Turn your Cardputer-Adv into a pocket-sized Sub-GHz radio and NFC development tool. Send and receive wireless data over 315MHz, 433MHz, 868MHz and 915MHz, read and write NFC tags, or experiment with NFC card emulation.
The M5StackCap CC1101 adds two useful wireless interfaces to your Cardputer-Adv: Sub-1GHz radio for longer-range, low-data-rate wireless projects, and NFC for working with compatible tags and readers.
What can you make with it?
Build your own Sub-GHz wireless links – send data between compatible CC1101 devices for projects such as remote sensors, telemetry, status messages and wireless controls. M5Stack provides Arduino transmitter and receiver examples to demonstrate two-way development, including displaying received data, signal strength (RSSI), SNR and link quality.
Experiment with NFC tags – use the Cardputer as a handheld NFC reader to identify compatible tags and inspect their contents. M5Stack's example code includes NFC-A detection and complete tag data reading.
Read and write NDEF data – create projects that store or retrieve useful information from NFC tags. The supplied examples demonstrate reading and writing NDEF records such as URLs and text, making this a useful starting point for interactive displays, project identification, configuration tags and other NFC-based builds.
Try NFC card emulation – the ST25R3916 can also operate in card emulation mode. M5Stack provides an example which makes the Cardputer behave like a MIFARE Ultralight NFC tag containing an NDEF message, ready to be read by a phone or another NFC reader.
Sub-GHz without the RF breadboarding
The radio side is built around the popular TI CC1101 Sub-1GHz transceiver, supporting 315MHz, 433MHz, 868MHz and 915MHz operation. M5Stack has taken care of the RF switching and matching circuitry, with a single RP-SMA connector and three matching antennas included for the supported bands.
The CC1101 supports 2-FSK, 4-FSK, GFSK, MSK, ASK and OOK modulation, making it a flexible platform for learning about and developing conventional Sub-GHz wireless communications.
Good to know: CC1101 is a Sub-GHz transceiver, but it is not a LoRa radio and is not intended for LoRa or Meshtastic projects.
NFC built in too
NFC is handled by the ST25R3916, with support for NFC-A, NFC-B, NFC-F (FeliCa™) and NFC-V. Reader/writer and card-emulation capabilities give you plenty of scope for experimenting with tags, NDEF data and your own NFC-enabled projects.
Both radio and NFC functions communicate with the Cardputer over SPI, while the additional HY2.0-4P Grove interface gives you an easy way to add I2C sensors and other Grove accessories to your project.
M5Stack provides development support for Arduino and UiFlow2, including Arduino examples for CC1101 transmission/reception, NFC tag reading, NDEF read/write and NFC tag emulation.
Features
SPI serial communication protocol
CC1101 low-power Sub-1 GHz RF transceiver
Operating frequency: 315/433/868/915 MHz
Supports 2-FSK, 4-FSK, GFSK, MSK, ASK, and OOK modulation schemes
Independent 64-byte RF RX FIFO and TX FIFO
Built-in dual SP3T RF switches and multi-band RF matching network for dynamic band switching
External RP-SMA antenna interface
ST25R3916 high-performance NFC front end
Supports reader/writer mode and card emulation mode
Compatible with NFC-A, NFC-B, NFC-F, and NFC-V standards
512-byte NFC FIFO
HY2.0-4P Grove expansion interface
Supports sensor module expansion
Development Platform:
Arduino
UiFlow2
Specifications
RF chip
CC1101
Operating frequency band
315 / 433 / 868 / 915 MHz
Communication range (FSK modulation, 58kbps air rate)
