LOLIN C3 Mini ESP32-C3 board is compatible with Wemos D1 Mini shields

Lolin C3 Mini

Wemos LOLIN C3 Mini board is powered by Espressif ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE RISC-V microcontroller and follows the company’s earlier Wemos D1 Mini (ESP8266) and LOLIN S2 Mini (ESP32-S2) form factor for compatibility with the original stackable Wemos D1 shields. The tiny board comes with 4MB flash embedded in the ESP32-C3 chip, a USB Type-C connector, reset and user buttons, as well as sixteen through holes for GPIOs, VBUS, 3.3V, and ground signals. LOLIN C3 Mini V1.0.0 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 headers – 2x 8-pin headers with up to 12x GPIO, ADC, I2C, SPI, UART (3.3V I/O voltage) USB – 1x Type-C USB for 5V power and programming Misc – Reset button and button 0 also used to enter Device […]

Ai-Thinker Hi-series WiFi modules support HarmonyOS (Sponsored)

Ai-Thinker Hi-12F

Ai-Thinker Hi-series WiFi modules feature Hisilicon Hi3861/Hi3861L 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller with 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and support for HarmonyOS for IoT projects. The new Hi-12F module even got certification for HarmonyOS “S identification” meaning the Hi-12F module supports HarmonyOS Connect for the Smart Home which used to be called “Works With HUAWEI HiLink” or “Powered by HarmonyOS”. Some of the highlights for Ai-Thinker Hi-series WiFi module include: Integrated high-performance 32-bit RISC-V microprocessor (Hi3861V100/Hi3861LV100) with 352KB SRAM, 288KB ROM, and 2MB Flash IEEE 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 up to 72.2Mbps @ HT20 MCS7 with STA and AP modes (Up to 6 clients in AP mode). Baseband and RF circuits with power amplifier PA, low noise amplifier LNA, RF balun, antenna switch, power supply management Multiple Security Capabilities with a built-in eFUSE, support for secure storage, and hardware ID Rich peripheral interfaces with  UART, SPI, I2C, GPIO, ADC, PWM, I2S, SDIO, etc… […]

Arduino Nicla Vision – A tiny STM32H7 board with 2MP camera, WiFi & Bluetooth LE, sensors

Arduino Nicla Vision

Arduino Nicla Vision is an ultra-compact (~2.3×2.3 cm) board powered by an STMicro STM32H7 dual-core Cortex-M7/M4 microcontroller, and equipped with a 2MP camera, a WiFi & Bluetooth LE module, and a few sensors. Those features make the board suitable for machine vision and edge computing applications such as asset tracking, image detection, object recognition, and predictive maintenance. For instance, image detection, facial recognition, automated optical inspection, vehicle plate reading, or gesture recognition can be added to projects, either using Nicla Vision as a standalone board or in combination with Portenta or MKR boards. Arduino Nicla Vision specifications: Microcontrollers – STMicro STM32H757AII6 dual-core MCU with Arm Cortex M7 @ 480MHz, Cortex-M4 @ 240MHz, 2 MB flash, 1MB RAM Storage – 16MB QSPI flash Connectivity – 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11b/g/n up to 65 Mbps and Bluetooth 5.1 BR/EDR/LE via Murata 1DX module Camera – 2MP GC2145 color camera. USB – Micro USB port […]

ESP8285 WiFi DIP module replaces ATMega328P MCU on Arduino UNO board (Crowdfunding)

Arduino UNO WiFi DIP Module

Released over 10 years ago, Arduino UNO is still the best-selling Arduino board, but lacking WiFi in the IoT era is not ideal, so Gianluca Martino, Arduino co-founder and working with the company until 2015, decided to design the Jolly DIP module based on ESP8285 WiFi chip that can replace the ATmega328P 8-bit AVR DIP-40 microcontroller. Since ESP8285 cannot provide all I/Os, notably analog inputs offered by ATmega328P, Gianluca combined it with the ATMega328PB microcontroller in a compact SMD package to offer firmware compatibility plus WiFi connectivity in the same DIP form factor. Jolly module specifications: MCU – Microchip ATMega328PB 8-bit AVR microcontroller with 32 KB ISP Flash, 1 KB EEPROM, 2 KB SRAM (Based on data from the datasheet) Wireless chip – Espressif Systems ESP8285H16 WiFi SoC with 2MB integrated flash plus ceramic antenna Communication interfaces between the two chips – SPI + UART (the latter exclusively for ESP8285 […]

M5Stamp C3U IoT module relies on ESP32-C3’s own USB interface for firmware programming

M5Stamp C3U

M5Stamp C3U is an update of the M5Stamp C3 RISC-V IoT module with heat-resistant cover, support for WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0, that does without CH9102 USB to TTL chip, relying instead on the internal USB interface of ESP32-C3 processor to handle serial programming of the firmware, and gaining on extra GPIO pin in the process. While several ESP32 processors come with a built-in USB interface, many boards still use an external USB to TTL chip such as CH340 or CP2102 to handle the serial interface used for debugging and flashing the firmware likely because of limitations when using ESP32-C3’s USB serial/JTAG controller console, but M5Stack probably considered those to be workable, and the small cost-saving beneficial. M5Stamp C3U specifications: WiSoC – ESP32-C3FH4 32-bit single-core RISC-V processor @ up to 160 MHz, with 384KB ROM, 400KB SRAM, 8KB RTC SRAM, 4MB embedded flash, WiFi and Bluetooth Connectivity 2.4 GHz WiFi […]

Sonoff ZBBridge gateway can be used as a Zigbee router/repeater

Sonoff ZBBridge Zigbee router

Sonoff ZBBridge WiFi to Zigbee gateway was introduced in April 2020, and a few months later got support for Tasmota ESP8266 firmware and Gecko firmware for either Home Assistant or Zigbee2MQTT support. But there’s now a new Tasmota firmware that converts Sonoff ZBBridge into a Zigbee router (a.k.a. Zigbee Signal Repeater or Zigbee Range Expender) following a request on Tastoma Github’s issue tracker from last year. The firmware, unofficial yet signed, was released a few days ago by xsp1989 Github’s user with a link to the firmware on Google Drive. Digiblur successfully tried it out on its own Sonoff Zigbee bridge and published the instructions. Assuming you already have Tasmota flashed to the device, switching to the router software is basically a firmware upgrade from the Tasmota web interface. Once the update is complete, you’ll still need to access the console in Tasmota in order to run a command to […]

Blues Wireless launches Wi-Fi Notecard for mixed cellular & WiFi IoT deployments

Notecard WiFi

Blues Wireless has just launched the Wi-Fi Notecard M.2 module that can be used as a replacement to the company’s Notecard LTE Cat-M / NB-IoT M.2 modem that sells with 10 years of connectivity up to 500MB for $49 and up. The Wi-Fi Notecard came to be as some customers wanted to have mixed deployments where cellular makes sense in some locations, while Wi-Fi is better suited to other sites. Others preferred to use WiFi during development or prototyping to save on Notecard cellular data usage. Wi-Fi Notecard specifications: MCU – Arm Cortex-M4 MCU with 2MB flash Wireless Silicon Labs WFM200S Wi-Fi transceiver module with a 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n radio supporting up to 72 Mbps link u.FL antenna connector Host interface – M.2 edge connector with I2C, UART, USB Sensor – 3-axis accelerometer and temperature sensor Security – STSAFE Secure Element with hardware crypto, true hardware random number generator, and […]

Ai-Thinker BW16 is a dual-band WiFi & Bluetooth 5.0 IoT module (Sponsored)

Ai Thinker BW16 dual-band WiFi BLE 5.0 module

Many users prefer the ESP32 when implementing WiFi & Bluetooth into their IoT projects. But Ai-Thinker BW16 offers dual-band WiFi 4 & Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity through Realtek’s RTL8720DN chipset which may provide more reliable connectivity where the 2.4 GHz band is crowded. The module integrates an Arm Cortex-M4F compatible high-performance MCU, an Arm Cortex-M0 compatible low power MCU, WiFI 802.11 a/b/g/n, MAC, Bluetooth and RF baseband, and provides a set of configurable GPIO ports to control peripheral devices. BW16 module One significant difference between BW16 and ESP32 module is that it has two serial port interfaces, so attention should be paid to the wiring of the UART interfaces. The following diagram shows the two serial interfaces of the BW16 module. One of the module serial interfaces is used to send and receive AT commands to control connectivity from a host processor or microcontroller, while the other serial port is used […]