arduino News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 2, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Seeed XIAO BLE – A tiny nRF52840 Bluetooth 5.0 board with (optional) IMU sensor and microphone

Seeed Studio has just introduced two new members to their XIAO board family with the Seeed XIAO BLE and XIAO BLE Sense boards equipped with Nordic Semi nRF52840 Bluetooth 5.0 microcontroller, as well as an IMU sensor and microphone on the “Sense” model. Just like the earlier XIAO RP2040 board, the tiny Seed XIAO BLE board can be programmed with Arduino, MicroPython, and CircuityPython, and offers two headers with 7-pin each for GPIOs. What’s really new is the wireless connectivity, the sensors, and a battery charging circuitry. Seeed XIAO BLE specifications: Wireless MCU – Nordic nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ up to 64 MHz with 1 MB flash, 256 KB SRAM, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, Zigbee connectivity Storage – 2 MB QSPI flash Expansion I/Os 2x 7-pin headers with 1x UART, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 1x NFC, 1x SWD, 11x GPIO (PWM), 6x ADC 3.3V I/O voltage (not 5V tolerant) Sensors […]

November 26, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

IoThing Digital IO board handles up to 300V for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and various other boards (Crowdfunding)

AlterStep’s IoThing Digital is a digital I/O module with two high-power Omron G5Q-14 relays and two isolated AC or DC input channels based on Texas Instruments ISO1211 that can handle up to 300 V. The board also integrates a DC-DC converter and mikroBUS slot that allows it to be used with compatible MCU boards, and the company also provides adapters for popular form factors such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Adafruit Feather, Teensy, and others. IoThing Digital specifications: mikroBUS socket for mikroElektronika Click expansion boards BOKRA Lite MCU boards (Some details below) 2x Omron G5Q-14 SPDT relays – 3A/30V DC or 3A/250VAC via terminal blocks Terminal block for 2x digital outputs configurable from 9V to 300V, DC and AC PCF8574 8-bit I/O expander chip with I²C bus for relay control and digital signal input I2C interface with support for 100 KHz and 400 KHz, address selection via jumpers Grove I2C connector […]

November 25, 2021November 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition launched to celebrate 10 million Arduino UNO milestone

Ten million Arduino UNO boards have been shipped since its launch in 2010, and the Arduino team has designed the Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition to celebrate the impressive milestone. The Arduino UNO Mini has basically all the same features as the original Arduino UNO but uses a quarter of the area, and features a USB Type-C port for programming the board with the Arduino IDE. Arduino UNO Mini Limited Edition specifications: Microcontroller – Microchip ATmega328P 8-bit AVR microcontroller @ 16 MHz with 2KB SRAM, 32KB flash, 1 KB EEPROM USB – 1x USB Type-C port Expansion via female headers and castellated holes 14x digital I/O pins (GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART) 6x PWM I/O pins 6x analog input pins Misc – Button, Some LEDs Input Voltage – 6-20V via VIN/GND pins or 5V via USB-C port Operating Voltage – 5V Dimensions – 34.2 x 26.7 x 8mm Weight – […]

November 22, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

International Black Friday 2021 Deals

We’ve been listing Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals available internationally since 2014, going beyond the US-centric Amazon Black Friday deals for instance. So let’s do it again this year from the usual suspects like Aliexpress and Banggood, as well as direct deals from manufacturers. Arduino Black November The maker board manufacturer offers discounts on eight products until November 29, namely the Arduino Starter Kit, the Arduino UNO board, the Arduino Nano Arduino Micro, Oplà IoT Kit, Arduino Due, Portenta H7 machine vision bundle, and the Arduino Mega. The company also offers discounts on Arduino-branded gears from T-Shirts to pens. Khadas 20% discount Khadas has an upcoming deal on the Amazon US store that will run for only 24 hours from 25th November 12:00 am to 26th November 11:59 pm (Pacific Standard Time). As I understand it, they ship internationally too, and you’ll be able to get 20% off the […]

November 11, 2021November 11, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Giveaway Week 2021 winners announced!

Giveaway Week 2021 is now over, and I’m ready to announce the winners. This year, CNX Software was joined by Rakwireless and Shenzhen Xunlong Software, as I did not have enough hardware to send out. I also had planned to give away Crowbits Master Kit, but when I realized the ESP32 module had a battery, I would have had to ask $100 just for shipping, plus having the risk of messing things up, since I’ve never sent devices with batteries with the new regulations. Nevertheless, the void was filled thanks to the generosity of Rakwireless who offered a solar-powered LoRa GPS tracker, and Shenzhen Xunlong Software who proposed an Orange Pi R1 SBC with a plastic enclosure. Let’s go through the list of winners located in four continents with Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania represented: NanoPi R2S gateway – Jason, CANADA WisBlock Kit 2 LoRa-based GPS Tracker with Solar […]

November 6, 2021November 8, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 140 Comments

Giveaway Week – Arduino Sensor Kit Base

Day 6 of giveaway week 2021 will be for the Arduino Sensor Kit Base, a large board with six Arduino modules with Grove connector plus an Arduino shield with Grove connector. You could use it directly on top of an Arduino UNO or compatible to have a massive shield with multiple modules connected with Grove cable, or you could break it out into smaller modules as you see fit. The kit ships in a protective carrying plastic case with six Grove cables to connect the six Arduino modules to the Grove shield in the middle of the board. I told Seeed Studio I would not have time to review it, but they still sent it to me last December. So I’m here with a kit that I’m probably never going to use so better just give it away. You can enter the draw by simply leaving a comment with your […]

November 4, 2021November 4, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

LattePanda 3 Delta SBC combines Celeron N5105 SoC with Arduino (Crowdfunding)

LattePanda 3 Delta is the new version of the x86 + Arduino board introduced in 2015 with an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor, and followed by LattePanda Alpha/Delta in 2017 with respectively Kaby Lake and Gemini Lake processors. The new LattePanda 3 Delta brings some serious performance boost with an Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor that doubles the CPU performance, triples the GPU speed, and enables smooth 4K HDR video playback. Plus no vaccine is required that for that delta variant! 😉 LattePanda 3 Delta specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0GHz / 2.9GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD graphics 605; 10W TDP System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 @ 2933 MHz Storage 64GB eMMC flash M.2 M Key socket for NVMe SSD M.2 B Key socket for SATA SSD MicroSD card socket MCU – Arduino Leonardo compatible Video Output HDMI 2.0 DisplayPort via USB Type-C […]

October 21, 2021October 26, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

M5Stamp C3 RISC-V board supports WiFI 4, Bluetooth 5.0 Long Range and 2 Mbps bitrate

It was only last month that M5Stack launched the M5Stamp Pico module based on an ESP32-PICO-D4 SiP and heat-resistant plastic shell, but M5Stamp C3 board is already out with most of the same specifications and features but an ESP32-C3 RISC-V SoC replaces the ESP32 dual-core Xtensa processor. M5Stamp C3 offers WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 with high bitrate and long-range connectivity and comes with the same heat-resistant plastic shell, but the company also highlights the RSA-3072-based secure boot and the AES-128-XTS-based flash encryption as a more secure way to address Bluetooth security concerns. M5Stamp C3 specifications: WiSoC – ESP32-C3FH4 32-bit single-core RISC-V processor @ up to 160 MHz, with 384KB ROM, 400KB SRAM, 8KB RTC SRAM, 4MB embedded flash, WiFI and Bluetooth Connectivity 2.4 GHz WiFi 4, 20 MHz and 40 MHz bandwidth, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n protocol, up to 150 Mbps Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth mesh, with supports for 125 Kbps, […]