Thingy 91 won't blink yellow and error adding the device

[Jackhead]

Hello,

I want to add the Thingy 91 to the nRF Connect Cloud. The SIM was activated correctly. I've inserted the SIM card and know I'm waiting for the LEDs to blink yellow but all they do is breathing blue like when I turn on the Thingy without any SIM card, just right out of the box.
I'm waiting for over 10 minutes but still nothing changed and the LEDs are still blue.

Then I tried to just insert the IMEI and the PIN form the Thingy to the Cloud but that doesn't work and I get the error "There was an error adding your device: It wasn't found. Is it connected? If the LED(s) don't indicate that it's connected, you may have to update your device." I updated the firmware on my Thingy as suggested in Step 1 but I had to choose the HEX file manually because the "update modem" function didn't worked correctly. I choosed this file " thingy91_nbiot_dfu_2020-04-29_bc7ade8b.hex" because I want to use the Thingy 91 with NB-IoT.

How long does it take for the LED to switch from blue to yellow? 

I'm located in Germany and the coverage for LTE is pretty good so the Thingy should easily get a LTE signal. 

Can someone help me to get the Thingy activated for the cloud? I really need this feature to work with the device.

Best regards.

[Martin Lesund]

Hi Jackhead, 
So the coverage from general LTE is different than LTE-M or NB-IoT.

If you are using the iBasis SIM card included with the Thingy:91 you may have some limited coverage (LTE-M) based on your location, so that can explain why you cannot connect to the network.

Please see the iBasis eSIM national coverage update for more information. However it does not seem that iBasis SIM supports the NB-IoT network in Germany so you would need to reach out to either of the operators that has support for NB-IoT in Germany and get a appropriate SIM card from them to get access to their nb-iot network and then you will be able to connect to nrf cloud.

I've heard people also have had success using the 1NCE SIM in Germany.

You should run the "thingy91_nbiot_legacy_pco_dfu_2020-04-29_bc7ade8b.hex" file since I think there is limited support for the ePCO in your area as well. 

Best regards,
Martin L.

[Jackhead]

Thanks for your answer.

It really doesn't seem like iBasis has any NB-IoT coverage in Germany so another SIM is the only way to go I believe. 

I don't understand the last part of your answer. "You should run the "thingy91_nbiot_legacy_pco_dfu_2020-04-29_bc7ade8b.hex" file since I think there is limited support for the ePCO in your area as well. "

What is the ePCO? I didn't hear or read about it yet. Should I use this file even when I get a new SIM which supports NB-IoT well in Germany? 

Best regards

[Martin Lesund]

Hi Jackhead,

Support for ePCO is a mandatory part of the 3GPP standard for NB-IoT networks, but not all networks support the feature yet.

ePCO is mandatory, and should be supported by the networks, but it depends on elements that in some networks have not been updated. PCO is not directly required for NB-IoT networks, but it's been in the networks since 2009, and it's supported by all NB-IoT networks and devices.

Some NB-IoT networks requires you to use PCO (Protocol Configuration Options) instead of the default ePCO in the modem.
The "legacy_pco" .hex file tells the modem to use the regular PCO when running the application.
So please use that file when you do you initial testing.

---

When you start developing and testing other samples you can enable this configuration in the prj.conf file by:

CONFIG_LTE_LEGACY_PCO_MODE=y

 

or if you are testing with the at_client sample you can do the same by using the command AT%XEPCO=0 before turning ON the modem (AT+CFUN=1)

Best regards,

Martin L.