Introduction
This is the official docs of objex link.
What is OBJEX Link?
OBJEX Link is a modular IoT board. It is designed to develop IoT devices that are easy to repair and recycle. OBJEX Link is designed to suit a wide range of uses: Smart Home & Cities, IIOT, Everyday things & Wearables, Predictive Maintenance, Agriculture Automation.
It is also perfect for rapid prototyping and developing research and robotics projects, with the right module, you can extend the possible uses of the board.
The compact form factor and board design ensure easy use and maintenance of the board. The architecture of OBJEX Link is composed of two parts, the first is the mainboard (OBJEX Link) and the second is the module allows for easy customization and interfacing with hardware compared to other IoT boards.
As you can see from the block diagram above, every device developed with OBJEX Link follows a clear structure that guarantees easy maintenance, recycling, and much more. In this way OBJEX Link takes over the connection of the device, the module interacts with the outside world for example through sensors or mechanical elements according to the application.
Why use OBJEX Link?
In the future more and more devices will be connected to the Internet and need custom hardware, try to imagine so many companies that currently produce items for our homes, such as a table, the closet, or any household appliances. These companies will have to convert these objects into smart objects because the market will ask for it. If each company will use its own custom hardware it will be very complex to recycle or repair each component, in some cases even counterproductive because of the costs to do so.
How to solve the problem?
The best solution for the environment is not to connect any device to the internet, but we know that's not going to happen.
OBJEX Link tries to solve this problem. By making the hardware modular, modularity allows the device to be easily reused and repaired. In addition, each component is designed to be repairable and to last through the years.
Why use OBJEX Link and not another IoT board?
There are several solutions on the market, the most similar products to OBJEX Link are M5Stack atom, TinyCircuit, Arduino Nicla, and NodeMCU or similar products. Each of these products is similar to OBJEX Link but the architecture is totally different, and OBJEX Link is the only board that tries to solve the problem of the environmental impact of IoT devices.
Modular architecture
The modular architecture allows the board to be used/reused for several applications. It consists of a mainboard and modules. The modules are connected with OBJEX Link through four low-profile SlimStack connectors. These low-profile connectors allow for maximum board compactness, in this way, you can use OBJEX Link for tiny devices.
The mainboard(OBJEX Link) allows the smart object to connect with other devices via WiFi or Bluetooth(BLE).
The modules specialize OBJEX Link for a specific application, or can also allow OBJEX Link to communicate with other devices using other communication protocols (LoRa, Zigbee, Cellular NB-IoT, NFC, Ethernet).
Types of modules
To ensure full customization on objex link it is possible to install 2 modules of type M0 or one module of type M1. All official modules are open source, so any user can develop their own module. If you want to develop your own module click here to download the connector library.
Life cycle
OBJEX Link was designed mainly to decrease the environmental impact of the hardware needed to connect objects to the Internet. This is possible due to its modular architecture that is designed to give the end-user more control and awareness of how their smart devices are built. In this way, any user can change or repair any hardware component* of the smart objects. This increases the life cycle considerably because this allows the user to easily repair and customize the hardware of the smart device.
Currently, many companies develop their own custom hardware for each smart object without following a design standard that allows easy repair and reuse by a non-expert user. In fact, only the most experienced users can understand how these devices work after a teardown.
OBJEX Link is a project that promotes the Right to Repair movement. We believe that every user should know what they are buying and most importantly they should know how to repair it without any specific knowledge.
Component means either the mainboard or the modules.
Open Source Hardware
The project is mostly open source but it is not possible to get the production files related to the mainboard(OBJEX Link). This is to avoid possible clones that do not conform to project specifications and national regulations. The documentation provided is sufficient to understand the operation of the mainboard and all open source modules. Only the modules are Open Source, with the ability to access all production files.
All Open Source modules, are protected by the license "CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 - Weakly Reciprocal".
For more details about OBJEX Link: info@objex.link
Only the official modules are guaranteed Open Source. A private user or a company can decide to develop proprietary modules.
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