Cellular Connectivity Options for IoT and Robotics

Cellular connectivity is harder than it should be in 2022. I’m not talking about your phone, these are devices (and platforms) that are already highly optimized to get online and stay online. But what if you have a basic need to get your IoT device or robot online – outside of the lab or range of wi-fi.

Of course, at an enterprise level there are numerous options for staying connected via cellular.

1. CradlePoint R1900 Series: This will keep your remote device connected anywhere. But at $2000 each it’s not for every application.

2. Arduino MKR 1500: This is a tricky one. While you can run a cellular plan (we use Hologram), it’s not going to give you an access point. Your application will need to run on the Arduino to have any chance. We found a number of issues with this so we made a cellular shield and software package for it here.