Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments on IoT Wi-Fi Modules Comparison Table – ESP8266 vs CC3000 vs RN131 vs HDG204

IoT Wi-Fi Modules Comparison Table – ESP8266 vs CC3000 vs RN131 vs HDG204

We now have several options to add WiFi to IoT / embedded projects at relatively low cost, and ESP8266 based solutions clearly wins on costs, but are there some advantages to other higher priced modules? To help us find out, Mike Barela has put up a comparison table with some Wi-FI modules based on Espressif ESP8266, Texas Instruments CC3000, Microchip RN131, and H&D Wireless HDG204 processors. Note 1 – Also comes in Arduino Shield size with SD card slot for $39.95 Note 2 & 3 – Adafruit and Sparkfun sell tested units with AT Firmware for $6.95. lower prices are available on eBay, but quality may vary. Note 4 – Currents are probably somewhat higher than stock ESP-12 due to onboard LED and regulator. The comparison is not exhaustive, but it still appears to show ESP8266 solutions support most features than pricer competing modules. There are however case where competing solutions have an edge, for example if you need an […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Adafruit Launches Raspberry Pi Starter Pack for $69.95

Adafruit Launches Raspberry Pi Starter Pack for $69.95

The Raspberry Pi is supposed to be great for hardware prototyping, but you may not know where to start and/or depending where you live it might be difficult to buy the small components needed at a decent price. That’s where Adafruit Raspberry Pi starter pack comes into play. It includes a case,  some cables and power supplies, as well as a breadboard and a whole bunch of components. The package includes: Adafruit clear acrylic Pi Box USB Micro-B Cable to connect the Raspberry Pi to a power source 5V 1A power adapter USB TTL console cable to be used to access the serial console. Useful to debug the kernel or if you run your device without display and/or network. 4GB SD Card Adafruit Pi Cobbler kit with GPIO cable for connection to the GPIO/I2C/SPI/Power pins. USB microSD card reader for loading the image onto the SD card. Large full-size clear breadboard Breadboarding wires Ethernet cable Embroidered Raspberry Pi badge Components: […]

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Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Adafruit mbed and NFC/RFID Starter Pack with µNFC stack & NFC Mood Lamp Demo

Adafruit mbed and NFC/RFID Starter Pack with µNFC stack & NFC Mood Lamp Demo

If you are looking for a (relatively) low cost NFC development kit, you may interested in Adafruit mbed and NFC/RFID Starter Pack that sells for 134.99 USD. The kit contains the following items: mbed LPC1768 (Cortex M3) development board with mini-B USB cable and reference cards NFC/RFID breakout board based on PN532 NFC transceiver MiFare RFID card with 1K programmable EEPROM Full-sized breadboard 40 x 3″ (75mm) long male/male jumper wires Standard blue & white 16×2 character LCD + contrast potentiometer + header Diffused 5mm RGB LED + 3 x 560 ohm resistors Analog temperature sensor (TMP36) Piezo buzzer 2 x 10K trim potentiometer 5 x Tactile Pushbuttons On the software side, you can use AppNearMe µNFC stack written in C++ that allows you to use a user interface on NFC-enabled smartphone, removing the need for knobs, buttons, screens on your embedded device. During the initial pairing, the NFC board can send a link to download the user interface in Google […]

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