So far, if you wanted to add wireless connectivity to BeagleBone Black or BeagleBone Green, you’d either use a USB dongle, or a wireless CAPE, but Neuromeka, a Korean company has recently launched BeagleBone Air “IoT gateway” board, fully compatible with the two aforementioned boards (minus HDMI output), but adding on-board WiFi, Bluetooth LE, and Zigbee connectivity.
![Click to Enlarge](http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/BeagleBone_Air_Wifi_Bluetooth_Zigbee.jpg)
BeagleBone Air specifications:
- SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM3358BZCZ100 Cortex A8 @ 1 GHz with NEON + PowerVR SGX530 GPU
- System Memory – 512 MB DDR3L @ 800 MHz
- Storage – 4GB eMMC + micro SD slot
- USB
- HS USB 2.0 client port (micro USB)
- HS USB 2.0 host poty (USB type -A)
- HS USB 2.0 host port on expansion header
- Connectivity
- 10/100M Ethernet (RJ45)
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n via Realtek RTL8188US with SMA connector for antenna
- Bluetooth 4.0 LE via TI CC2541 with SMA connector for antenna
- Zigbee via TI CC2531 with SMA connector for antenna
- Expansion Headers
- Beaglebone Black compatible connectors
- UART & I2C headers
- LED and Button headers
- UART0 via 6-pin header, UART2 via 4-pin header
- Debug Ports – Optional onboard 20-pin JTAG, serial header (6-pin), BLE and Zigbee debug pin
- Misc – Reset, boot, and power buttons
- Power Supply – 5VDC via 2-pin header
- Dimensions – 86.36 x 54.61 mm
The board runs Debian with Linux 3.18.3 kernel or higher, with all required drivers. The company also provides an “IoT SW platform” with a sensor domain manager, IGoT micro webserver, and Thing+ cloud support(optional), as well as a cross-compile development environment based on Eclipse that apparently only works with Windows. They also have an Android apps called “IGoT Smart apps”. More details can be found in the Wiki.
![Case, Power Cable, and Power Adapter](http://www.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Beaglebone_Air_Case_Power.jpg)
The development board, also called BB-Air, is sold as part of a kit with a DIY case, a micro USB to USB cable, three antennas, and a 5V/2A power adapter.
The board appears to be available now, but the only place I could see it for sale was on a Japanese website, where they offer the kit plus an extra CAPE for debugging for 11,000 Yen ($102.7 US). Neuromeka BB-Air product page does not provide much more extra information.
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Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Argh! Too many things to play with for home automation, although saying that this would make a nice OpenHAB controller board.
Still I’d need to get a couple of Zigbee sensors for my setup which has an Almond+ as a hub.
Also, is your RSS feed working? I keep getting an error in my reader.
@Phil Trickett
The RSS feed is working with Thunderbird, but I’ve heard some people had troubles with liferea.
@Phil Trickett
I’ve looked into it, and there was an odd character in one of my post that screwed the feed. I’ve now fixed it.