Getting Started with A0

This guide will help you get up and running with the A0 IoT Gateway.

What You'll Need

Hardware

• A0 IoT Gateway board (base board + ESP32-C6 module)
• USB-C cable for power and programming
• Optional: plug-in module (SIM7080G / WMBUS / E07-400M10S) for your radio

Software

• Zephyr SDK
• Serial terminal (minicom, screen, or PuTTY)
• Git

JTAG vs BUS2 — pick one: DIP switch SW5 routes GPIO4–GPIO7 either to the JTAG header (J10) or to the BUS2 UART/I2C lines. BUS2 UART or I2C and JTAG cannot be used simultaneously — set SW5 to the JTAG side for debugging, or to the BUS2 side for a BUS2 module. See the A0 Base Board for details.

Accounts

• Magistrala account (cloud or local instance)
• Optional: NB-IoT/LTE-M SIM card with data plan

Development Environment Setup

Install Zephyr OS

To program and build firmware for the A0 board, install Zephyr OS from the official website:

https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/develop/getting_started/index.html

Zephyr provides:

• Hardware abstraction for ESP32-C6 peripherals
• Real-time task scheduling
• Networking and protocol stacks
• Secure communication and TLS support

Once Zephyr is installed, you can build and flash applications directly to the A0 board using west.

Clone the Embedded Repository

Zephyr code for the various protocols can be accessed by cloning the Embedded Repository:

git clone https://github.com/absmach/embedded

Magistrala Setup

1. Navigate to Magistrala and sign up.

2. Create a domain, channel, and client.

3. Connect the client to the channel you created.

4. Note down the CHANNELID, DOMAINID, CLIENTID, and CLIENTSECRET — you will need these when configuring firmware.

Uploading Code

Before uploading any code, be sure to have activated a virtual environment as guided in the Zephyr documentation.

Download and install the binary blobs that the Espressif HAL needs:

west blob fetch hal_espressif

Navigate to the Zephyr protocol examples:

cd embedded/targets/zephyr
ls

Choose the protocol you want to communicate over by moving into that directory. Make sure the directory contains:

CMakeLists.txt
prj.conf
src/

Change the variables in src/config.h to match your SuperMQ environment:

• CLIENTID
• CLIENTSECRET
• DOMAINID
• CHANNELID

Build the code:

west build -p always -b esp32c6_devkitc

The board parameter can be changed to whichever board you are using as long as it is recognized by Zephyr. See Zephyr supported boards for more information.

To upload code to the A0 and monitor the serial output:

west flash
west espressif monitor

Next Steps

• Software Overview — Communication protocols and examples
• Hardware Tests — Verify the board boots, then bring up a radio module