Iridium's new 9604 module puts three radios in one package: Iridium Short Burst Data (SBD) satellite messaging, LTE-M cellular, and GNSS positioning.
For anyone building monitoring or tracking products that have to work where cell coverage is patchy or absent, that solves a board-design problem and a connectivity problem at the same time. The remaining problem is software, and that's the part that now ships solved: the Iridium 9604 Development Kit comes with two ready-made Blynk blueprints, so the kit's Launch Pad board goes straight from unboxing to a working satellite-connected dashboard.
It's the second Iridium development kit to ship with Blynk as the pre-integrated software solution, following the Iridium Certus 9704 Development Kit in 2024.
SBD messages carry up to 340 bytes up and 270 bytes down over Iridium's low-Earth-orbit constellation, which covers the entire planet, and the module operates from −40°C to +85°C. Developers keep independent control of each subsystem. As Iridium puts it, "The 9604 does not force automatic switching. You can define how and when satellite or cellular is used, optimizing cost, performance, coverage, and power."
Blynk blueprints are complete device templates: firmware code, configured datastreams, web and mobile dashboards, and a step-by-step guide. For the 9604 Launch Pad there are two:
Setup stays inside tools most engineers already have: install the Satellite Boards Package and Launch Pad library in Arduino IDE, download the firmware sketch from the device activation panel in Blynk, upload it, and give the antenna a clear view of the sky. When the yellow USER LED starts fast-blinking, the board is on the Iridium network and data is flowing to your dashboard.
The 9604 Launch Pad joins the Certus 9704 Launch Pad as the second Iridium development board to ship with Blynk support ready and waiting. The pattern is the same on both: Iridium provides truly global connectivity, and Blynk provides everything that turns a transmitting module into a usable product.
For companies building satellite-connected products, the alternative is building and maintaining your own cloud backend: device authentication, data storage, dashboards, mobile apps, user management, security, and uptime. That's a full engineering team before you've shipped your first unit. With Blynk, that infrastructure is ready-made and managed. Your team stays focused on the product and the domain, not on keeping servers running or building a device management layer from scratch.
It's the same platform more than 2 million developers use to securely manage millions of devices, so an evaluation that starts on a blueprint has a direct path to a production fleet. The industries Iridium serves are exactly where that path counts: maritime systems reporting position at sea, logistics operations moving assets through coverage gaps, energy and agriculture equipment far from any tower, and emergency-response gear that has to work everywhere.
Both blueprints are live in the Blynk blueprint catalog. Clone one, follow the guide, and your 9604 Launch Pad is reporting from anywhere on Earth. Start with a free account.
.png)
