Arylic B50 – A Qualcomm QCC3040 based Bluetooth stereo amplifier with audio transmitter (Sponsored)

Arylic B50 Bluetooth Stereo Amplifier

Arylic B50 is a Bluetooth 5.2 stereo amplifier with an audio transmitter based on Qualcomm QCC3040 low-power Bluetooth Audio SoC that’s typically used in wireless earbuds. The all-in-one Bluetooth amplifier supports aptX HD audio transmission and reception, can handle two Bluetooth sources or two Bluetooth speakers or earbuds, and offers a wide range of interfaces including HDMI ARC, Phono in, RCA in, optical S/PDIF in, subwoofer out, and more. The system can also be connected to two wired speakers up to 50W @ 4 Ohms. Arylic B50 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm QCC3040 with 32-bit application processor @ 32 MHz, 32-bit system processor @ 32 MHz, Kalimba DSP @ 120 MHz, Bluetooth 5.2 and aptX HD support. Bluetooth Version 5.2 with up to 15m range Transmit – 2x Bluetooth Tx for up to 2 Bluetooth speakers or earbuds Receiver – 2x Bluetooth Rx for up to 2 Bluetooth transmitter devices Supported […]

Bouffalo Lab BL616/BL618 RISC-V MCU supports WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and Zigbee

Sipeed BL616 module

Bouffalo Lab BL616/BL618 is a 32-bit RISC-V wireless microcontroller with support for 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 dual-mode, and an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter designed for IoT applications. We first spotted the BL616 RISC-V IoT MCU during the BL602/BL606 announcement in November 2020, but we had virtually no additional information about it so far. It appears both BL616 and BL618 will be launched next month with the main difference between the two being that BL616 has 19 GPIOs and BL618 comes with 35 GPIOs. Bouffalo Lab BL616 and BL618 specifications: MCU core – 32-bit RISC-V CPU (RV32IMAFCP) @ up to 320 MHz with FPU and DSP, 32KB instruction cache & 16KB data cache VPU – MJPEG video encoder Memory – 480KB SRAM, 4KB HBN RAM, embedded 4 or 8MB pSRAM (optional) Storage – 128KB ROM, 4Kb eFuse, embedded 2, 4, or 8MB flash (optional), XIP QSPI […]

Merlot is an open-source hardware tricolor wireless E-paper display

Merlot tricolor 4.2 inch epaper display

paperd.ink Merlot is a tricolor E-paper display with an open-source hardware control board based on ESP32 wireless SoC that is programmable with Arduino, MicroPython, or the ESP-IDF framework. We first wrote about the paperd.ink 4.2-inch ESP32-based monochrome e-Paper display last year, but the company has now refined its design with the “paperd.ink Classic” replacing the 3D printed enclosure with a vacuum cast enclosure and adding a 1,900 mAh battery. They also launched a new model, the Merlot, based on the same design but with a display supporting three colors: black, white, and red. Merlot specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32 module with ESP32 dual-core processor, 4 MB SPI flash, 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 & Bluetooth LE connectivity Storage – MicroSD card slot for storing images, files, etc Display – 4.2″ tricolor e-Paper display with 400 x 300 resolution; full refresh: ~ 17 seconds; partial update: also 17 seconds… USB – 1x […]

Pinecil V2 Bluetooth LE soldering iron gets a web interface

Web interface Pinecil V2 soldering iron

It’s now possible to make use of the Pinecil V2 soldering iron‘s Bluetooth LE connectivity through a web-based interface used to monitor and/or set the temperature and power of the RISC-V soldering iron. When the Pinecil V2 soldering iron was launched with a Bouffalo Lab BL706 RISC-V Bluetooth microcontroller last summer, we were told there were main potential cases to make use of the Bluetooth LE features: OTA firmware upgrade and remote telemetry and control. The latter is now being taken care of by Joric who has written a  web application to visualize telemetry data and even control the temperature of the soldering iron. To be able to use the Bluetooth features, you’ll first need to install the latest Pinecil V2 firmware with blisp flashing utility before going to https://joric.github.io/pinecil to pair your soldering iron as explained in the wiki. Note the implementation relies on the Web Bluetooth API which […]

JetHome JetHub D1+ automation controller runs Armbian with mainline Linux, supports Home Assistant

JetHub D1+ Linux 6.1 automation controller

Earlier this year, we noted the addition of the JetHome JetHub D1 Linux-based home automation controller to mainline Linux 5.16, and the JetHome JetHub D1p (D1+) was just added to Linux 6.1 with some improvements. Still based on the Amlogic A113x processor, the JetHub D1+ gets more memory and storage with 2GB DDR4 RAM and 32GB eMMC flash, a MicroSD card slot, a new RTL8822CS wireless module, and a micro USB port to easily access the console and/or flash firmware to the device. JetHub D1+ specifications: SoC – Amlogic A113x quad-core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, MicroSD slot Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port Dual-band WiFi 5 up to 867 Mbps and Bluetooth 4.2/5.0 (RTL8822CS) Texas Instruments CC2652P1 Zigbee 3.0 module USB 1x USB 2.0 Type-A host port for peripherals 2x Micro USB ports one console access and […]

Bee Motion S3 – An ESP32-S3 board with a PIR motion sensor (Crowdfunding)

ESP32 S3 board PIR Motion Sensor

The Bee Motion S3 is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth IoT board with a PIR motion sensor beside the more usual I/Os, Qwiic connector, USB-C port, and LiPo battery support. It is at least the third PIR motion wireless board from Smart Bee Designs, as the company previously introduced the ESP32-S2 powered Bee Motion board and the ultra-small Bee Motion Mini with an ESP32-C3 SoC. The new Bee Motion S3 adds a few more I/Os, a light sensor, and the ESP32-S3’s AI vector extensions could potentially be used for faster and/or lower-power TinyML processing. Bee Motion S3 specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3-MINI-1 module (PDF datasheet) based on ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with 512KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, and equipped with 8MB of QSPI flash and a PCB antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Sensors PIR sensor S16-L221D […]

PineBuds Pro ANC & TWS Bluetooth earbuds with open-source firmware launched for $70

PineBuds Pro

Pine64 has just started taking orders for the PineBuds Pro ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) & TWS (True Wireless Sound) earbuds based on the Bestechnic BES2300-YP dual-core Arm Cortex-M4F Bluetooth audio microcontroller found in the PineSound development board. There are plenty of TWS earbuds on the market, but the PineBuds Pro earbuds are hackable thanks to an open-source firmware that could pave the way to interesting features, and potentially the development of open-source firmware transforming the earbuds into hearing aids. PineBuds Pro specifications: WiSoC – Bestechnic BES 2300YP dual-core Arm Cortex-M4F @ up to 300 MHz with HW DSP instruction, 992KB SRAM, 4MB flash, Bluetooth 5.2 dual mode. Supports hybrid ANC (active noise cancellation) and TWS (true wireless stereo). Wireless Bluetooth 5.2 dual-mode connectivity Bluetooth Profile: A2DP, AVRCP, HFP Audio 3x microphones: FeedForward, FeedBack, Talk with Hybrid Adaptive ANC technology blocking out background noise up to 45dB 6 mm dynamic transducer […]

Bluetooth LE to support 6 GHz frequency band

Bluetooth 6 GHz

So far, the popular Bluetooth wireless communication protocol would only rely on the 2.4 GHz frequency band, but this may change in the future, as the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has recently announced a new “specification development project” to add the 6 GHz frequency band to Bluetooth LE. Mark Powell, CEO of the Bluetooth SIG “explains” the move: The Bluetooth SIG community is constantly evolving the technology to meet ever expanding market demands for wireless communications. Expanding into the 6 GHz spectrum band will ensure the community can continue to make the enhancements necessary to pave the way for the next twenty years of Bluetooth innovation. I get it that’s a long-term move, but it does not explain exactly why the additional 6 GHz (and 5 GHz) bands may be necessary. I’d just suspect as more devices such as BLE sensors get more widely added that adds to the […]