We are excited to release the S+ Camera WP v2.1, the latest in the S+ Camera series of edge AI cameras, which is suitable for installations in outdoor environments.

S+ Camera WP was previously available as a Limited Preview to a limited number of customers. Based on customer feedback, the updated S+ Camera WP v2.1 now features improved waterproof and dustproof performance.

• Supported subscriptions: plan-D (built into the device)
• Availability: Japan only
• Price: 109,780 yen

For more information, please refer to product page (Japanese).

Please note that with this release of the S+ Camera WP v2.1, S+ Camera WP (Limited Preview) (Japanese) will be discontinued.

Soracom is pleased to announce the launch of planX3, a new global subscription plan with 2G, 3G, and 4G/LTE coverage in 89 countries and regions. planX3 also supports LTE-M (LTE Cat-M1) connectivity in 12 countries, including Japan, Germany, France, and the United States.

planX3 also features a simplified subscription price of USD $1/month, which includes 5 MiB of data traffic each month, making it ideal for small data volume applications. Pricing for additional data usage in excess of 5 MiB ranges from $0.073/MiB in Japan and APAC, to $0.037/MiB in the United States, and $0.02/MiB in major European countries.

For complete details on pricing and available countries and regions, please refer to SORACOM IoT SIM Pricing (Japanese).

Purchasing planX3

At this time, planX3 is only available to customers located in Japan. If you are located outside of Japan and are interested in purchasing planX3, please contact us.

For customers located in Japan, planX3 SIMs can be purchased from the SORACOM IoT SIM Card Type (planX3) (Japanese) product page. You can also purchase planX3 SIMs from the User Console (Japanese).

Soracom provides a command line tool soratun that can be embedded in a device in order to easily set up and connect to the Soracom platform using Soracom Arc.

Until now, when bootstrapping a device using soratun, credentials for connecting to Soracom Arc needed to be stored in a configuration file in the device's local file system, such as arc.json, which soratun can then subsequently use to connect to Soracom Arc.

With this update, you can now pass the configuration obtained from the bootstrap process directly into soratun in order to connect to Soracom Arc without storing a credential file.

This update adds the following options:

• --dump-config for use with the soratun bootstrap command.
• --read-stdin for use with the soratun up command.

With these two options, you can now pass the configuration directly in the following way:

soratun bootstrap --dump-config | sudo soratun up --read-stdin

In addition, the following options have also been added so that optional configuration parameters can be specified together with soratun up --read-stdin:

• --additional-allowed-ips
• --mtu
• --persistent-keepalive

Note that in order to pass the configuration directly into soratun, you must use either the Bootstrap with Cellular or Bootstrap with SIM bootstrap methods. The Bootstrap with AuthKey method is not supported.

For more details, please refer to soratun Command Reference for details.

The existing soratun bootstrap command can still be used while storing the configuration locally.

Package20™ (Japanese), a set of 20 image recognition algorithms for S+ Camera series which was previously provided free of charge for a limited time, is now available at the regular price of ¥9,800 (tax included). Package20™ can be purchased from the S+ AI Market in the SORACOM Mosaic Console.

• Purchasing 3rd party algorithms from the S+ AI Market (Japanese)

Note: SORACOM Endorse (Japanese) is required to verify the installation of third party algorithms on S+ Cameras. Please refer to the above document for instructions on enabling Endorse.

We are pleased to announce that Soracom Air IoT SIMs are now available in a commercial grade embedded SIM version.

Compared to the existing industrial grade embedded SIM, the new commercial grade version features different hardware characteristics (such as operating temperature range, moisture resistance, shock resistance, and memory processing) that make it suitable for devices that do not require the higher specifications of the industrial grade version, at a lower price.

• Product Name: SORACOM Air Embedded SIM Commercial Grade
• Product Code: SGECL01
• Size: 5x6mm
• Price: $5.00 USD (tax excluded) / 1 piece (available in increments of of 3,000 pieces)

These new commercial grade embedded SIMs are available with either plan01s or plan01s - Low Data Volume subscription plans installed. When purchasing, please select the subscription plan you would like to use with the SIM.

For detailed specifications, please refer to the Soracom Air IoT SIM Datasheet.

The existing industrial grade embedded SIM will still be available for purchase, and will now be sold under the new product name SORACOM Air Embedded SIM Industrial Grade, with product code SGEIL01.

As announced in July 2021, the Soracom Beam MQTT Entry Point platform version 201509 was scheduled to be discontinued on January 20, 2022, with any Beam MQTT configurations still using this version to be migrated to the newer version 201912.

However, during the process of migrating existing Soracom Beam MQTT Entry Point configurations, a number of customers reported unexpected communication instability with version 201509. As a result, we have decided to temporarily postpone the discontinuation and to amend our support policy for this version.

The updated policy is as follows:

• Soracom Beam MQTT Entry Point platform version 201509 will remain available for use for the time being, and will instead be deprecated on August 1, 2022. After this date, version 201509 will continue to be available for use, however Soracom will no longer guarantee connectivity with MQTT brokers.
• Technical support for version 201509 will be available until August 1, 2022. After this date, technical support this version will not longer be provided.
• The date and procedures for discontinuing version 201509 will be announced at a later date.

If you are currently using the MQTT Entry Point platform version 201509 and would like to migrate to the newer version 201912, please refer to the SORACOM Beam: MQTT Entry Point documentation for migration precautions and details.

If you have any questions about the impact of these changes on your devices, please contact our support team at your earliest convenience.

We are excited to announce that Binary Parser, a feature for Soracom Air devices that converts binary data into JSON, now supports MessagePack (hereafter MsgPack).

In many applications, a device may be configured to send data to a server or to the cloud using JSON format, often for compatibility with cloud services or simply to make the data easier to work with. However, sending data using JSON results in relatively high data usage due to JSON syntax requirements. MsgPack is a binary serialization format which allows a device to easily compress JSON data before it is sent, effectively reducing data usage.

Once data has been compressed and sent, it needs to be converted back to its original format so that a server or cloud service can understand it. With this update, you can now configure Binary Parser to convert MsgPack-compressed data back to JSON by simply entering @msgpack in the Binary Parser format setting. From there, the original JSON data can be sent to Soracom Harvest for storage and data visualization, or to Soracom Beam, Funnel, or Funk in order to forward the data to a server or a cloud service.

Since Binary Parser's conversion occurs after the data arrives at Soracom, cellular data usage can be reduced considerably.

Note: In order for Binary Parser to convert data, your device must be configured to send data to Unified Endpoint unified.soracom.io, or to the corresponding endpoint for Soracom Beam, Funnel, Funk, or Harvest. Data that is sent directly to a server or a cloud service will not be modified by Binary Parser.

MsgPack is available in more than 50 programming languages across many libraries, making it easy to implement in a wide variety of devices. For more information, refer to the official MessagePack site.

Custom Binary Parser formats can still be defined for bit-by-bit data conversion.

We have made architectural improvements to the User Console that reduces its loading time by about 50%. This improvement will take effect on January 13, 2022 and will be available for all users.

We will continue to strive to improve the user experience.

As of January 1, 2022, prices for the following Japan-only devices have been revised. Prices are in Japanese Yen (¥) and include Japanese consumption tax.

Cigar Socket GPS Tracker RT299 Starter Kit

• Old price: ¥21,780 (includes a ¥1,980 Soracom platform service coupon)
• New price: ¥22,880 (includes a ¥2,080 Soracom platform service coupon)

For more details, visit the product page (Japanese).

Vehicle GPS Tracker T366L Starter Kit

• Old price: ¥21,780 (includes a ¥1,980 Soracom platform service coupon)
• New price: ¥24,090 (includes a ¥2,190 Soracom platform service coupon)

For more details, visit the product page (Japanese).

When uploading a WASM module on the Soralet management screen on the User Console, an error message too many soralet versions will be displayed if the number of uploaded WASM module versions has reached the Soralet limit. In order to continue uploading a new module, you had to cancel the upload, delete one of the old versions, and retry the upload again.

With this update, if you have already reached the Soralet limit for the number of WASM module versions, you can now delete the an older version without cancelling the upload:

A "Delete and retry" button will now allow you to automatically delete the oldest unused module version and re-upload the new module.

Note that in order to prevent accidental deletion of an older version that is still in use, this action will only delete the oldest version that is not currently referenced in any group's SORACOM Orbit configuration. If you prefer to choose a different version to delete, you must still cancel the upload and separately select a version to delete.