sensor News - Page 8 of 23 - CNX Software

May 31, 2020March 23, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Cucumber ESP32-S2 Development Board Comes with USB OTG Port, Optional Sensors

Cucumber ESP32-S2 USB OTG Development Board

Yesterday, I wrote about LilyGO TTGO ESP32-S2 WiFi IoT board, but one commenter mentioned it missed one of the key features of ESP32-S2 chip: a USB OTG port. While USB OTG is accessible through the header pins, it’s not the most convenient to use. I also quickly mentioned Cucumber ESP32-S2 development board in that post, but I did not expand too much since I thought it should only ship within Thailand. But the board does include two USB Type-C ports, one for the usual USB UART connector, and the other for USB OTG, and I found out the board is available worldwide. The board is available in multiple variants with or without sensors and PSRAM, and with external IPEX antenna or PCB antenna using ESP32-S2-WROVER(-I) or ESP32-S2-WROOM(-I) module. Cucumber specifications: Wireless Module (one of the other): ESP32-S2-WROVER with ESP32-S2, 4MB flash, 2MB PSRAM, on-board PCB antenna ESP32-S2-WROVER-I with ESP32-S2, 4MB […]

April 21, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

TransferFi Wireless Power Network Lights Up Sensors up to 55 Meters Away

Wireless charging has been around for a while, and it usually placing a phone or other device on a charging pad. But back in 2018, Energous started to promote its near-field, mid-field, and far-field wireless charging solutions, with far-field meaning within a room. But so far, they only have released near-field devkits and products. Singapore based TransferFi Pte has come up with its own wireless charging solution. TranferFi wireless power network (TFi WPN) aims to power sensors up to 55 meters away and specifically targets building and factory automation in order to help companies save on installation and cabling costs. The solution works with a gateway powering up and receiving data from sensors wirelessly with a range of up to 55 meters. The TFi Gateway Max Turin-1 covers up to 32 TFi Sense devices via multichannel beamforming supporting up to 16 channels and can be connected to Modbus, BACnet & […]

April 1, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Select a Geiger Counter for your Phone to Survive the next Nuclear Catastrophe

It’s time to prepare! No, not for that COVID-19 thingie, it’s too late, but since 2020 has not started the best way we should prepare for all eventualities. It all started badly as I fell off my bicycle on New Year’s eve, and it went south from there, from talks of world war three in January, to the thread of a virus pandemic that could kill millions worldwide, to the start of the first global great depression. 2020 will be the “year of doom“, and we should expect massive earthquakes, once in a hundred-year megatsunami what will wipe entire cities, gigantic locust swarms in southern Europe, climate change induces, and leading famine, a couple of large asteroids hitting the hearth, and so on. But we should not forget the nuclear threat either via nuclear war or damaged nuclear reactors following natural disasters or terrorist attacks. One way to protect yourself […]

March 26, 2020June 29, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

M5Stack ATOM is a Compact, Fully Integrated ESP32 Development Kit

When working on a project you may need an MCU or MCU board, an external display, a breadboard, and other accessories like sensors and jumper cables. It does the job, but it can be messy. Recently, we wrote about M5Stack M5StickV AI camera, but the company is better known for its ESP32 IoT development kits enabling neater project thanks to hardware that integrates MCU, I/O headers, display, and sensors into an enclosure. Their latest offerings are ATOM series toolkits that come in two versions: ATOM Lite and ATOM Matrix. Let’s have a look at both. M5Stack ATOM Lite Specifications: SiP – ESP32-PICO-D4 system-in-package with ESP32 dual-core processor with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0/5.1 Storage – 4 MB flash Crystal oscillator and passive components USB – 1x USB Type-C port Expansion 9-pin header with 6 GPIOs compatible with jumper cables 4-pin PH2.0 connector with 2x GPIO, 5V and GND Misc – […]

December 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Dragino RS485-LN Brings LoRaWAN Connectivity to RS485 Sensors

RS485 sensor nodes are often used in smart agriculture, environment monitoring, or factory & building automation and work up to 1.2 km when using AWG 18 cables. If you already have such nodes but need to extend the distance, or would like to reduce the need for long cables, you could make use of Dragino RS485-LN RS485 to LoRaWAN converter which will work up to 10+ kilometers depending on conditions. Dragino RS485-LN key features & specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32L072CZT6 Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller MCU @ 32 MHz with 192 KB Flash, 6 KB EEPROM, 20 KB RAM Connectivity LoRaWAN Via SX1276 LoRa transceiver Frequency Range: Band 1 (HF): 862 ~ 1020 MHz Band 2 (LF): 410 ~ 528 MHz Bands – CN470/EU433/KR920/US915/EU868/AS923/AU915/IN86/RU864 168 dB maximum link budget. +20 dBm – 100 mW constant RF output Programmable bit rate up to 300 kbps. High sensitivity: down to -148 dBm. RS485 to […]

November 8, 2019November 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 97 Comments

Giveaway Week – ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit

Leon ANAVI makes from fun little boards for home automation, either ESP8266 based, or pHAT for Raspberry Pi boards. Earlier this year, I wrote about my experience getting ANAVI Gas Detector with Home Assistant. Now that’s I’m done, I’m giving away the starter kit that includes the ESP8266 board, an acrylic case, an OLED display, a USB to serial adapter, and MQ135 air quality sensor. The board is open-source hardware, meaning everything is open source from the KiCAD files to the Android sketch running on the board. It’s very easy to get started, as you can just connect a USB cable for power, and after configuring WiFi you can see the air quality – either Poor, Moderate or Good – displayed on the OLED display, and you can easily see the data in a web dashboard after setting up Home Assistant. Everything shown in the top photo will be given […]

October 16, 2019October 16, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Dragino LHT65 is a $30 LoRaWAN Temperature & Humidity Sensor

LHT65 LoRaWAN Temperature & Humidity Sensor

If you’d like to monitor temperature and/or humidity in remote locations, one way is to get a LoRaWAN gateway, and setup a few LoRaWAN nodes connected to your own temperature & humidity sensors, and add a battery and enclosure. But if you’d like to save some time, and get a turnkey solution, Dragino LHT65 LoRaWAN temperature & humidity sensor may be an option. The sensor comes with an internal SHT20 sensor, and as well as an external DS18B20 waterproof temperature sensor. Features & specifications: LoRa Connectivity Frequency Bands – CN470, EU433, KR920, US915, EU868, AS923, AU915 LoRaWAN Class A protocol Sensors Sensirion SHT20 (internal) Temperature – Range: -40 ~ 125 °C; 0.1°C resoultion; +/-0.3°C accuracy; long term drift < 0.02 °C/yr Relative Humidity – Range: 0 to 100%; resolution: 0.04%; accuracy +/-0.3%; DS18B20 (external) – Range: -55 °C~ 125 °C; resolution: 0.0625 °C; +/-0.5°C accuracy from -10°C to +85°C; +/-2°C […]

September 9, 2019 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 3 Comments

Daytripper Uses Laser Time-of-Flight Sensor to Hide Your Slacking Off From Your Boss

Have you ever run into that awkward situation where you were actively busy doing something totally off company’s duties on the computer and got caught red-handed, or an unknown intruder ventured into your privacy, and you got in this awkward unexplained situation. If yes, then you are not alone. Work could be boring sometimes, and some of us do like to take some steam off probably by playing some video games, watch funny videos, or do something outside the blues. It is nice until a superior or a colleague catches us doing that. One way to avoid this is by closely observing our surrounding while getting ourselves immersed but doesn’t always work well because it is super easy to slack off. Well, you don’t have to worry anymore thanks to an innovative project designed by dekuNukem called Daytripper. Daytripper is a laser tripwire that will help you automatically hide your […]