SBC News

esd electronics CAN-PCIeMiniHS/402 is a half-size mini PCIe card with four CAN FD Interfaces designed for embedded systems with one model adding extended temperature range support from -40C to 85°C. The company also introduced the CAN-Mini/402-4-DSUB9-150mm adapter to more easily connect the four CAN network interfaces via DSUB9 connectors. It comes with four individual small adapter boards, each equipped with a DSUB9 plug and a jumper for selectable onboard CAN termination, as well as 150 mm long wires. CAN-PCIeMiniHS/402 highlights: 4x CAN FD interfaces according to ISO 11898-2, no galvanic isolation, bit rates from 10 Kbit/s up to 8 Mbit/s Bus mastering and local data …

Ali Hassan Shah has deployed a deep learning model for hand gesture recognition on the ESP32-S3-EYE board using the ESP-DL library and achieved AI-powered hand recognition with a 0.7-second latency on the ESP32-S3 camera board. Last year, Espressif released the ESP-DL library for the ESP32-S3 microcontroller with AI vector extensions, as well as ESP32 and ESP32-S2, along with a face detection demo that ran much faster on the ESP32-S3. Ali rolled out his own solution for AI gesture recognition and provided a step-by-step tutorial along the way. The main steps to deploying a custom model with the ESP-DL library include: Model Development that involves Getting or creating d…

StarFive sent me one of their VisionFive 2 RISC-V SBC for evaluation and review. I got the model with dual Gigabit Ethernet and 8GB RAM, and I’ll report my experience with the Debian 12 “bookworm” image. But note that won’t exactly be a review since the board is unreviewable at this time. It’s really for early adopters and there are many issues to solve, and in this post, I’ll report what works and what doesn’t, and some of the challenges I encountered just to install the OS… VisionFive 2 unboxing The board comes in a package that reads “Embrace change, embrace the future”. The bottom side has some useful links and QR codes, and what you’ll want is the GitHub repository w…

HARDWARIO CHESTER platform is a configurable LPWAN IoT gateway whose main function is to connect as many devices and environments as possible to the Internet using connectivity such as LoRaWAN, LTE Cat M1, or NB-IoT, as well as GNSS for geolocation. Contrary to most IoT gateways, it does not run Linux on an application processor, and instead, the “brain” of the CHESTER IoT gateway is a Raytac Bluetooth 5.0 module based on a Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller running Zephyr real-time operating system, which connects to LTE IoT modem and a LoRaWAN module through UART, and expansion modules through I2C, 1-wire, and GPIO interfaces. HARDWARIO CHESTER specifica…

HealthyPi 5 is an open-source sensor platform for biosignal acquisition based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and ESP32-C3 WiFi & BLE module used to capture vitals such as electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration, photoplethysmography (PPG), oxygen saturation (SpO₂), and body-temperature data. It is a complete redesign of the HealthyPi v4 Raspberry Pi HAT with many of the same features. While the HealthyPi 5 also follows the Raspberry Pi HAT form factor and can be connected to a Raspberry Pi SBC to analyze the data, it can also be used as a standalone device with the processing handled by the RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller and connectivity through an E…

SiFive HiFive Pro P550 RISC-C motherboard based on Intel “Horse Creek” quad-core SiFive Performance P550 processor will launch this summer with 16GB DDR5 memory, two PCIe expansion slots, Gigabit Ethernet networking, USB 3.x ports, and on-board graphics. Intel Horse Creek platform was first revealed when SiFive unveiled the SiFive Performance P550 64-bit RISC-core with Cortex-A75 class performance in June 2021. The companies then demonstrated an internal Intel Horse Creek board with 8GB DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 at the Intel Innovation 2022 Developer Conference last October, and it looks like the 7nm RISC-V processor will finally be available to developers this summer with the l…

HIGOLE PC STICK is a mini PC that looks like a large flash drive, is smaller than a regular mini PC, and is easier to carry around. You can connect it directly to a monitor or TV with an HDMI input, and use it like any computer right away. In part 1 of the HIGOLE PC STICK review, we will go through the specifications, unbox the design, check its hardware design with a teardown, and go through the first boot. HIGOLE PC STICK specifications The HIGOLE PC STICK is powered by an Intel Celeron J4125 quad-core Gemini Lake Refresh processor with 8GB RAM, 128GB flash, and microSD card slot for storage expansion. The mini PC comes with a Gigabit Ethernet port, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth…

HiPo is a 3.52-inch black and white e-Paper Display that can be updated through NFC without the need for external power and offers an alternative to the 4.2-inch and 7.5-inch NFC-powered e-Paper displays from Wareshare that also operate without battery only using the data and power from NFC to update the image. Alternatively, Guangdong SID Technology’s HiPo display can also be connected to an SPI adapter board allowing the users to connect it to an STM32 board provided by the company, but it could also be used with Arduino boards, ESP8266 & ESP32 hardware platforms, Raspberry Pi SBCs and MCU boards, or any platform with an SPI interface. HiPo specifications: Controlle…

Gerard (aka halfmarble) has released hm-panelizer open-source software allowing for a panelization of PCBs via a simple GUI interface and doubling as a Gerber file viewer. He’s mostly tested it with PCBs designed in KiCad 6.x, but it should also work with design files from other tools. Note that hm-panelizer is just a side project, and Gerard released it as an open-source project in hopes that it might be useful to users and the community will contribute to it. The project relies on kivy cross-platform library, pygame and pycairo libraries, as well as pcb-tools and pcb-tools-extension projects. There are some requirements for the utility to work on with your PCB : Use th…

ESP 360 Remote is an ESP32-based IR and 433 MHz RF remote with built-in sensors used to control home appliances over WiFi and that also integrates with Home Assistant open-source home automation framework. The open-source hardware design is comprised of a mainboard with an ESP32-WROOM-32E module, temperature, humidity, and light sensors, and a board on the top with nine infrared LEDs, one IR receiver, as well as a 433 MHz (or 315 MHz) RF receiver and transmitter with the receivers used for learning the code from the remote controls. ESP 360 Remote specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32E with ESP32 dual-core microcontroller 4MB flash 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth LE…

The Home Assistant SkyConnect is a USB stick with support for Zigbee, Matter, and Thread connectivity designed to work with the popular Home Assistant open-source home automation solution, and enables users to bring Home Assistant Yellow (previously known as Home Assistant Amber) functionality to any platform running Home Assistant. The USB dongle is based on a Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 Gecko Series 2 Arm Cortex-M33 wireless microcontroller with an 802.15.4 multi-protocol 2.4 GHz radio that can concurrently run both Zigbee 3.0 (EmberZNet/EZSP) and Thread/Matter (OpenThread/Spinel) stacks/protocols at the same time by using firmware in RCP RCP (Radio Co-Processor) mode. Home …

A TDP (Thermal Design Power) value in Watts will usually be provided for Intel and AMD processors to help manufacturers design an appropriate thermal solution for a given processor, and it’s often used to estimate power consumption by consumers. But TDP is also often configurable, and manufacturers may decide to increase to decrease the value for higher performance or lower power consumption, so we’ll show you how to check the TDP value, or more exactly PL1 and PL2 power limits in both Windows 11 and Linux (Ubuntu 22.04). Note that TDP is being replaced by PBP (Processor Base Power) in newer processors, with PL1 (Long Duration) corresponding to BPB, and PL2 (Short Duratio…

In this article, we will show you how to set up a WireGuard server on Ubuntu in order to use it for remote login. Introduction to WireGuard First of all, let’s first understand, what is WireGuard? WireGuard is a very simple and fast VPN tool with state-of-the-art encryption. Its goal is to be faster, simpler, more streamlined, and easy to use than IPsec, while avoiding the hassle of large-scale configuration. WireGuard is designed as a general-purpose VPN to run on embedded interfaces and supercomputers in many different environments. Originally released for the Linux kernel, WireGuard is now widely deployed and supported across platforms (Windows, macOS, BSD, iOS, Androi…

Laser ranging has many applications in production and life, such as ranging, positioning, obstacle avoidance, and so on. Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging, as a type of laser ranging technology, is often used for real-time object detection in robots, autonomous vehicles, and traffic management because of its accuracy, fast response, and low power consumption. The face detection function of mobile phones also uses this technology. This article will introduce the WisBlock RAK12014 ToF laser ranging sensor module, and use the WisBlock development board to demonstrate how the module works. What is a ToF laser ranging sensor module? A ToF laser ranging sensor module uses laser puls…

Yesterday, I ended up on the HPMicro website showing the illustration above about a 1 GHz MCU called HPM64G0. It looked interesting enough so I clicked on the link to a page with some documentation for the company’s HPM6700/6400 microcontrollers. But in typical Chinese fashion, I was asked for a mobile phone number to download the documents. No luck this time since a Chinese mobile phone number is required. If anybody can set up a mirror on Mega or other websites easily accessible outside of China that would be appreciated. But eventually, I found an article in Chinese on EETrend where we can learn more about the HPM64G0 which happens to be a 1GHz microcontroller based on…

We’ve written about STMicro Time-of-Flight ranging sensors several times over the year, including the latest VL53L8 which offers a range of up to 4 meters. But if your application would benefit from a more extended range, Toppan and Brookman Technology have designed a three-dimensional range image sensor (3D sensor) capable of measuring distances from one to 30 meters. using a hybrid Time-of-Flight (ToF) method. That method, proposed by Professor Shoji Kawahito of Shizuoka University, is a new sensing technology combining the indirect ToF method of measuring distance by phase difference and the direct ToF methodology for measurement based on time differences. The hybrid m…

Benjamin VERNOUX has launched the HydraUSB3 V1 board based on WCH CH569 RISC-V MCU as a developer platform to experiment with high-speed protocols like HSPI and SerDes through a USB 3.0 interface. It’s the third board from Benjamin we feature here, after the STM32-based HydraBUS and the HydraNFC v2 shield delivering up to 1600 mW for NFC charging and connectivity. The HydraUSB3 v1 is quite different since it does not involve NFC at all, and instead leverages the CH569’s high-speed interfaces including USB 3.0 (5 Gbps), HSPI (3.8Gbps), and SerDes (>1.2Gbps). HydraUSB3 V1 specifications: MCU – WCH CH569 32-bit RISC-V (RISC-V3A) RV32IMAC MCU @ 120MHz with 16KB 32-bit SRAM…

Lattice Semi ICE40 boards are pretty popular notably thanks to the availability of open-source tools. ICE-V Wireless is another ICE40 UltraPlus FPGA board that also adds wireless support through an ESP32-C3-MINI-1 module with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE connectivity. Designed by QWERTY Embedded Design, the board also comes with 8MB PSRAM, offers three PMOD expansion connectors, plus a header for GPIOs, and supports power from USB or a LiPo battery (charging circuit included). ICE-V Wireless specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi ICE40UP5K-SG48 FPGA with 5280 LUTs, 120 Kbits EBR RAM, 1024 Kbits PSRAM External RAM – 8MB PSRAM Wireless – ESP32-C3-MINI-1 module with 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 a…

Muse Lab’s iCESugar-nano is a tiny FPGA board based on Lattice Semi iCE40LP1K-CM36 programmable via its USB-C port through on-board iCELink debugger, and exposing I/Os for three standard PMOD connectors. The board is fully supported by Yosys open-source toolchain ( Yosys+ nextpnr + IceStorm), and the onboard debugger supports drag-and-drop programming so that you can just drag the FPGA bitstream into the virtual disk to program it through a USB Type-C cable. iCESugar-nano specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi iCE40LP1k FPGA with 1280 LUT/8KB SRAM/PLL Storage – 2MB SPI flash (W25Q16) USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – 14x usable IOs with 1x 12-pin…

When I first saw the iKOOLCORE R1 I was fascinated that a mini PC of similar size to the smallest fully functional ones available (think Chuwi LarkBox, GMK NucBox or ECS LIVA Q Series) could be equipped with four 2.5 gigabit Ethernet (2.5GbE) ports. I approached iKOOLCORE who kindly provided an R1 for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 and dabbled with using hypervisors on this mini PC through Proxmox virtual environment. iKOOLCORE R1 specifications iKOOLCORE list the R1 specifications on their website as: Of note are the ‘EC, FCC, RoHS’ certifications indicating both European conformity and approval for use in the US. Technical…

Imagination IMG RTXM-2200 32-bit RISC-V real-time CPU core is the first member of the company’s Catapult family comprised of four distinct RISC-V families for dynamic microcontrollers, real-time embedded CPUs, high-performance application CPUs, and functionally safe automotive CPUs. The company says it’s a highly scalable real-time, deterministic, 32-bit embedded CPU, that is feature-rich and flexible in design for mainstream devices, but, excuse the pun, leaves most of the details to your imagination… The new core will mostly be used as a helper core (aka co-processor) in more complex SoCs for 5G modems, cellular base stations, networking solutions for data transfer, pac…

Indiedroid Nova is another Rockchip RK3588S SBC with Raspberry Pi 4 form factor, up to 16GB RAM, with a heatsink that serves as a protective cover, fitted with a fan (if needed), and an optional swappable flash module up to 64GB capacity. The Nova board has basically the same port layout as the Raspberry Pi 4, except for one of the micro HDMI ports being replaced by a USB Type-C port with support for DisplayPort, so you’ll still get a Gigabit Ethernet port, WiFi 5 & Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, MIPI CSI and DSI connectors, etc… Indiedroid Nova specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 core…

Some ultra-compact 4G LTE wireless routers housed in what looks like a largish USB dongle are based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 401 (MSM8916) quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and have been hacked to run Debian 11 with Linux 5.15 instead of the pre-loaded Android OS. Soon after Extrowerk had purchased a ~$20 “4G LTE WiFi modem” USB dongle, he noticed it would show as “Android” when connected to his PC. It also turned out that Chinese hacker HandsomeYingYan had already done some work on the device modding the lk2nd bootloader and the Linux kernel for the OpenStick project for “mainline Linux on msm8916-based 4G USB modem”, and documented his work (in Chinese) to run Debian 11 on t…

Infineon has added new a shied to its Shield2Go ecosystem with the XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go board integrating the company’s XENSIV PAS CO2 sensor capable of measuring carbon dioxide levels. We first wrote about the Shield2Go module with the OPTIGA Trust-M evaluation kit integrating a security module, but the family also includes various sensors shield and microcontroller boards notably the XMC 2Go board. The new Shield2Go board can be used for both air quality monitoring and controlled ventilation for energy savings. XENSIV PAS CO2 Shield2Go board specifications: XENSIV PAS CO2 sensor: Accuracy – ±30 ppm ±3% “Advanced compensation and self-calibration algorithms” Host…

We’ve previously seen WiFi security cameras promising a year of battery life with products like the Eufy EverCam, but the Ingenic T31-based Smart Video Application Development Kit by Innophase may allow for the development of even more power-efficient WiFi AI security cameras with AI processing last can last over one year. The development kit combines Ingenic T31 MIPS & RISC-V camera SoC with Innophase Talaria TWO INP101x ultra-low-power (57µA @ DTIM10) Wi-Fi & BLE wireless module, that is estimated to last 14.4 months on a 3,000 mAh battery while operating at a 99.3% idle, 0.7% video capture ratio. Development kit content: Board with Ingenic T31 MIPS processor @ …

Inkplate 2 wireless ePaper display is by far the smallest display from Soldered Electronics with a 2.13-inch 3-color ePaper display while previous Inkplate models rely on 6-inch to 9.7-inch ePaper displays. The tiny display board integrates an ESP32 dual-core wireless microcontroller that drives the display, provides WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity plus some I/Os, and can be programmed with the Arduino IDE or MicroPython. Inkplate 2 specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROVER-E module with ESP32 dual-core microcontroller with Wi-Fi 4 & Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, 8MB PSRAM, 4MB flash (Note: The product’s description lists 8MB flash, and 4MB RAM, but there’s no ESP3…

Innodisk, better known for its embedded storage and memory chips, had announced its intention to turn to the AI market earlier and started with the launch of USB camera modules last month, but the company has gone a step (or two, or three) further with the introduction of the EXMU-X261 FPGA machine vision platform. The EXMU-X261 is powered by an AMD Xilink Kria K26 system-on-module and features HDMI 1.4 video output, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports for the cameras and other peripherals, as well as two M.2 sockets and a terminal block for expansion. EXMU-X261 specifications: System-on-module – AMD Xilinx Kria K26 FPGA module powered by a Zynq UltraScale+ XCK26 F…

Innodisk, better known for its industrial storage solutions and embedded peripherals, has recently announced a shift towards the AI industry, and the first products for this market are three USB 2.0 camera modules with 1920×1080 resolution. All three camera modules are fixed focus. Innodisk EV2U-RMR2 offers HDR support, the EV2U-SGR1 is more compact, offers wider angles, and is optimized for low light conditions, while the EV2U-RMR1 supports HDR in a longer, but much thinner and narrower form factor and is equipped with an M5 lens, instead of an M12 lens for the other models. Innodisk EV2U-RMR2 camera module specifications: Resolution – 1920×1080 @ 30fps Sensor Size – 1/4…

Heata, which began as an innovation project with British Gas, is a UK company that connects a server to your hot water cylinder and provides hot water to the house master for free up to 4.8 kWh per day, and at least 2.5 kWh as per contractual obligations. Companies spend millions of dollars to cool the servers hosted in their data centers and most of that heat is completely wasted. So Heata decided to create a win-win solution that lowers their cooling cost and provides free hot water to whoever has their server installed in their house. The installation process is said to be tested and approved by British Gas so you don’t lose your hot water cylinder warranty, and the he…

When SiFive introduced its Performance P550 64-bit RISC-V processor in 2021, we were told that Intel would use it in the Horse Creek platform with “leading-edge interface IP such as DDR and PCIe” and manufactured with Intel’s 7nm process. We now have more details about the Horse Creek platform, as a development board was showcased for the first time in public at the Intel Innovation 2022 Developer Conference, and according to a report by Wikichip, the Cortex-A75 class quad-core RISC-V processor runs at up to 2.2 GHz, supports DDR5-5600 memory and eight PCIe 5.0 lanes, and was taped out with Intel 4 process. Horse Creek platform specifications: CPU – SiFive P500 quad-core …

Intel has just discontinued PathFinder Eclipse-based development environment for RISC-V processors with the website now reading: We regret to inform you that Intel is discontinuing the Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V program effective immediately. Since Intel will not be providing any additional releases or bug fixes, we encourage you to promptly transition to third-party RISC-V software tools that best meet your development needs. PathFinder was a pre-silicon open-source development environment with support for vairous RISC-V cores, a set of other IP’s, multiple operating systems, and toolchains. It allowed designers to create RISC-V SoCs to and run them on FPGA platforms su…

Neuromorphic AI accelerator chips relying on spiking neural networks (SNN), which we’ve seen from companies such as Innatera or Brainchip, will be used more and more in the future as they provide much higher efficiency compared to traditional deep neural networks (DNN) solutions. Intel is also working on SNN, and recently announced the Loihi 2 second-generation neuromorphic research chip with up to 1 million neurons (the human brain has 86 billion of those on average) that delivers up to 175x lower energy to learn a new object instance with similar or better speed and accuracy compared to conventional methods running on a central processing unit (CPU). The new Loihi 2 neu…

Intel Meteor Lake processor family is supposed to succeed the 13th generation Raptor Lake chips itself coming after the current 12th generation Alder lake processors. It is scheduled to launch next year (2023), but we already have some details about the Meteor Lake U, P, and H mobile processors from a leak. Just like most Alder Lake processors, Meteor Lake will be hybrid processors with power and energy-efficient cores, but they’ll also feature new LP E-cores which should stand for “low power efficiency” cores in order to further lower the power consumption while a laptop or mini PC in standby mode. Meteor Lake mobile processors highlights: CPU P cores + E cores + LP-E co…

Intel recently announced they would kill the Celeron and Pentium brands for entry-level PCs, and replace these with the “Intel Processor” brand for notebooks from 2023 onwards, meaning we would get “Intel Core” and “Intel Processor” processors depending on the market segment. The Intel N100 & N200, or more exactly the Intel Processor N100 and Processor N200, Alder Lake-N SKUs may be the first chips with the new branding. They were discovered by Coelacanth-Dream while looking at some Linux boot logs. Intel Processor N100: [crayon-632a9b8d2023d476136554/] Intel Processor N200: [crayon-632a9b8d20246857475856/] Both processors appear pretty similar but the boot logs show …

Topton is selling a mini PC based on the Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N quad-core processor with 8GB LPDDR5 RAM for $156.44 and up depending on the selected SSD capacity. But despite its low price, the specifications are not too bad with dual 4K video output thanks to HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort interfaces, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity, four USB ports including one USB 3.0 port, and an audio jack. Specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N quad-core processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – 8GB LPDDR5 4800MHz RAM Storage M.2 socket for M.2 2280 SATA SS…

We’ve started to see Intel Alder Lake-N processors in mini PCs such MSI Cubi ADL N and Morefine M9 based on announced SKUs, but the Intel Processor N95 processor, which Intel has yet to unveil, is now found in a mini PC sold for various Aliexpress sellers starting at $187 for a barebone system and going up to $384 for a model with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD preloaded with an activation version of Windows 10 or Windows 11. The Processor N95 is a quad-core processor clocked at up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, and 16EU Intel UHD graphics clocked up to 750 MHz. The TDP is not known, but considering the base frequency is shown to be 1.7 GHz in GeekBench it’s probably a 15W TD…

We’ve been writing about international Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and coupons since 2014, since US-centric promotions such as Amazon Black Friday deals are not always suitable to the diverse, international audience of CNX Software. Let’s check out Black Friday 2022 international deals from specific manufacturers as well as events from Aliexpress, Banggood, and other stores. Arduino Black Friday sales Arduino’s Black Friday Sales event offers new and legacy boards at a 20% to 25% discount, as well as a discount for one certification bundle. The number of items on sale is limited, as at the time of writing there were only 11. While the screenshot above shows prices…

InuoMicro G4305L8-S2 is a relatively inexpensive fanless industrial PC box powered by an Intel Celeron 4305U Whiskey Lake processor that offers eight 2.5GbE ports making the system suitable for firewall and other networking applications. The barebone computer supports up to 32GB RAM, one mSATA SSD, one 2.5-inch SATA drive, and also provides interfaces such as HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs and a few USB ports allowing the user as a standard computer. Wireless connectivity can be implemented through mini PCIe and/or M.2 4G LTE and WiFi modules. InuoMicro G4305L8-S2 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron 4305UE dual-core Whiskey Lake processor @ 2.0 GHz (base, no turbo fre…

Sfera Labs has launched another Raspberry Pi RP2040-based hardware platform with the Iono RP D16 industrial IO module following the Exo Sense RP multi-sensor module we covered last month. The Iono RP D16 module provides sixteen digital 24V I/O lines, an RS-485 serial interface, a wide range 12-28V power supply input, and its DIN-rail case enables installation in electrical cabinets and automation control systems. Iono RP D16 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133MHz with 264kB on-chip SRAM Storage – 16MB SPI flash Inputs/Outputs via terminal blocks Up to 16x 24V 640mA outputs driven by high-side switches that can also be c…

LILYGO T-SIM7080G-S3 is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth IoT board with a SIMcom SIM7080G LTE Cat-M (eMTC), NB-IoT, and GNSS module for low-power long-range connectivity and asset tracking. The board also comes with a 18650 battery holder, a solar panel input, a microSD card slot, a camera port, and several I/Os and provides an alternative to the TTGO T-Beam ESP32 board that relies on LoRaWAN for long-range connectivity instead. LILYGO T-SIM7080G-S3 specifications: Wireless modules Espressif ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 module with ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 microprocessor @ up to 240 MHz with Vector extension for machine learning, 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5 LE/Mes…

ADLINK has launched an IP-i IoT Prototype Kit based on their Express-ADP COM Express Type 6 Basic “Alder Lake-H” module with either an Intel Core i5-12600H 12-core (4P+8E) processor clocked at up to 4.5 GHz or a Core i3-12300H 8-core (4P+4E) processor reaching up to 4.3 GHz. The kit also includes the Express-BASE6 R3.1 carrier board, a thick heatsink with an active fan, a debug board (DB30 x86), and various cables for SATA storage, a DB9 COM port, and I/Os, and the kit can be used to develop applications for industrial automation and control, medical ultrasound, image processing and analysis, high-speed video encoding and streaming, predictive traffic analysis, multi came…

EDATEC ED-AIC2020 is an IP67-rated, Raspberry Pi CM4-based industrial AI camera equipped with a fixed or liquid lens and LED illumination that leverages the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 to run computer vision applications using OpenCV, Pythong, And Qt. We’ve previously written about Raspberry Pi Compute Module-based smart cameras such as the Q-Wave Systems EagleEye camera (CM3+) working with OpenCV and LabVIEW NI Vision and the StereoPi v2 (CM4) with stereo vision. But the EDATEC ED-AIC2000 is the first ready-to-deploy Raspberry Pi CM4 AI camera we’ve covered so far. EDATEC “CM4 AI camera” (ED-AIC2020) specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 up to 8GB RAM, u…

With Smart Home products connecting to the cloud, if a company decides to end support for a product or is required to close due to final troubles, there are few courses of action. The easiest one is to give up, and switch to another brand, or promise yourself you’ll never use one of those “Internet of Shit” products. The second one is quite more time-consuming and you’d have to work with the community to reverse-engineering the product and give it a second life, but obviously, this does not solve the supply issue since the product will not be manufactured anymore. Today, I learn about a third one: simply gather a small group of users, and buy the company! That’s basically…

Topcon “N5105/N6005 NAS board” is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by an Intel Celeron N5105 or N6005 Jasper Lake processor, equipped with six SATA 3.0 ports, two M.2 NVMe sockets, and four Intel i226-V 2.5GbE controllers. The board also comes with two SO-DIMM DDR4 slots for up to 64GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort video outputs, and several USB 3.0/2.0 interfaces. As its name implies, it is designed for network access storage (NAS), but I could also see it used as a networked video recorder (NVR), a network appliance, or a multi-purpose machine. Topcon “N5105/N6005 NAS board” specifications: SoC (One or the other) Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GH…

Earlier this year, we noted the addition of the JetHome JetHub D1 Linux-based home automation controller to mainline Linux 5.16, and the JetHome JetHub D1p (D1+) was just added to Linux 6.1 with some improvements. Still based on the Amlogic A113x processor, the JetHub D1+ gets more memory and storage with 2GB DDR4 RAM and 32GB eMMC flash, a MicroSD card slot, a new RTL8822CS wireless module, and a micro USB port to easily access the console and/or flash firmware to the device. Jetson D1+ specifications: SoC – Amlogic A113x quad-core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, MicroSD slot Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port…

JeVois-Pro tiny AI camera was introduced last year with an Amlogic A311D processor with a built-in 5 TOPS NPU, and support for an Intel Myriad X or Google Edge TPU M.2 card all that in a compact 50x50x45 mm box. The company has now managed to get hold of some M.2 A+E 2230 Hailo-8 modules delivering up to 26 TOPS of AI performance and is selling for JeVois-Pro ultra-compact deep learning camera with the Hailo-8 accelerator for $599 delivering up to 31 TOPS once we include the built-in 5 TOPS NPU. I won’t go through the full specifications again, but in a nutshell, that’s a camera designed for robotics projects, powered by an Amlogic A311D hexa-core Cortex-A73/A53 process…

The Juno tablet is a 10.1-inch Linux tablet that ships with Manjaro Linux or Mobian, and is powered by an Intel Celeron N5100 quad-core Jasper Lake mobile processor. The Linux tablet comes with a 1920×1200 resolution IPS touchscreen display, 8GB LPDDR4 soldered on the main board, and a choice between a 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB SSD. Customers can select one of the three Linux distributions with Mobian, as well as Manjaro Linux with either Phosh or Plasma mobile environments. Juno tablet specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5100 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 1.1GHz / 2.8GHz (Turbo) with 24EU Intel UHD graphics @ 350 / 800 MHz (Turbo); 6W TDP System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 Stora…

There’s a plethora of mini PCs on the market, but due to their size, the ports are often placed on several sides which may make cable management troublesome. The JX1 mini PC, equipped with an Intel Celeron N5105 Jasper Lake processor, does not have this issue since all ports are accessible on the rear panel. The computer ships with 8GB RAM, up to 256GB SSD, and the rear panel comes with two USB Type-C port, one for power only, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HDMI ports, and three USB 3.0 ports. You’ll still find the power button on the front panel, and wireless connectivity is supported through a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module. JX1 mini PC specificati…

KC12 is a mini PC powered by either an Intel Core i5-1240P or Core i7-1260P Alder Lake-P hybrid processor with up to 64GB DDR4, SATA and NVMe storage options, HDMI and DisplayPort for up to four 4K displays, as well as two 2.5GbE networking interfaces. The actively-cooled computer also comes with six USB ports, four of which are USB 3.x, audio jacks for a headphone and a microphone, an optional WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 module, an RS232 COM port, and a Kensington lock slot. KC12 mini PC specifications: Alder Lake-P SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i7-1260P 4P+8E (16 threads) processor @ 3.40/4.70GHz with Intel Xe graphics; 28W TDP Intel Core i5-1240P 4P+8E (16 threads) pr…

I’ve tested a few security cameras with human and vehicle detection capabilities, but Reolink has now added animal detection via the KEEN Ranger PT trail camera mostly designed to monitor four-legged animals in the wild. It’s somewhat similar to the Reolink Go Plus 4G camera with solar power support and 4G LTE connectivity, but also offers a 360° view with pan/tilt control, a low-glow IR night vision, a 0.5s fast trigger speed, as well as GPS to track the position of cameras or sightings of animals on the mobile app. KEEN Ranger PT camera key features and specifications: Camera/Video Image Sensor – 1/3″ CMOS Sensor Video Resolution – 2K 4MP high definition (2560 x 1440 @ …

We’ve had a sample of the Khadas Edge2 single board computer powered by Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor for a couple of weeks, and now that the board is officially launched we can post our review of the board with Ubuntu 22.04, and we’ll check out Android 12 later on. Khadas Edge2 Pro accessories The Khadas Edge2 comes in two variants: Basic and Pro, We received the Edge2 Pro SBC with 16GB RAM and 64GB flash that ships with two WiFi antennas by default, but the company also sent a low-profile fansink and thermal pad for cooling that in theory would be optional, but in practice, it is required as while the board runs fairly cool considering the performa…

We’ve already reviewed Khadas Edge2 Pro with Ubuntu 22.04, and I’ve now had time to test the ultra-thin Rockchip RK3588S SBC with Android 12, so I’ll report my experience checking out the features, running some benchmarks, playing videos and games, etc… Flashing Android 12 to Khadas Edge2 board Our board was running Ubuntu 22.04, so in order to enter OOWOW firmware system, I had to keep pressing the function key (middle), then shortly press the reset button, before releasing the function key and entering the OOWOW interface. We can see the Android 11 image from the list we saw last month is gone for good, and a new Android 12 image dated September 20, 2022 is available. I…

As noted in the Khadas VIM1S announcement, the company is also preparing to launch the Khadas Edge2 single board computer with a Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor and a thickness of just 5.7mm (before a low-profile heatsink is installed). The new board follows a similar form factor as the original Khadas Edge board powered by a Rockchip RK3399 processor, except the edge connector is gone, so it can’t be used as a system-on-module anymore, but remains the thinnest and one of the most powerful Arm SBCs so far. Khadas Edge2 Basic/Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with four Cortex-A76 cores @ 2.25 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores…

We’ve previously tested Ubuntu 22.04 on Khadas VIM1S Amlogic S905Y4 SBC, so we’ll switch to Android 11 in the second part to check out the user experience and benchmark the system under Android. Installing Android 11 on Khadas VIM1S board with OOWOW We’ll basically follow the same procedure as with Ubuntu to flash the Android OS. Press and hold the Function button, press the Reset button, and release the Function button. to enter the OOWOW Wizard, and if an Ethernet cable is not connected, select Network to configure Wi-Fi as the installation process requires downloading an image from Khadas servers. This time, we’ll select the latest Android 11 image namely vim1s-android…

In this review of Khadas VIM1S SBC, we’ll install Ubuntu 22.04, and report our experience testing the performance such as memory speed and eMMC flash performance, and 3D graphics capabilities. Installing Ubuntu 22.04 on Khadas VIM1S Just like Khadas VIM4 and Edge2, the Khadas VIM1S SBC ships with the OOWOW firmware that allows easy installation of operating systems by downloading the images, and flashing them directly to the eMMC flash. You need just to connect a monitor and a USB keyboard and have an Internet connection through either LAN or Wi-Fi. Let’s start by installing Ubuntu 22.04 on Khadas VIM1S together. If no OS is installed, OOWOW will boot automatically, but …

Khadas VIM4 is a compact Amlogic A311D2 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 SBC with 8GB RAM, HDMI input and output, WiFI 6 connectivity, and more. You can check our earlier post for the full specifications. The good news is that it will officially launch on May 10. I’ve also just received a Khadas VIM4 review sample today together with accessories. Today, I’ll start by checking out the board, assembling the kit, and trying out OOWOW services to boot OS from the cloud, before testing available operating systems in more detail in the second part of Khadas VIM4 review a little later. Khadas VIM4 kit unboxing I received everything in a bland card board package with several small packag…

In the first part of Khadas VIM4 review, I showed off the Amlogic A311D2 SBC and some accessories such as the DIY case and M2X expansion board to add M.2 SSD and modem and tried out OOWOW cloud services to install Ubuntu 20.04 server. I’ve now just gotten Fiber Internet at home, so it’s much more practical to test the system, and in the second part of the review, I’ve installed Android 11 on the VIM4 board, checked out settings and system info, and ran some benchmarks. It will be more like a preview since Android 11 is not a consumer-friendly system at this time, and is more designed for people wanting to build their own applications. Installing Android 11 on Khadas VIM4…

Here’s the last part of Khadas VIM4 review with Ubuntu 22.04 “Jammy Jellyfish”. You may want to check out our previous parts with the unboxing and first boot, followed by Android 11 if you haven’t already done so. Ubuntu 22.04 installation on Khadas VIM4 I used the same method of installation with OOWOW firmware that can download the image directly from Khadas server, and install it to the eMMC flash. Since I already had Android 11 running on the board, I had to keep pressing the function key (middle), then shortly press the reset button, before releasing the function key and entering OOWOW interface. From there, I selected Ubuntu 22.04 Gnome, and went ahead with the dow…

KiCad 7.0.0 open-source EDA software has just been released with a range of new features from custom fonts to 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse integration to opt-in Sentry crash reporting, and many more. It took over three years between KiCad 5.0.0 and KiCad 6.0.0 announcements, but only a little over a year for the release of KiCad 7.0.0. Did KiCad developers acquire superhuman abilities or did AI get involved in the development somehow? Most probably not, and instead they change the release schedule to a yearly one, so we should get annual releases of the open-source EDA suite going forward, with KiCad 8.0.0 to be released in Q1 2024. Some notable changes to KiCad 7.0 include: Cu…

KIOXIA Corporation, previously known as, Toshiba Memory Corporation, has started sampling of the XFMEXPRESS XT2 removable PCIe/NVMe storage device compliant with XFM DEVICE Ver.1.0-standard with dimensions of just 18×14 mm. The new storage standard and device are mostly designed for space-constrained applications ranging from ultra-mobile PCs to IoT devices and various embedded applications that may require fast, removable storage. We do not have the full specifications for the XFMEXPRESS XT2, but here are the highlights: Host interface – PCIe 4.0 x 2 lanes, NVMe 1.4b interface with similar performance to M.2 SSDs Removable storage similar to microSD card Dimensions 18 x …

I’ll combine two unrelated short news about software releases for TV boxes, Raspberry Pi, and other SBCs: Kodi 20 “Nexus” Alpha 1 media center, and DietPi 8.5 lightweight Debian-based image for SBC’s. Kodi 20 “Nexus” Alpha 1 The first alpha release of Kodi 20 “Nexus” is out with one highlight being support for AV1 hardware video decoding in Android and x86 (VAAPI) platforms with AV1-capable GPU or VPU. Other notable changes include: FFMPEG upgraded to version 4.4 Plenty of subtitle related changes: Added Steam Deck built-in controller support Initial support for M1 native including native windowing/input handling Pipewire support in Linux Various PVR improvements includin…

KOKONI SOTA 3D printer with an inverted design (the printing head is under the hotbed) that supports printing speeds of up to 600mm/s, as well as 7-color printing through a filament tower adding support for 5 extra filament rolls. The upside-down design was made to move motors and rails to the bottom base of the printer to lower the center of gravity and help improve stability, reduce the vibration to virtually nothing, and enable the faster printing speed. KOKONI also says the SOTA 3D printer offers 0.1mm accuracy thanks to AI radar detection and error compensation and operates relatively silently at 30dB one meter from the 3D printer. KOKONI SOTA specifications: Printin…

Kontron D3723-R is an industrial mini-ITX motherboard equipped with the just-announced AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 processor family that delivers higher performance than Ryzen R1000 Series while keeping the costs lower than AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 solutions, and enabling Windows 11 support. Manufactured in Germany, the Kontron D3723-R will be offered with Ryzen R2312, R2314, R2514 and R2544 SKUs, and be particularly suitable for embedded graphics applications such as professional casino gaming systems, medical displays, thin clients, industrial PCs, infotainment, and digital signage systems. Kontron D3723-R specifications: SoC (one of the other) AMD Embedded R2312 dual-core…

Kontron D3724-R mSTX is an upcoming industrial Mini-STX motherboard powered by an AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 Series SoC and designed for applications with high graphical requirements such as casino gaming, medical displays, thin clients, and compact industrial PCs. The motherboard supports up to 32GB RAM, SATA & NVMe storage, and is equipped with up to three DisplayPort outputs, one HDMI port, as well as eDP and dual-channel LVDS interfaces to support up to four independent 4K displays. Kontron D3724-R mSTX specifications: SoC (One or the other) D3724-R1 – AMD Embedded R2312 dual-core/quad-thread processor @ 2.7 / 3.5 GHz (Turbo) with 3-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12…

Kubuntu Focus NX is a mini PC running Kubuntu Focus Linux operating system on an Intel Core i5-1135G7 or i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake processor, with up to 64GB RAM, support for NVMe and SATA storage, offering four HDMI/DisplayPort video outputs, two Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports, and three extra USB 3.2 Type-A ports. The mini PC also comes with decent networking and wireless connectivity thanks to a 2.5GbE port and an Intel AX601 module enabling WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. Mini PCs shipping with Linux by default are quite rare, and most that do are fairly expensive ones, so it’s nice to see a more affordable mid-range mini PC working with Kubuntu Focus out of the box. Kubuntu Focus …

LakeShark is open-source firmware by Samuel Reynolds (SAMS0N1TE) that turns the ESP32-P4-based LilyGO T-Display P4 into a handheld SDR scanner. Paired with an RTL-SDR Blog V3 or V4 dongle, it supports P25 Phase I trunking, analog FM/AM, POCSAG pager decoding, and 1090 MHz ADS-B reception directly on the ESP32-P4, without a PC, Raspberry Pi, or smartphone. It also includes an onboard SX1262 that supports LoRa and MeshCore applications. SDR devices like LimeSDR Micro, xSDR, UUGear’s VU GPSDR, and many others usually rely on a PC, Raspberry Pi, or smartphone for processing, but LakeShark shows that a powerful microcontroller can also handle many SDR tasks. We previously cove…

What comes after Qualcomm Robotics RB3, RB5, and RB6 platforms? Apparently, it’s Qualcomm Robotics RB1 and RB2 platforms powered by Qualcomm QRB2210 and Qualcomm QRB4210 processors respectively and optimized for cheaper, smaller robots with lower power consumption. But Qualcomm is one of the lamest companies known to man, so they did not include any photos when announcing the Robotics RB1 and RB2 platforms, so I’ll focus this post on Lantronix Open-Q 2210RB and 4210RB system-in-packages (SiP) based on the same processors, as well as the Open-Q RB1/RB2 development kit. Open-Q 2210RB and 4210RB SiP The new system-in-packages are very similar to the earlier Open-Q 2290CS and…

The LapPi 2.0 is a DIY laptop kit with an acrylic enclosure, a UPS HAT with a 18650 battery holder, and off-the-shelf parts including speakers, a touchscreen display, a Raspberry Pi camera, and a wireless keyboard that’s suitable for the Raspberry Pi 4 and pretty much any other small single board computer from Radxa, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, FriendlyElec, Hardkernel, and others. We’ve seen several Raspberry Pi laptops over the years with the CrowPi L and Pi-Top, and I have to say the LapPi 2.0 is not the most eye-pleasing or sophisticated design, but at least, it’s versatile and not limited to the Raspberry Pi family. LapPi 2.0 kit content and highlights: Display – 7-inch 5-…

The LattePanda 3 Delta single board computer with an Intel Celeron N5105 Jasper Lake processor and an Arduino ATmega32U4 Leonardo compatible MCU that initially launched through a Kickstarter campaign in November 2021. The team behind the board has now announced the global availability of the Intel + Arduino SBC on DFRobot starting at $279 plus shipping, which we can compare to the $229 pledge asked during the crowdfunding campaign for reference. LattePanda 3 Delta 864 specifications remain the same also with a few extra details: SoC – Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics 605 @ 450 to 800 MHz; 10W TDP System …

LattePanda Sigma is a 3.5-inch single board computer (SBC) with an Intel Core i5-1340P Raptor Lake-P processor and a Microchip ATmega32U4 microcontroller to control I/Os with Arduino programming. The board comes with 16GB soldered-on LPDDR5 RAM, supports M.2 NVMe/SATA SSDs and SATA drives for storage, offers HDMI 2.1, eDP, and USB-C DisplayPort video outputs, dual 2.5GbE networking, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and three M.2 sockets for expansion sich as WiFi or 4G/5G modules. LattePanda Sigma specification SoC – Intel Core i5-1340P 12-core (4P+8E)/16-thread Raptor Lake hybrid processor @ up to 4.6 GHz (Performance cores), 3.4GHz (Efficient cores), 12MB L2 Cache, 80EU Intel …

Lattice Avant is a new low-power and small form factor mid-range FPGA platform, manufactured with a 16nm FinFET process, and equipped with 25 Gb/s SERDES, hardened PCI Express, external memory PHY interfaces, a high DSP count, and a security engine. Lattice Semi is better known for its entry-level FPGAs such as the iCE40 which is popular in the community thanks to low-cost hardware and support for open-source tools, but the Avant platform marks the company’s entry into the mid-range FPGA market, defined by chips with 100k to 500k logic cells (LCs). Lattice Avant highlights: FPGA fabric – 200K to 500K logic cells up to 350 MHz DSP – 700 to 1,8000 18×18 multipliers @ up to …

After SiFive and StarFive, here comes LeapFive RISC-V silicon vendor offering the NB2 quad-core 64-bit RISC-V application processor with GPU, NPU, and vision and audio DSPs capable of running Linux. LeapFive NB2 processor is equipped with MIPI DSI and LVDS display interface, dual GbE, USB 3.2/2.0 interfaces, and other peripheral interfaces that make it well-suited to a wide range of applications including Smart Home applications, robotics, industrial gateways, drones, building automation, smart cities, digital signage, medical equipment and more. LeapFive NB2 specifications: CPU – Quad-core 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.8 GHz delivering 2.5 DMIPS/MHz Cache – 32KB I-cache, 3…

Arduino Make Your UNO Kit is a kit with two boards, one for the microcontroller and the other for audio, and all components required that can be used to learn how to solder and then Arduino programming. Once soldering and assembly are complete you’ll hopefully get a working Arduino UNO and an audio synthesizer shield. But before you get there, you’ll need to equip yourself with a soldering iron and some soldering tin to solder the components below to the two PCBs. Package content: Arduino Make Your UNO board’s components Make Your UNO PCB Socket for ATMega328p MCU Microchip ATmega328p 8-bit AVR microcontroller USB Type-C serial adapter board Various 1k Ohm, 10k Ohm. and 1…

James Brown (aka Ancient) has built a tiny computer inside a LEGO brick with a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and a 0.42-inch monochrome OLED display. And yes, it runs Doom. So finally, the LEGO minifigures have access to a computer suitable for their size :). James did not post a lot of information to reproduce the build by yourself, but he still released the “uGrey” code, written in Micropython, to display greyscale on a monochrome OLED. We can learn from the design in a mesmerizing video (embedded at the end of this post) showing how he made a Raspberry Pi RP2040 computer fit into a LEGO brick. The tiny design is comprised of five main boards/modules: Raspberry Pi…

Libre Computer’s latest Ubuntu 22.04 desktop and server images for ROC-RK3328-CC board are based on Linux mainline, namely Linux 5.18.2, and other boards from the company, based on Allwinner H2+/H5 processor or Amlogic S905X, have gotten the same treatment. Some companies will churn out boards regularly but provide limited software support. Libre Computer seems to have taken a different approach, as they released most of their board in 2017 and 2018, starting with AML-S905X-CC “Le Potato” board based on the Amlogic S905X processor, followed by ALL-H3-CC “Tritium” SBC with Allwinner H2+, H3, or H5 processor, and finally ROC-RK3328-CC “Renegade” board, but still release upd…

LibreELEC 11 lightweight media center Linux distribution based on Kodi 20 “Nexus” has just been released with various improvements on x86 and Arm platforms. Kodi 20 was released and available for download in January with AV1 hardware video decoding in Android and x86 (VAAPI) platforms with AV1-capable GPU or VPU, FFMPEG 4.4, Pipewire support in Linux, and a few others. LibreELEC 11 enables you to have a dedicated, and fast booting, HTPC based on a mini PC, a Raspberry Pi SBC, or an Arm-based TV box with all features from the latest Kodi release. LibreELEC 11 supports Raspberry Pi 2 to 4 SBCs, 64-bit x86 hardware, various Allwinner, Rockchip, and Amlogic SBCs and TV boxes …

Lichee Pi 4A is a single board computer (SBC) powered by Alibaba T-Head TH1520 quad-core RISC-V Xuantie C910 processor @ 1.8 GHz with an Imagination GPU and a 4 TOPS NPU for AI that can compete against the Raspberry Pi 4 in terms of performance and features. We previously mentioned the Lichee Pi 4A (LPi4A) in our article about the Sipeed LM4A RISC-V system-on-module, but at the time we only had some benchmarks for the board and no photos and specifications about the SBC. Sipeed has now released photos and more detailed specifications and is taking “pre-orders”. So let’s have a look. Lichee Pi 4A specifications against the ones for Raspberry Pi 4. The TH1520 used to be …

When Sipeed first introduced the Lichee RV module with Allwinner D1 RISC-V SoC last November, they also teased the Lichee RV-86, an “86 Box” with a 4-inch 480×480 touchscreen display, an XR829 WiFi and Bluetooth module, Ethernet (via USB), two microphones, a GPIO header, and support for WAFT (WebAssembly Framework for Things). I’ve just noticed the Lichee RV-86 has been for sale for several months, so it may be interesting to have a closer look, and now there’s also an option to get a 720×720 touchscreen display. Lichee RV-86 specifications: SoM – Sipeed Lichee RV Nezha compute module with Allwinner D1 RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz, 512MB or 1GB DDR3, microSD card slot, and US…

Light sensors are used to turn on/off lights, adjust the brightness of displays, and more. But I’ve come across a use case I never thought of: object presence detection. In the digital signage work, such features if called “lift and learn”, and light sensors are used to detect when an object is present and play a video or display information about the product. That concept came to my attention when I saw a photo of Mekotronics R29 digital signage player with several cables coming out of the device and attached to what looked like white hockey pucks and turned out to be light sensors. Apart from the light sensors, Mekotronics R29 specifications are pretty standard: SoC – R…

Qualcomm unveiled a new Wireless AR Smart Viewer Reference Design powered by the Snapdragon XR2 platform last week with very few details, but the company has now demonstrated the system to some members of the press, so let’s have a closer look. The reference design aims to provide a similar level of performance as a headset connected to PC or premium smartphone, but with some of the processing offloaded to the Snapdragon XR2 processor, thereby eliminating the need for a cord while still achieving lag-free experiences in combination with the Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 solution. It is supposed to offer a 40% thinner profile and a more balanced weight…

HC32L110 Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU is found in a minuscule 1.59 x 1.436 mm CSP16 package that should make it the world’s smallest MCU. LilyGO T-HC32 is one of the first boards with the HC32L110B6 microcontroller, and it is now available for $8.98 on Aliexpress including shipping. The board offers really basic features with two buttons, a WS2812 RGB LED, and two-row of ten pins each for GPIOs and power signals, plus a 4-pin header for SWD programming. There’s nothing really special about the board or its price, except for the MCU’s size that’s barely discernable from a discrete component, and much smaller than the 7x7mm ESP32-PICO-D4 system-in-package shown in the photo below for…

LilyGO T-PicoC3 is a small development board combining Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core microcontroller with ESP32-C3 RISC-V MCU to add WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity and adds a 1.14-inch color display to the mix, plus several I/Os. We had previously other designs merging ESP32 and RP2040 with UDOO KEY. Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect, or the Pico Wireless Pack among others, but as far as I know, the T-PicoC3 board is the first to use Raspberry Pi RP2040 and ESP32-C3 RISC-V processor. LilyGO T-Pico3 specifications: Microcontrollers Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ MCU with 264 KB of embedded SRAM Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 RISC-V processor with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth…

LILYGO T-QT Pro is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and BLE IoT board with a 0.85-inch color display, 4MB flash, 2MB PSRAM, a USB-C port, a few GPIOs, and support for LiPo battery with charging. It is an upgrade to the ESP32-S3-based LILYGO T-QT V1.1 board that also supports LiPo battery power but lacks a charging circuit, so you had to remove the battery and charge it manually each time. The T-QT Pro adds a charging circuit and switches from an ESP32-S3 with an 8MB flash design to one using ESP32-S3FN4R2 with 4MB flash and 2MB PSRAM. LilyGO T-QT Pro specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3FN4R2 dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acce…

LILYGO must be churning out at least one new “ESP32” board every month, but I don’t think they’ve ever made one with ESP32-S3. LILYGO T-QT V1.1 board changes that and combines the dual-core WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5.0 AI microcontroller with a 0.85-inch color display. The board also happens to be rather small and cute with a 33 x 18 mm form factor, offers some I/O via headers and a 4-pin connector, and can be powered via its USB Type-C port or a battery, but lacks a charging circuit. LILYGO T-QT V1.1 specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration, 512KB RAM, wireless connectivi…

LILYGO T-RGB is a wireless 2.1-inch round color touchscreen display based on ESP32-S3R8 dual-core microcontroller with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, 8MB PSRAM, and 16MB flash storage. The device also includes a microSD card socket for data storage and a Grove I2C connector for expansion and supports LiPo battery power. The company also says it can be charged through USB, so the board must include a battery charging circuit contrary to some other boards from LILYGO. LILYGO T-RGB specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3R8 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration, 8MB PSRAM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE + Mesh…

LILYGO T-RSC3 is a relatively compact ESP32-C3 board with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5.0 connectivity, support for RS232 and RS485 communication protocols through a DB9 connector and a terminal connector respectively, and a wide 5V to 24V DC power input. LILYGO had already made an ESP32 board with CAN Bus and RS485 interfaces called the T-CAN485, but without any isolation. The new T-RSC3 offers both RS232 and RS485 interfaces, but no CAN Bus, protected by isolated transceiver modules that should make it safer to use in industrial environments. LILYGO T-RSC3 board specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3-MINI-1U module with ESP32-C3 RISC-V microcontroller …

ESP32-S3 has been in the news recently and we just wrote about the Bee S3 and BPI-PicoW-S3 boards yesterday, but there’s more, and LilyGo T-SIMCAM ESP32-S3 is another interesting ESP32-S3 board with a 2MP camera as well as support for an optional 4G LTE module. The board can make use of the AI capabilities from the ESP32-S3 microcontroller through the built-in camera and microphone and offers two options for power with 5V through a USB Type-C port, as well as a 2-pin JST connector for connecting a battery. T-SIMCAM ESP32-S3 CAM board specifications: Wireless MCU – ESP32-S3R8 dual-core Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE and Mesh connectivity with 8…

After the T-Display-S3 AMOLED board, LILYGO has launched another ESP32-S3 board with an AMOLED display named the T-Track that features a smaller 1.1-inch AMOLED display and a trackball that allows the user to navigate any menu or user interface shown on the display. The rest of the board’s specifications are very similar with an ESP32-S3R8 dual-core chip with 8MB PSRAM providing WiFi and BLE connectivity, a 16MB SPI flash for storage, two rows of pins for up to 18x GPIOs, a Qwicc connector for module expansion, and support for USB-C charging and a LiPo battery for power. T-Track specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3R8 dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 24…

LILYGO T-TWR is an ESP32-S3 development board fitted with an SA868 Walkie-Talkie module and a UHF or VHF antenna, a speaker, a microphone, a small 0.96-inch OLED, and a 18650 battery holder, plus some I/Os for expansion. Equipped with an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-16NR8 module, the T-TWR offers WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, a dual-core processor with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM, and enables users to design their own Walkie-Talkie, while its expansion capabilities allow the control of devices. LILYGO T-TWR specifications: Wireless module – Espressif ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 module with ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 microprocessor @ up to 240 MHz with Vector extension for machine learni…

The LimeSDR Mini is an open-source hardware full-duplex USB SDR board based on Intel Altera Max 10 Altera FGPA that was introduced in 2017 on Crowd Supply and raised close to $2 million US dollars. Since it has been used in various projects including digital TV transmitters. Lime Microsystems is now back on Crowd Supply with the similar-looking LimeSDR Mini 2.0 replacing the MAX 10 FPGA with 16K logic gates with a more powerful and capable Lattice Semiconductor ECP5 FPGA with 44K logic gates while keeping the company’s LMS7002 RF transceiver. LimeSDR Mini 2 specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi ECP5 (LFE5U-45F) with 44K logic gates, 108 sysMEM blocks (18kb), 1,944 Kb embed…

Linkstar H68K is a Rockchip RK3568 multimedia router with two 2.5GbE ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, an optional WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module, a few USB ports, and an HDMI 2.1 port supporting up to 4Kp60. Rockchip RK3568 was initially introduced as a solution for NVRs, but I’ve yet to see any, Instead, we’ve gotten some SBCs and mini PCs, as well as several routers such as NanoPi R5S, FastRhino R68s, and the upcoming Radxa E25 that will be announced next week. Linkstar H68K specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 MP2 GPU, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoder, 1080p60 H.264/H.265 v…

Linux 5.18 is out! Linus Torvalds has just announced the release on lkml: No unexpected nasty surprises this last week, so here we go with the 5.18 release right on schedule. That obviously means that the merge window for 5.19 will open tomorrow, and I already have a few pull requests pending. Thank you everybody. I’d still like people to run boring old plain 5.18 just to check, before we start with the excitement of all the new features for the merge window. The full shortlog for the last week is below, and nothing really odd stands out. The diffstat looks a bit funny – unusually we have parsic architecture patches being a big part of it due to some last-minute cache flu…

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.19. It should be the last 5.xx version, with Linux 6.0 coming for the next cycle: So here we are, one week late, and 5.19 is tagged and pushed out. The full shortlog (just from rc8, obviously not all of 5.19) is below, but I can happily report that there is nothing really interesting in there. A lot of random small stuff. In the diffstat, the loongarch updates stand out, as does another batch of the networking sysctl READ_ONCE() annotations to make some of the data race checker code happy. Other than that it’s really just a mixed bag of various odds and ends. On a personal note, the most interesting part here is tha…

Linux 6.0 has just been released by Linus Torvalds: So, as is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is about any big fundamental changes. But of course there’s a lot of various changes in 6.0 – we’ve got over 15k non-merge commits in there in total, after all, and as such 6.0 is one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while. The shortlog of changes below is only the last week since 6.0-rc7. A little bit of everything, although the diffstat is dominated by drm (mostly amd new chip support) and networking drivers. And this obviously means that tomorrow I’ll open the merge…

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 6.1, an LTS kernel, last Sunday: So here we are, a week late, but last week was nice and slow, and I’m much happier about the state of 6.1 than I was a couple of weeks ago when things didn’t seem to be slowing down. Of course, that means that now we have the merge window from hell, just before the holidays, with me having some pre-holiday travel coming up too. So while delaying things for a week was the right thing to do, it does make the timing for the 6.2 merge window awkward. That said, I’m happy to report that people seem to have taken that to heart, and I already have two dozen pull requests pending for tomorrow in my inb…

The exFAT file system is about to get faster in Linux 6.2, at least when creating files and directories, with the performance boost especially noticeable on low-end processors. Microsoft released the exFAT specification and announced Linux support in August 2019, which was followed by a new exFAT implementation in Linux 5.7 (June 2020) from Samsung. But people are still working on improving exFAT Linux support, and Yuezhang Mo, an engineer at Sony, committed a patchset for Linux 6.2 that reduces repeated traversal of directory entries to boost the performance of exFAT: After traversing all directory entries, hint the empty directory entry no matter whether or not there a…

Linux 6.2 has just been released with Linus Torvalds making the announcement on LKML as usual: So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out. Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out. The shortlog is tiny and appended below, you can scroll through it if you’re bored. Wed have a couple of small things that Thorsten was tracking on the regression side, but I wasn’t going to apply any last-minute patches that weren’t actively pushed by maintainers, so they will have to show up for stable. Nothing seemed even remotely worth trying to delay things for. And this obviousl…

Linux Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.3 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): It’s been a calm release this time around, and the last week was really no different. So here we are, right on schedule, with the 6.3 release out and ready for your enjoyment. That doesn’t mean that something nasty couldn’t have been lurking all these weeks, of course, but let’s just take things at face value and hope it all means that everything is fine, and it really was a nice controlled release cycle. It happens. This also obviously means the merge window for 6.4 will open tomorrow. I already have two dozen pull requests waiting for me to start doing my pulls, and I app…

I’ve spent a bit more time with Ubuntu 22.04 on Khadas VIM4 Amogic A311D2 SBC, and while the performance is generally good features like 3D graphics acceleration and hardware video decoding are missing. But I was pleased to see a Linux hardware video encoding section in the Wiki, as it’s not something we often see supported early on. So I’ve given it a try… First, we need to make a video in NV12 pixel format that’s commonly outputted from cameras. I downloaded a 45-second 1080p H.264 sample video from Linaro, and converted it with ffmpeg: [crayon-6289ed6d13e21975150960/] I did this on my laptop. As a raw video, it’s pretty big with 3.3GB of storage used for a 45-second vi…

LOLIN C3 Pico is a tiny (25.4×25.4mm) ESP32-C3 RISC-V board with 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, a few I/Os, and LiPo battery support including charging circuitry. I tend to like Wemos/LOLIN boards, because of their small form factor, support for equally tiny shields, and low price. The LOLIN C3 Pico is no exception, and even adds a few features such as an RGB LED, an I2C connector, and support for battery power and charging. LOLIN C3 Pico specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3FH4 single-core 32-bit RISC-V (RV32IMC) microcontroller up to 160 MHz with 400 KB SRAM, 4MB Flash Connectivity – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE (in SoC) Expansion …