Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software

November 8, 2025November 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Giveaway Week 2025 – VOIPAC iMX93 Pro industrial development kit

The sixth prize of this year’s Giveaway Week is a VOIPAC iMX93 Pro industrial development kit with an NXP i.MX 93 Cortex-A55/M33 Edge AI SoC, 2GB LPDDR4, and 16GB eMMC flash. The development kit offers dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, HDMI, DisplayPort, and HDMI display interfaces, three audio jacks, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, various USB ports, M.2 sockets, and more. It targets artificial intelligence, machine learning, human-machine interface (HMI) solutions, and more. I reviewed the VOIPAC IMX8M industrial development kit and subsequently gave it away in 2023, but I haven’t done a review of the iMX93 development kit. Instead, one lucky winner will get it directly from VOIPAC. Alternatively, they can offer the new iMX91 industrial development kit, if you prefer. You can also write your preferred kit in the comments (optional). The company provides Linux built with Yocto Project 5.0 Scarthgap for the […]

November 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Nexalta Guardian NXG0042AI – Qualcomm IPQ9574-based networking solution with 10GbE, WiFi 7, 5G, local AI (Crowdfunding)

Nexalta Guardian NXG0042AI is a large networking and IoT gateway “monster” powered by a Qualcomm IPQ9574 chipset offering 10GbE and 2.5GbE networking, WiFi 7 support with up to five concurrent WiFi radios, up to four/seven 5G modems, up to 52 (e)SIMs, and two on-board Compute Module slots for Rockchip RK3588 or NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM system-on-modules. The main board (XWR A1) also offers 25Gbps WAN fabric, three MCUs for BMC, power management, and cryptography, M.2 slots for NVMe storage or AI accelerators, two mSATA sockets, HDMI video output, USB ports, Starlink satellite support, and a range of IoT protocol options such as LoRaWAN, 5G RedCap, UWB, Bluetooth LE, and so on. Nexalta Guardian specifications: Main SoC subsystem SoC – Qualcomm IPQ9574 quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 processor @ 2.2GHz processor System Memory – 2GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 64MB NOR flash SoM sub-system 2x 260-pin SO-DIMM sockets for: Turing RK1 […]

November 7, 2025November 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 100 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 – USB Vsense USB PD voltage indicator

The fifth prize of CNX Software Giveaway Week 2025 will be the USB Vsense USB PD voltage indicator. I received three samples for review last August, so I’m keeping one for myself, giving one here on CNX Software (International), and another one on CNX Software Thailand. It’s a simple device with two USB-C ports and color-coded LEDs showing the voltage supported from 5V up to 48V as defined in the Extended Power Range (EPR) specs. In my review, I found the little device to work as expected, testing it with various USB PD adapters connected to a laptop and a Raspberry Pi 5 SBC. There are already such USD PD voltage testers on the market, and what differentiates the Vsense from the rest is its multi-layered design, since it’s made of seven PCBs stacked on top of each other and secured with four screws. To enter the draw, simply leave […]

November 7, 2025November 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

AAEON PICO-ARU4 “Arrow Lake” Pico-ITX SBC is powered by up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U processor

AAEON PICO-ARU4 Pico-ITX SBC with Arrow Lake CPU

AAEON PICO-ARU4 might be the world’s first Pico-ITX SBC powered by Intel Core Ultra 5/7 “Arrow Lake” (Series 2) processor family. More specifically, it’s available with the Core Ultra 5 225U or Core Ultra 7 255U, both with a 15W TDP. It ships with up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM, offers 2.5GbE and GbE networking, HDMI and eDP interfaces for up to two independent displays, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two USB 2.0 headers, two M.2 sockets for storage (NVMe SSD) and wireless expansion, two RS-232/422/485 headers, a 4-bit GPIO header, SMBus/I2C, and more. AAEON PICO-ARU4 specifications: Arrow Lake SoC (one of the other) Intel Core Ultra 5 225U 12-core (2P+8E+2LPE) processor @ up to 4.8 GHz turbo frequency, 12MB cache, 4x Xe-core Intel Graphics (8 TOPS), and Intel AI Boost (12 TOPS); PBP: TDP 15W Intel Core Ultra 7 255U 12-core (2P+8E+2LPE) processor @ up to 5.2 GHz, 12MB cache, […]

November 6, 2025November 8, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 261 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 – 5-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2

The fourth prize of CNX Software Giveaway Week 2025 will be the official 5-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2. I was sent one for review, but I have yet to find anything interesting to use it for, like I did for the 7-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 and the Raspberry Pi AI camera. So I might just as well give it away. To enter the draw, simply leave a comment with your country and whatever else you’d like to say (no links in the body of the comment). If the country is missing, I’ll consider the entry void. Other rules are as follows: Only one entry per contest. I will filter out entries with the same IP and/or email address. Contests are open for 48 hours starting at 10 am (Bangkok time) every day. Comments will be closed after 48 hours. If comments are open, the contest is still […]

November 6, 2025November 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

CamThink NeoEyes NE301 – An ultra-low-power, STM32N6-based Edge AI camera

CamThink NeoEyes NE301 is an ultra-low-power Edge AI camera built around the STM32N6 Arm Cortex-M55 MCU with Neural-ART NPU that “offers significantly enhanced features and performance” compared to the company’s earlier ESP32-S3-based NeoEyes NE101. The camera ships with a 4MP MIPI CSI camera sensor by default, but USB camera sensors are also supported. It also features 64MB PSRAM, 128MB hyperflash, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity, optional support for a 4G LTE module (global or US), audio wafers, USB-C and UART debug, a 16-pin GPIO header, and support for either USB, battery, or PoE power. CamThink NeoEyes 301 specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32N6 MCU Core – Arm 32-bit Cortex-M55 CPU @ up to 800MHz with Arm Helium and Arm MVE GPU – Neo-Chrom 2.5D GPU, Chrom-ART Accelerator (DMA2D) NPU – ST Neural-ART accelerator @ 1 GHz, up to 600 GOPS; 3 TOPS/W enabling fanless operation BPU – Hardware-accelerated H.264 […]

November 5, 2025November 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Bluetooth 6.2 gets more responsive, improves security, USB communication, and testing capabilities

Bluetooth 6.2 specification has just been released with a range of new features to enhance responsiveness with shorter connection intervals, strengthen security against amplitude-based RF attacks, and improve communication with a new “Bulk Serialization Mode” that’s especially useful for USB Bluetooth LE audio applications. The new Bluetooth Core 6.2 specification also introduces various BLE Test Mode enhancements. If you feel like Bluetooth specifications are released more often than in the past, that’s normal because the Bluetooth SIG switched to a bi-annual release schedule. For instance, the Bluetooth 6.1 specification was just published last May, or about 6 months ago… Bluetooth 6.2 highlights: Bluetooth Shorter Connection Intervals (SCI) reduce the minimum Bluetooth LE connection interval from 7.5 ms to just 375 µs for faster responsiveness. The change will especially impact high-performance HID devices, real-time human-machine interfaces (HMIs), and latency-sensitive sensors. AR/VR and gaming applications will particularly benefit from the lower latency. […]

November 5, 2025November 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 392 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 – Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite

Mediatek Filogic 850 2.5GbE WiFi 7 5G router board

The third prize of CNX Software Giveaway Week 2025 is the Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite router board, which will be shipped directly to a randomly selected winner by the company. It’s powered by a MediaTek Filogic 850 (MT7987AV) quad-core Cortex-A53 network processor, coupled with 2GB DDR4 and 8GB eMMC flash, and equipped with four gigabit Ethernet ports, a 2.5GbE RJ45 WAN port, and a 2.5GbE SFP cage. It can also be extended with WiFi 7 and 5G cellular modules thanks to two mini PCIe sockets and an M.2 Key-B slot with USB 3.0 interface. The board also features a 16-pin MikroBus GPIO header with UART, I2C, SPI, PWM, and other signals to connect one of the over 1000 Mikroe Click modules available. As its name implies, the BPI-R4 Lite is a cost-down version of the Banana Pi BPI-R4 introduced a few years ago. The documentation has improved since the last […]