development board News - CNX Software

December 3, 2023 by Debashis Das - No Comments

OpenMV CAM RT1062 camera for machine vision is programmable with MicroPython

Following the success of the OpenMV Cam H7 and the original OpenMV VGA Camera, OpenMV recently launched the OpenMV CAM RT1062 powered by NXP’s RT1060 processor. This new camera module integrates a range of features, including a high-speed USB-C (480Mbps) interface, an accelerometer, and a LiPo connector for portability. Similar to its predecessor, this camera module also features a removable camera system, and it is built around the OV5640 image sensor which is more powerful in terms of resolution and versatility. However, the previous Omnivision OV7725 sensor, used in the OpenMV Cam H7 has a far superior frame rate and low-light performance. OpenMV provides a Generic Python Interface Library for USB and WiFi Comms and an Arduino Interface Library for I2C, SPI, CAN, and UART Comms which can be used to interface your OpenMV Cam to other systems. To program the board, you can use MicroPython 3 with OpenMV IDE, […]

November 28, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Microchip PIC18-Q24 8-bit MCU focuses on security and supports Multi-Voltage I/O (MVIO)

The newly introduced Microchip PIC18-Q24 8-bit MCU implements security measures such as the Programming and Debugging Interface Disable (PDID) feature and optional support for an immutable bootloader, as well as support for Multi-Voltage I/O (MVIO) to interface with digital inputs or outputs at different operating voltages without the needs for level shifters. While it’s fun to find a new MCU platform that you can hack via serial, JTAG, or other debug interfaces, it can be a security issue, and the Microchip PIC18-Q24 aims to make that impossible by disabling programming and debugging interfaces and the 8-bit microcontroller also offers an option to make the bootloader impossible to modify once a specific configuration bit has been set. Microchip PIC18-Q24 key features and specifications: MCU core – 8-bit C compiler optimized RISC core @ up to 64 MHz Memory – Up to 4 KB of Data SRAM Memory Storage – Up to […]

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

WeAct ESP32H2-N4 – A $6 Bluetooth 5.2 LE, Zigbee 3.0, and Thread development board

WeAct ESP32H2-N4 is a low-cost ESP32-H2 development board with Bluetooth 5.2 LE, Zigbee 3.0, and Thread connectivity with a design very similar to the one of Espressif Systems’ ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1 development board, but sold for just $5.70 plus shipping. The ESP32-H2 wireless microcontroller is basically the little brother of the ESP32-C6 without WiFi and aims at low-power nodes in short-range IoT networks. We have previously seen it in Espressif hardware like the aforementioned ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1 and the ESP Thread Border Router board combining ESP32-H2 & ESP32-S3 wireless chips, but so far not in third-party boards, and WeAct ESP32H2-N4 changes that. WeAct ESP32H2-N4 specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-H2-MINI-1 MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-H2 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller at up to 96 MHz with 320 KB SRAM, 128 KB ROM, 4 KB LP memory, Bluetooth 5.2 LE/Mesh and 802.15.4 (Zigbee/Thread/Matter) radios. Storage – 4MB flash storage PCB antenna Dimensions – 13.2×16.6×2.4 mm USB – 2x […]

November 15, 2023November 15, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Giveaway Week 2023 winners announced!

CNX Software’s Giveaway Week 2023 is now over and we’re ready to announce the winners. We offered some of the review samples we tested (or not) in the last year, and like the last two years, we were also joined by RAKwireless who offered two IoT development kits. All items given away are shown in the photo below, minus some accessories, and if you count more than seven you’d be right, as some are kits with multiple items like the GL.iNet GL-S200 Thread Border router which comes with three development boards, and more importantly, we also organized Giveaway Week on CNX Software Thailand for the second year running. We had seven winners on CNX Software: VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit – Kraingsak, Thailand TBS7901 mini PCIe DVB-S2X/S2 module – Frank, Singapore RAKWireless WisBlock IoT Starter Kit – Andy, Russia GL.iNet GL-S200 Thread Border router kit – Augustin, Argentina WCH CH583M-R0-1v1 […]

November 12, 2023November 14, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 247 Comments

Giveaway Week 2023 – i-Pi SMARC 1200 devkit with Mediatek Genio 1200 Cortex-A78/A55 SoC

i-Pi SMARC 1200 Yocto Linux glmark2 benchmark

We’ll end this year’s Giveaway Week with a pretty powerful development kit – ADLINK i-Pi SMARC 1200 – powered by a MediaTek Genio 1200 octa-core processor with four Cortex-A78 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores, an Arm Mali Mali-G57 MC5 GPU, 4K hardware video decoding and decoding support, and a 4.8 TOPS NPU. The mainboard is comprised of a SMARC 2.1-compliant system-on-module with 4GB LPDDR4 memory and 64GB UFS storage and fitted with a heatsink for cooling as well as a carrier board with a 4Kp60 capable HDMI 2.0 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, two 40-pin headers for I/Os including one compatible with the 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header, plus LVDS connectors, MIPI CSI camera connectors, and M.2 expansion slots for storage and/or wireless expansion. I tested the MediaTek Genio 1200 devkit with a Yocto […]

November 10, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Gigadevice GD32VW553 RISC-V microcontroller supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 LE

Gigadevice GD32VW553 is a new 160MHz RISC-V microcontroller for IoT applications with support for WiFi 6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.2 Low Energy (LE) and available in QFN32 and QFN40 packages with up to 28 GPIOs. As an IoT chip, the chip supports various power modes and target wake time (TWT) for low power consumption, as well as WiFi features such as WPA3 and WiFi direct, while the radio can handle Bluetooth 5.2 LE bit rates of up to 2 Mbps and support the Long Range mode. Gigadevice GD32VW553 specifications: MCU core – 32-bit Nuclei N307 RISC-V core @ up to 160 MHz with RV32I / M / A / F / D / C / P / B instruction extensions Memory – 320KB SRAM Storage – 2048KB or 4096KB flash Wireless WiFI 6 802.11b/g/n/ax HT20 up to 114.7Mbps 802.11e QoS Enhancement (WMM). 802.11i (WPA, WPA2, WPA3). Open, shared key, and […]

November 10, 2023November 12, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 104 Comments

Giveaway Week 2023 – WCH CH583M-R0 development board and some RISC-V microcontrollers

Early this year, WCH sent me a few of their RISC-V MCU boards and chips to thank me for writing about their products. I gave one for review with some chips but it went to review heaven, or in other words, no review was ever written. I also sold a couple locally, and since I don’t think I’ll ever have time for a review, we are now giving away the remaining boards and chips here and on CNX Software Thailand. Today’s giveaway is the WCH CH583M-R0-1v1 board, also known as CH583EVT or CH583M-EVT-R0, based on the CH583 RISC-V Bluetooth 5.3 LE microcontroller that exposes all I/Os from the chip, a few buttons, and USB ports, and also features an SWD/UART header for debugging. You’ll find the documentation, code samples, an Android app and other resources to get started on GitHub. I’ll also throw all the remaining chips I have left […]

November 9, 2023November 11, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 144 Comments

Giveaway Week 2023 – GL.iNet GL-S200 Thread Border Router devkit

Getting Started GL-S200 Thread Border Router

It’s already day 4 of CNX Software Giveaway Week 2023 and today, we’ll be giving away GL.iNet GL-S200 Thread Border router kit that also includes three USB or battery-powered Thread development boards to experiment with various Thread topologies. The GL-S200 router comes with a Qualcomm QCA9531 MIPS router processor running a fork of OpenWrt and provides two Fast Ethernet WAN/LAN ports, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi 4 802.11b/g/n up to 150 Mbps, and support for Thread (via an 802.15.4 radio) and Bluetooth 5.0. The development boards are based on the Nordic Semi nRF52840 microcontroller and each features a potentiometer+button, a PIR sensor, and two RGB LEDs. I reviewed the GL-S200 Thread Border router kit using the router’s dashboard interface and demo firmware provided for the three development boards. This enabled me to test star topology and mesh networking, and play around with demo scripts and code samples to display sensor and potentiometer […]