Nordic nRF93M1 Dev Kit Brings LTE Cat 1 bis for $60

Cellular IoT has a persistent entry-cost problem: the module is cheap, the development hardware is not. Nordic Semiconductor has closed some of that gap. The nRF93M1 Development Kit, covered by CNX Software on August 24, 2026, starts at $60 from distributors and packs a full LTE Cat 1 bis modem alongside a modern host microcontroller on one board.

• The kit starts at $60 from DigiKey, Rutronik, CoreStaff, Verical, and Future Electronics
• The nRF93M1-LABA module itself is $19.58 in single units and drops to roughly $13.50 at 700-unit volumes
• The modem delivers up to 10 Mbps downlink and 5 Mbps uplink at Power Class 3, covering 617 to 2690 MHz
• Hardware design files — schematics, PCB layout, bill of materials, and Gerbers — are published

What Is LTE Cat 1 bis, and Why Does It Matter for IoT?

Cat 1 bis is the practical middle ground of cellular IoT. It runs on standard LTE networks with no special carrier support, needs only a single antenna instead of the two a full Cat 1 device requires, and delivers enough bandwidth for firmware updates, image uploads, and chatty telemetry. That single-antenna requirement is the quiet headline: it removes an entire RF design problem from the board layout, which is exactly the kind of friction that stalls small-team hardware projects.

It sits above narrowband options like LTE-M and NB-IoT in throughput while staying far below the power and cost of a 5G module. For asset tracking, industrial sensors, and connected equipment that occasionally needs to move real data, it is usually the right answer.

Inside the nRF93M1 Development Kit

The board pairs the nRF93M1 cellular module with an nRF54L15 host MCU — an Arm Cortex-M33 running at 128 MHz with TrustZone, a RISC-V coprocessor handling peripherals, 256KB of SRAM, and 1.5MB of non-volatile memory. The host also brings Bluetooth 6.0 and 802.15.4 at up to +8 dBm, so a design can pair locally over Bluetooth and backhaul over cellular without a second chip.

The rest of the board is developer-facing: two USB-C ports for power, debug, and trace, GPIO expansion headers, an SMA antenna interface with an antenna included, and an nPM1300 PMIC delivering 3.8V at 1.5A. Power comes from 5V USB or a 3.3V to 4.2V battery, with onboard J-Link debugging and power measurement support. There is a SIM socket plus an eSIM footprint, and the kit ships with a preloaded trial SIM so first connection does not wait on a carrier contract.

How It Compares to Nordic's Other Boards

Nordic has been steadily filling out this family. The nRF54L15 host here is the same part behind the nRF54L15 Discovery board that snaps into two usable halves and the coin-cell-friendly nRF54L15 Tag. What the nRF93M1 DK adds is the wide-area radio those boards lack.

If you are still choosing a radio for a project, our low-power wireless MCU guide covering nRF54L, ESP32, and RP2350 walks through the trade-offs, and there is more embedded hardware coverage on the mini computers page. The nRF93M1 module was first shown at Mobile World Congress in March 2026; the development kit reaching broad distribution at $60 is what makes it something you can act on today.

Sources: CNX Software — August 24, 2026; LinuxGizmos — August 2026; Nordic Semiconductor — 2026.