as chip-down design.

Blues is introducing a new Notecard design option for customers who reach that level of scale:

• Notecard WiFi and LoRa Chips Editions – Blues' new chip-down design option for Notecard allows customers to more economically scale their solutions without the need to compromise security or to modify firmware designed for the system-on-a-module (SOM) Notecard versions.

These new, easy-to-implement Notecard offerings enable organizations of all sizes to create intelligent, data-driven devices in industries including manufacturing, clean energy and healthcare.

"After years of connectivity struggles, we found Blues and adopted the Notecard/Notehub solution. The Blues cellular solution solved connectivity, security, and scalability issues. Now, with this announcement of the expanded family of Notecards, Blues has really listened to customers and delivered a solution that leads industry trends. This is the kind of innovative partnership that allows OEMs to succeed in the IoT space."

True Manufacturing Company

Blues' expanded Notecard offerings are available for purchase or ordering as of September 20, 2023, on the company's website: https://blues.io/. The previous Notecard versions are still available for purchase as well.

For more about how Blues currently serves Enterprise customers, please visit Blues use cases here: Enterprise Industrial IOT Use Cases | Blues.