SenseCAP T1000 – A credit card-sized LoRaWAN GPS tracker based on Semtech LR1110 (Crowdfunding)

SenseCAP T1000

SenseCAP T1000 is an ultra-thin credit-card-sized GPS tracker with Semtech LR1110 wireless chip with LoRaWAN, WiFi (scanning), and GNSS connectivity, plus two built-in sensors to monitor temperature, light intensity, and motion. We’ve covered several LTE IoT and LoRaWAN GPS trackers in the past and even tested the RAK811 LoRa GPS Tracker board with our own gateway, but the SenseCAP T1000 is particularly attractive due to its slim design. It works both indoors and outdoors with IP65 waterproof protection, looks quite easy to set up with its button and LED, and also integrates an SOS feature that can be triggered with a long press. SenseCAP T1000 specifications: Wireless Semtech LoRa Edge LR1110 Asset Management Platform LoRa/(G)FSK Half-Duplex RF transceiver working in the 150 – 960MHz; compatible with LoRaWAN 1.0.4 standard GNSS (GPS/ BeiDou) low-power scanning 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi ultra-low-power passive scanning Unnamed Bluetooth 5.1 LE chip for initial configuration and indoor positioning […]

Getting started with VOIPAC IMX8M Industrial development kit (Yocto Linux SDK)

VOIPAC IMX8M Developer Kit Audio Testing

Last month I went through an unboxing of the VOIPAC iMX8M Industrial Development Kit with some specs and a quick try with the pre-loaded Yocto 3.1 Linux image. The kit is quite versatile with plenty of interfaces and headers, and eventually, it will support Android 12 and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. but in the meantime, I played a bit with the Yocto Linux SDK for the NXP i.MX 8M board and will report by experience getting started with VOIPAC IMX8M Industrial development kit. WiFi antennas installation But before checking out Yocto Linux, I will install the two WiFi antennas since I did not do it last time around. We can attach the SMA connectors to the two metal plates on the side of the board securing them with the provided nuts and spacers. The other side of the antenna’s cable comes with a tiny u.FL (or is it MHF4) connector and […]

ESP ZeroCode web application creates custom Matter-certifiable firmware for ESP32 targets

ESP ZeroCode Configure Device

Low-code/no-code platforms keep on coming and Espressif Systems ESP ZeroCode adds to the list. It is a web application designed to prepare Matter-certifiable firmware for ESP32 devices as per the user’s requirements. The website is supposed to streamline the product development where the firmware is developed for you (no need for those costly software/firmware engineers!) and future OTA updates are also guaranteed for a period of three years. It’s a bit similar to the Tuya platform, but for ESP32 devkits, modules, and/or rebranded products with Matter-certified firmware. So I went to the website to give it a try in Firefox in Ubuntu. After registration and login, we are given three options: Your products, Create a new product, and Rebrand a Certified Product I went with the second option and named by new product “CNX Software Gizmo”. In the next step, we can select the device type between socket, plug, light, […]

SONOFF MINIR4M – A Matter-compatible WiFi Smart Switch

SONOFF MINIR4M Matter wifi switch

SONOFF MINI Extreme (MINIR4M) is the first Matter-certified home automation device from the company and appears to be based on the same hardware design as the SONOFF MINI Extreme (MINIR4) ESP32 WiFi smart switch that we reviewed last March and is still working fine in my bedroom. Support for the Matter protocol means better interoperability with other brands of Matter-certified products, so you should be able to use the MINIR4M wireless switch with a Samsung Matter-certified Smart Home gateway instead, as well as Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and other apps besides the eWelink mobile app. The main visual difference I see between the MINIR4 and MINIR4M is the color with Orange referring to WiFi support and Green to Matter support. SONOFF MINI Extreme (MINIR4M) specifications: MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32 dual-core wireless microcontroller Connectivity 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 Bluetooth LE used for pairing Matter certification Input – 100-240V […]

ALFA Network HaLow-U – An 802.11ah WiFi HaLow USB adapter supporting AP and STA mode

WiFi HaLow USB adapter

ALFA Network HaLow-U is an 802.11ah WiFi HaLow USB adapter based on the Newracom NRC7292 chipset and NXP i.MX 6 processor that works both in access point (AP) and client (STA) modes. It delivers long-range WiFi up to one kilometer in the 900 MHz frequency ISM bands and is mostly useful for IP cameras and high-end sensors. The ecosystem around WiFi HaLow (802.11ah) is expanding slowly, but surely, and we previously covered a mini PCIe card, a WiFi HaLow development board, and a gateway kit to extend the range of IP cameras, and also ALFA Network’s AHPI7292S Raspberry Pi HAT that found its way into RAKWireless WisGate Connect gateway. The new HaLow-U USB adapter adds another way to bring WiFi HaLow connectivity to more devices. HaLow-U specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX6 Arm Cortex-A9 processor System Memory – 256MB DDR3 Storage – 32MB NOR flash Connectivity 802.11ah HaLow Newracom NRC7292 chipset […]

Raspberry Pi CM4-powered outdoor gateway supports GbE, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE, LoRaWAN, and GPS connectivity

EDATEC ED-GWL2110 outdoor gateway

EDATEC ED-GWL2110 is an IP24-rated outdoor gateway based on Raspberry Pi CM4 and supporting Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE cellular, LoRaWAN, and GPS connectivity, as well as Power over Ethernet (PoE). The weatherproof gateway also comes with two microSD cards for the OS (CM4 Lite) and data, an HDMI 2.0 output port, a serial console, and features such as an RTC with backup battery, a watchdog, an ATECC608 secure element, and a user-programmable RGB LED. EDATEC ED-GWL2110 specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Arm Cortex-A72 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with VideoCore VI GPU System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB RAM Storage – Optional 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB eMMC flash Wireless – Optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 Storage – Dual micro SD card slot for OS (Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite) and data Video Output – 1x HDMI […]

Banana Pi BPI-CM2 – A Raspberry Pi CM4-compatible Rockchip RK3568 SoM with extra I/Os

Rockchip RK3568 Raspberry Pi CM4 SoM

Banana Pi BPI-CM2 is another Raspberry Pi CM4-compatible system-on-module, this time based on a Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 SoC and with a twist as besides the two 100-pin high-density connectors, the module adds two 70-pin high-density connectors for the extra I/Os provided by the Rockchip processor such as PCIe 3.0, USB 3.0, eDP, MIPI DSI, and an additional Gigabit Ethernet. The Rockchip RK3568 module comes with many of the same features and options as the Raspberry Pi CM4 with 2GB to 8GB RAM, 8GB to 256GB eMMC flash, optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, and an on-module Ethernet transceiver, in this case, a Realtek RTL8211F. Banana Pi BPI-CM2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 AI accelerator – 0.8 TOPS NPU VPU – 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 […]

DietPi News – v8.20 released, NanoPi Neo Air handheld Linux terminal

DietPi Handheld Linux terminal

The latest DietPi v8.20 release of the lightweight Debian-based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems was outed on July 29, 2023, and on a separate note, a DIY handheld Linux terminal based on the NanoPi Neo Air SBC and running DietPi has been found on the interwebs. DietPi v8.20 release The project team released the new DietPi v8.20 on July 29th, 2023 with the following highlights: Homebridge: New software package bringing Apple Homekit support Kernel updates for Pine64 Quartz64  – Linux 6.4.7 and enabled support for the NFS kernel server FriendlyELEC NanoPi R5S/R5C/R6S series – Linux 5.10.160 StarFive VisionFive 2 RISC-V SBC – Linux 5.15.123 WiFi Hotspot: Enhanced DHCP default settings Fixes and updates for DietPi-LogClear, DietPi-Dashboard, DietPi-LetsEncrypt, PaperMC, vaultwarden, etc… The full changelog can be found on the DietPi website and the source code is hosted on GitHub. NanoPi Neo Air handheld Linux terminal running DietPi While it’s […]