The SARA‑R5 series is based on u‑blox's UBX‑R5 cellular chipset and the u‑blox M8 GNSS receiver chip. By bringing all technology building blocks in house and having full hardware and software ownership, u‑blox can guarantee long‑term device availability and provide lifetime support of the entire platform, down to the chipset level.

The modules support a comprehensive set of 3GPP Rel. 14 features that are relevant for IoT applications, like improvements to power consumption, coverage, data rate, mobility and positioning. They are 5G‑ready, meaning customers will be able to (software) upgrade their deployed devices, once 5G LTE has been rolled out by mobile operators, greatly improving end product scalability and lifetime.

SARA‑R5 modules are ideal for devices that transmit critical and confidential information, since technology ownership of the entire value chain ensures implementation of a unique and unclonable hardware root‑of‑trust that provides foundational security. Thanks to a discrete, hardware‑based secure element and a lightweight pre‑shared key management system, u‑blox offers state‑of‑the‑art security that is ideal for IoT applications and includes data encryption and decryption, zero touch provisioning, anti‑cloning, and secure chip‑to‑chip communication.

SARA‑R511M is pre‑integrated with the u‑blox M8 GNSS receiver and separate GNSS antenna interface, which provides highly reliable, accurate positioning data in parallel to LTE communication. In addition, the module offers unique hybrid positioning, in which the GNSS position is enhanced with u‑blox CellLocate® data, providing location always and everywhere.

SARA‑R510M has been optimized for extremely low power consumption, using less than 1 μA of current in PSM mode, and is ideal for battery‑powered applications. Customers can future‑proof their solutions by means of OTA firmware updates, thanks to the uFOTA client/server solution, which utilizes LWM2M, a light and compact protocol ideal for IoT applications.