Pebble Time is the Color Version of the Pebble SmartWatch (Crowdfunding)

The original Pebble Watch launched on Kickstarter about 3 years ago, and after selling over 1 million watches, the company is back on Kickstarter with Pebble Time, a thinner version of the watch with an always-on color e-Paper display, a new “timeline” user interface, a microphone for voice recognition,  and 7 days of battery life. The complete Pebble Time specifications are not available, but the company still listed some key features: MCU – Cortex M4 Always-on, daylight readable 64 colors e-Paper display with backlight (no touchscreen) Six-axis gyrosope Microphone for dictation 3x tactile buttons Bluetooth for connectivity with mobile devices Up to 7 day battery life Compatible with any standard 22mm watch band Water resistant and durable Silent vibrating alarms Language and international character support (Chinese coming soon) The new Timeline interface focuses on past, present and future events such as basketball score, current steps, and weather forecast, and the […]

Voltera V-One is a Low Cost PCB Printer and Solder Paste Dispenser (Crowdfunding)

The traditional hardware development cycle involve sending PCB Gerber files to a manufacturer, wait a few days (or weeks), get the boards back, find and fix bugs, send a new revision of the gerber files to the manufacturer and so on. This wastes a lot of time, so PCB printers capable of handline single and dual layer PCBs have started to see the light of the day, for example with BotFactory Squink. The latter can also do pick and place, but costs over $3,500. Luckily if you’d like something cheaper, Voltera V-One will do many of the same tasks, for but for only $1,500. Voltera V-One specifications: Minimum Trace Width – 8mil (~0.2mm) Minimum Passive Size – 0603 (0402 for solder paste) Minimum Pin-to-Pin Pitch – 0.8mm (0.5mm for solder paste) Resistance – >12 mOhm/sq @ 70um height Max Heated Bed Temperature – 250C Heated Bed Ramp Rate – ~2C/s […]

HD18T Android DVB-T2 Receiver Mini Review

I’ve had HD18T Android TV box with a DVB-T2 tuner for several months, but I’ve only installed a roof antenna recently, so I’ve decided to give it another try since my indoor antenna did not pick-up any signal with that box. The set-top box is also known as EM6-T2 or HD18T2, and features Amlogic AML8726-MX dual Cortex A9 processor which has been used in numerous boxes in the past, so I will only focus on my experience with the DVB app in this mini review. If you want to use DVB-T2 go straight to the right and click on DVB app. Where you’ll then be greeted with a pop-up windowsasking if if you want to scan channels. You can do autoscan, manual scan (for one frequency), select the area (France/Taiwan/UK/Italy/Australia only), and enable/disable LCN (Logical Channel Numbering). At first I selected “Australia”, and the system did not find any channels, […]

HiSilicon D02 Server Board Supports up to 64 ARM Cortex A57 Cores

HiSilicon has showcased their latest server SoC and board at Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2015, with up to two processors with 32 Cortex A57 cores @ 2.1GHz, 8 DIMM DDR3 slots (up to 128 GB RAM), 12 SATA ports, 4 PCIe slots, 10GbE / GbE ports. D02 board specifications: SoC – Hisilicon PhosphorV660 Hip05 with 16 to 32 ARM Cortex-A57 cores @ up to 2.1GHz and 1MB L2 cache/cluster, 32MB L3 cache System Memory – 2x Memory channel 4x DDR3 DIMM(4x DIMM per processor) Storage 12x SAS 3.0 ports @ 12 Gbps (8 for the first processor, 4 for the second).  SAS port are compatible with SATA drives. You may want to read SAS vs SATA post for more details about SAS. 2x SPI Flash 158Mb BIOS/UEFI 1Gb NorFlash Connectivity – 2×10/100/1000Mbit/s Gigabit Ethernet ports, 2x xGE SFP+ ports (10Gb/s) Expansion – 2x 8x PCI express interfaces per processor (4 […]

Review of Zidoo X9 Android Media Player and Video Recorder

Zidoo X9 is quite a unique product on the market, as it’s the only low cost Android platform that I know of that features an HDMI input port with recording capabilities. The hardware is actually based on Kaiboer F5, with some modifications, but the latter focuses on the Chinese market, while Zidoo X9 targets oversea markets with an English firmware by default. I took pictures of Zidoo X9 and its board about a month ago, but a busy schedule and some initial issues with Google Play Store delayed the review. Finally, I’ve completed testing of the device, and ready to share my findings about performance, stability, and features in this review. OTA Firmware Update I’ve had to go through two firmware updates before carrying on with the review, and this part is working great, and they even include a detailed changelog with each release, which they also publish on their […]

Beelink Introduces TV Sticks and Mini PCs powered by Intel Atom Z3735F Processor

Beelink has announced three new devices based on Intel Atom Z3735F processor: Pocket P1 slim PC, Pocket P2 HDMI stick, and a mini PC simply called “Mini PC” with an internal slot for 2.5″ hard drives. All three mini computers come with 2GB RAM, 16 to 32GB eMMC, and run Windows 8.1 like most other Z3735F devices, but they’re also providing dual band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0,  USB 3.0 ports, and for the mini PC a Gigabit Ethernet port. Preliminary specifications for the three models: SoC – Intel Atom Z3735F  “Bay Trail” quad core processor @ 1.33 GHz (Bust freq: 1.83 GHz) with Intel HD graphics Gen 7 (2W TDP) System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage Mini PC – 16 GB eMMC + 2.5″ SATA bay (under the device) + SD card slot up P1 and P2 – 32 GB eMMC + micro SD card slot Video & Audio […]

OpenMV is an Open Source Hardware VGA Camera Controllable with Python Scripts (Crowdfunding)

Recently I’ve seen some activity about tiny cameras for makers, including Linux based SinoVoIP BPI-D1 recording up to 720p30 videos, and an upcoming mini camera for VoCore Wi-Fi module. There’s now another project called OpenMV, and open source camera for machine vision applications based on STMicro STM32, recording up to VGA resolution at 20 fps, and controlled using Micro Python scripts. OpemMV camera specifications: MCU –  STM32F427, 180MHz, 225 DMIPS, 256K SRAM, 2M Flash, DMA/FPU/DSP/DCMI/SDIO/2D Acceleration Camera –  2MP OV2640 sensor with interchangeable M12 lens, 2x IR LEDS Storage – uSD interface: SDIO (4-bit mode) Expansions – 2x headers with  USART, SPI,  I2C, PWM, ADC/DAC, GPIOs, PWM and power signals USB – micro USB 2.0 Full Speed port Power Supply – 5V via USB; Current draw is approximately 140mA, steady state Dimensions – 4.57 x 3.56 cm The camera can be controlled using (Micro) Python scripts. with the project’s OpenMV […]

Kodi 14 Video Playback on Intel Atom Z3735F Computers Running Windows 8.1

I’ve already written a short review of Mele PCG03 mini PC powered by Intel Atom Z3735F processor, with 2GB RAM, and 32GB eMMC flash, where I found out that almost it’s not the fastest device around, it’s still usable for most tasks, albeit you can quickly run out of space with only 32GB storage, so if you really plan to use it as an actual computer using applications such as email clients, web browser and office suites, an external USB hard drive, or connection to a NAS is probably a must, or you’ll probably have to run Disk Cleaner fairly often.  Mele PCG03 also have a valid Windows 8.1 license, and a VGA port, both of which are often missing on many other Bay Trail-T mini PCs. I’ve now installed Kodi 14.1 – downloaded directly from xbmc.org – on this low cost and low power computer, in order to go […]