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

May 26, 2020May 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

19″ Rackmounts Support up to 12 Raspberry Pi SBCs

Last time, we wrote about myelectronics.nl we covered their Tesla Cybertruck Case for Intel NUCs which housed the mini PC into a mini CyberTruck looking enclosure. The company has now come up with new housing solutions specifically designed for Raspberry Pi 1/2/3/4 Model B/B+ boards. The 19″ rackmounts support one to twelve Raspberry Pi SBCs and can be used for Raspberry Pi clusters, video walls, and so on. The 4-board model fitted with four Raspberry Pi 4 boards caught my attention as it also offers an option to bring the HDMI outputs on the same side as USB and Ethernet port like in Argon One case but with more convenient full-sized HDMI ports. The other Raspberry Pi rackmount model allows you to insert up to 12 Raspberry Pi board in a vertical position with optional HDMI ports as shown above. That’s great for density, but you may have to take […]

May 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

UP Xtreme Smart Surveillance Combines Whiskey Lake SBC, Myriad X VPUs, and Video Management & Analytics Software

We’re seeing more and more computer vision products with built-in artificial intelligence accelerated features like face recognition or object detection including AI cameras, facial recognition systems, and AI NVR systems. It’s great as a consumer because of less frequent and more accurate alerts in security camera systems but more worrying as a citizen due to mass surveillance. But the trend is here to stay, and AAEON has just announced the UP Xtreme Smart Surveillance solutions powered by UP Extreme Whiskey Lake SBC with either an Intel Core i5-8365UE or Intel Core i7-8665UE processor, as well as two Intel Movidius Myriad X VPUs using OpenVINO SDK. The system also leverages Milestone video management software (VMS) and SAIMOS video analytics software. Based on the photo above, the hardware looks to be UPX-Edge Embedded Computer which we previously covered in details at launch last December. Instead of hardware, the focus of Up Xtreme […]

May 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

SMD Books Keep Up to 8500 SMD Resistors or Capacitors

I have some SMD chips at home that I keep in an organizer box, but if I had to store lots of them, it would take a lot of space. Luckily, there’s a better way: SMD Books. I’ve just found out about those on Aliexpress and Banggood, and they store up to 8500 SMD resistors or capacitors in lots of 50 pieces, meaning you’d have up to 170 different resistors or capacitors value in the book. It can really be convenient for small projects or repairs, and you won’t break the bank as SMD Books only cost $15 to $40 with components and around $8 without any components in order to store your own. If you want to cover your bases, you’ll probably end up spending over $100 since you’d want both resistor and capacitor books, plus different SMD sizes such as 0402, 0201, 0805, etc… But in the end, […]

May 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

megaAI 4K AI Camera Board Features Movidius Myriad X VPU (Crowdfunding)

megaAI 4K AI camera board reminds me of Kendryte K210 based boards such as Maixduino used for computer vision for tasks such as object tracking or face recognition, but instead of just handling QVGA at around 15 to 18 fps, megaAI can supports inference at 4K resolution up to 30 fps. The tiny board can achieve this feat by leveraging the 4 TOPS of AI processing power delivered by Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU (Vision Processing Unit) while consuming only around 2.5 Watts. megaAI board specifications: AI Accelerator – Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU delivering up to 4 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) Camera – 12 MP 4056×3040 Auto-Focus (8cm-∞) camera with 81 degrees horizontal Field of View (HFOV) Video RAW Output – 4K @ 60FPS or 12MP @ 30FPS (with USB3.1 Gen2 Host) Hardware Image Encoding – 12 MP JPEG encoding Hardware Video Encoding: 4K H.265 encoding at 30 […]

May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

$13 RPI_AC108 Audio Board Ships with a 4-Mic Array for Raspberry Pi

X-Powers is a subsidiary of Allwinner, better known for its PMIC chips for Allwinner Cortex-A processors., but we also discovered X-Powers AC108 quad-channel ADC chip for microphone arrays in 2017. Soon after, Seeed Studio launched ReSpeaker 4-Mic Array for Raspberry Pi, but I had completely forgotten about the audio chip since then. That’s until this morning when I came across RPI_AC108 audio board also coming with four microphones and several LEDs. RPI_AC108 specifications: Audio X-Powers AC108 quad-channel ADC with I2S/TDM output transition 4x MEMS microphones Expansion 2x Grove interfaces (1x I2C, 1x GPIO port using pins 12 & 13) 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header working with Raspberry Pi Zero / Zero W / 2B / 3B / 3B + / 4 and other compatible development boards Misc – 12x LEDs (APA102) connected over SPI, GPIO5 enables power Dimensions – 65mm x 65mm x 9mm The board gets its power (3.3V and 5V) from the […]

May 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Zigbee Firmware News – TI Z-Stack 3.0 Zigbee for CC2530 & ptvo Zigbee FW Configuration Tool

We’ve been writing about Zigbee more in recent months with either product announcements such as Sonoff ZBBridge WiFi to Zigbee gateway, and open-source software updates such as Tasmota support for Zigbee connectivity. We’ve recently been tipped about Zigbee-related news, namely TI Z-Stack 3.0 Zigbee router firmware port to Sonoff BASICZBR3, and ptvo Zigbee Configurable Firmware v2.4 GUI tool designed to create alternative Zigbee switch and router firmware for TI CC253x based modules and devices TI Z-Stack 3.0 Zigbee Router Firmware on Sonoff BASICZBR3 Kirovilya, a well-known open-source developer and founder of ioBroker open-source home automation software, has ported TI Z-Stack 3.0 Zigbee router firmware to CC2530 and tested it on Sonoff BASICZBR3 with DS18B20 waterproof temperature sensor. This is significant as Sonoff BASICZBR3 is only shipped with TI Z-Stack Home 1.2 Zigbee router firmware and I was told no one else had ported TI Z-Stack 3.0 Zigbee to CC2530 chip […]

May 24, 2020May 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 33 Comments

iWave Systems i.MX8M Mini Devkit Targets Low-cost Facial Recognition Systems

iWave Systems i.MX8M Mini Board is a development platform based on an update versions of the company’s iW-RainboW-G34M-SM i.MX 8M Mini system-on-module and designed specifically for low-cost facial recognition systems thanks to NXP eIQ ML software, and MIPI display and camera. iWave Systems i.MX8M Mini (aka iW-RainboW-G34D) specifications: SoM SoC – NXP i.MX8M Mini Q/QL/D/DL/S/SL with up to 4x Cortex-A53 cores, 1x Cortex-M4F real-time core, Vivante 3D and 2D GPUs System Memory – 1GB LPDDR4 (Expandable up to 4GB) Storage – 8GB eMMC Flash (Expandable), optional 2MB QSPI Flash optional Micro SD slot Wireless – Dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0. PMIC – BD71847AMWV i.MX8M SODIMM Carrier Board Storage – MicroSD slot Display I/F – MIPI DSI display connector Camera I/F – MIPI CSI camera connector Audio – Audio codec, 3.5mm Line In/Out jack Networking – Up to 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports (One is Optional) USB – 2x USB […]

May 23, 2020May 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Allwinner Submits A100 Initial Support to Mainline Linux

You may also have already used boards based on Allwinner processors with mainline Linux support. But so far you had to thank linux-sunxi community for all the mainlining work they do, and AFAIK Allwinner was not involved. But today, I noticed Allwinner A100 initial support was submitted by Frank Lee with an AllwinnerTech dot com email address, and although the company was involved in some other patchsets, AFAIK it might be the first time they work on mainlining one of their processors. Allwinner A100 is a mid-range tablet processor with a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, an Imagination PowerVR GE8300 GPU, 4K video decode and 1080p encode that looks to be a replacement for/upgrade to the popular Allwinner A64. The patchset itself brings initial support for the four Cortex-A53 cores, clock and pinctrl, as well as the Device Tree file. There’s also mentioned of Allwinner Perf1 Allwinner A100 SBC with 1GB DDR3, […]