SparkFun Thing Plus - nRF9160

SparkFun, in collaboration with CircuitDojo, presents the nRF9160 Thing Plus. This compact piece of technology features the powerful Nordic nRF9160 microcontroller in a Feather-compatible footprint. The nRF9160 Thing Plus is capable of CAT M1 LTE and NB-IoT cellular communication and is designed to work seamlessly with Zephyr, a popular RTOS for embedded development. The board is also equipped with SparkFun's Qwiic Connect System, eliminating the need for soldering or shields to connect it to your system.

The nRF9160 Thing Plus is designed with power efficiency in mind. It can take advantage of Nordic’s advanced power states, and can also be put into a low power standby state, consuming only about 2µA of current. The board features a 3.3V Buck-Boost, optimizing battery usage.

Powering the nRF9160 Thing Plus is flexible and convenient. It can be powered externally using a USB-C cable, making it suitable for high availability scenarios. If you're working without batteries, simply plug it in and keep going.

The nRF9160 Thing Plus is also equipped with a 4MB external flash for storing data while offline. This, combined with a filesystem like LitteFS, makes it a formidable tool for your projects.

SparkFun's Qwiic Connect System is a comprehensive ecosystem of I²C sensors, actuators, shields, and cables designed to make prototyping faster and less prone to error. All Qwiic-enabled boards use a common 1mm pitch, 4-pin JST connector, reducing the amount of required PCB space. The polarized connections mean you can’t connect it incorrectly.

The package includes one nRF9160 Thing Plus and one Hologram SIM Card. The board is equipped with a Nordic nRF9160 Microcontroller with ARM Cortex M33, a USB-C connection for USB-to-Serial and DFU, an external NOR Flash by Winbond, a power supply, a programmer, a low Power RTC, user I/O, and antenna connections. It also has a feather form factor of 58.42mm x 22.86mm.