Seeed Studio XIAO 7.5″ ePaper panel supports ESPHome firmware, Arduino programming

XIAO 7.5-inch epaper panel

Seeed Studio XIAO 7.5″ ePaper Panel interfaces an XIAO ESP32-C3 USB-C board and mainly targets the Smart Home market with support for ESPHome, but the monochrome ePaper display is also programmable with the Arduino IDE for a wider range of applications. The display offers a resolution of 800×400 and includes a 2,000mAh battery good for three months per charge with updates every 6 hours. Seeed Studio says the display can operate in the -40°C to 85°C temperature range, so it would be suitable for outdoor use as long as it’s not exposed to rain or dust. The USB-C port of the ESP32-C3 module and the Boot and Reset buttons are easily accessible for charging the display and programming it. XIAO 7.5″ ePaper Panel specifications: Wireless module – XIAO ESP32C3 SoC –  Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 CPU – Single-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 160 MHz Memory/Storage – 400KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, 4MB flash […]

Batteryless 7.5-inch NFC-powered e-paper display V2 gets new NFC chip and “fast flashing method”

7.5inch NFC Powered e Paper V2 side view

Back in 2020, we wrote about Waveshare’s Batteryless NFC e-paper display, which can work without a battery and draws power and data from an NFC-enabled smartphone or the company’s ST25R3911B NFC board. Waveshare has now released a V2 version of this display with a new and improved NFC chip, a “fast flashing method”, and enhanced contrast. The new batteryless, 7.5-inch NFC-powered e-paper display features an 800×480 resolution and updates via an NFC-enabled smartphone or reader. It offers a 170° viewing angle and comes in a durable ABS plastic shell. The ST25R3911B NFC board allows updates via USB, SD card, or serial port, with an optional password lock. However, precise NFC positioning is required for updates. These features make it ideal for shelf labels, equipment tags, and other applications. Waveshare 7.5-inch NFC e-paper display V2 specifications: 7.5-inch e-paper display 800×480 resolution Display color black and white 170° viewing angle Refresh Time […]

ESP32-S3 Smart Audio devkit integrates 1.8-inch round touch LCD, microphone, optional battery and speaker box

Waveshare ESP32-S3 round display development board

Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.85C is an ESP32-S3 development kit with a 1.85-inch round touchscreen display with 360×360 resolution, support for Wi-Fi & Bluetooth BLE 5, and a built-in microphone. There’s also the ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.85C-BOX with the same specifications, but an additional box with a speaker and a 3.7V battery. Both versions come with 16MB SPI flash, a microSD card slot, a USB-C port, a few buttons, GPIO and I2C expansion headers, and can be used as music players, smart speakers, HMI solutions,  etc… It’s not quite the first ESP32-S3 audio + display devkit we’ve covered, as Waveshare introduced the ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8 earlier this year with a squared AMOLED display, and Wireless Tag launched the ESP32 Agent Dev Kit to interface with LLMs. ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.85C specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration Memory – 8MB PSRAM Wireless – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth […]

UNIHIKER K10 low-cost TinyML education platform supports image detection and voice recognition

UNIHIKER K10

UNIHIKER K10 is a low-cost STEM education platform for TinyML applications that leverages the ESP32-S3 wireless microcontroller with vector extensions for workloads such as image detection or voice recognition. The UNIHIKER K10 also features a built-in 2.8-inch color display, a camera, a speaker, a 2-microphone array, a few sensors, a microSD card, and a BBC Micro:bit-like edge connector for power signals and GPIOs. It’s a cost-optimized version of its Linux-based big brother – the UNIHIKER M10 – first unveiled in 2022. Arnon also reviewed the UNIHIKER in 2023, showing how to configure it, use the SIoT platform with MQTT message, and program it with Jupyter Notebook, Python, or Visual Studio Code. Let’s have a closer look at the new ESP32-S3 variant. UNIHIKER K10 specifications: Core module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 MCU – ESP32-S3N16R8 dual-core Tensilica LX7 up to 240 MHz with 512KB SRAM, 8MB PSRAM, 16MB flash Wireless – WiFi 4 and […]

Variscite VAR-SOM-AM62P SoM features Texas Instruments Sitara AM62P5 SoC for cost-effective multimedia applications

VAR SOM AM62P development kit

Variscite VAR-SOM-AM62P is a system-on-module powered by Texas Instruments Sitara AM62P5 quad-core Cortex-A53 + Cortex-R5F SoC coupled with up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, and designed for cost-effective multimedia applications. The SO-DIMM module offers high speed interfaces such as gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0, a certified WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 module, and operating in the -40 to 85°C industrial range. As a VAR-SOM module, it’s pin-to-pin compatible with other modules from the family such as the VAR-SOM-6UL or VAR-SOM-IMX93. Variscite VAR-SOM-AM62P specifications: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM62P5 CPU 4x Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz up to 12,880 DMIPS Arm Cortex-R5F real-time core up to @ 800 MHz GPU –  3D GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 & Vulkan1.2 VPU – H.264/H.265 Video Encoder/Decoder No PRU System Memory – 1GB to 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – 8GB to 128GB eMMC flash Networking Gigabit Ethernet PHY (Analog Devices ADIN1300) […]

Tips to use a touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi OS in 2025

Armbian 10 point touch ROCK 5B

I’ve just reviewed the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi 5 running Raspberry Pi OS, and the experience was not quite as smooth as I had expected, so I’ll report some tips to save people time. The first is the software keyboard. Matchbox keyboard used to be the go-to solution, but two years ago, my preferred keyboard became the Onboard keyboard. Sadly, it’s not working so well with the latest Raspberry Pi OS using labwc Wayland window-stacking compositor, so now Raspberry Pi recommends squeekboard. It was not installed by default, but installation is fairly easy:

It did not show up automatically when trying to type in a text field, maybe because I’m using a third-party touchscreen keyboard, but going to Raspberry Pi Configuration and setting On-screen Keyboard to Enabled always in the Display tab fixed that. I was able to type a URL/web search terms in the URL […]

Review of SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display for SBCs using Raspberry Pi 5 and Radxa ROCK 5B

SunFounder 10.1-inch RPI Touchscreen Display Review

SunFounder has just sent us one of their 10.1-inch touchscreen display designed for single board computers (SBCs) for review. It supports the Raspberry Pi family, but not only, thanks to a flexible design that allows mounting all sorts of boards with mounting holes that fit within an 85x70mm area. All you need is a board with HDMI output, a spare USB port for the touchscreen, and 5V USB-C input (up to 5A). So I’ll first test the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with a Raspberry Pi 5 (85x56mm), then a larger Radxa ROCK 5 Model B Pico-ITX SBC (100 x 72mm). Since the display can also be used as an external touchscreen monitor, I’ll also try it with my laptop in Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows 11. SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display specifications Key features and specifications: Display Type – IPS LCD Resolution – 1280×800 (16:10 aspect ratio) Touchscreen – 10-point capacitive Viewing […]

Halliday Proactive AI Smart Glasses feature invisible display, real-time translation, and hands-free control for $369+ (Crowdfunding)

Halliday AI glasses DigiWIndow

Like the wearable voice-activated assistants last year (Rabbit R1 and Humane AI), smart glasses have become quite trendy and will likely be the most popular AI-enabled form factor this year. The Halliday smart glasses are a pair of AI-enabled smart glasses with an invisible display and a proactive assistant that “helps before you ask”. The Halliday smart glasses integrate a small display module into the frame, unlike the Loomos and Looktech smart glasses launched earlier this year through crowdfunding campaigns. The display module, DigiWindow, is described as “the world’s smallest display module at 3.5mm” and invisible to onlookers. It uses a monochrome green MicroLED with projection optics to allow users to access information without obstructing their field of view. The Halliday proactive AI smart glasses come in a lightweight frame, weighing only 35 grams. They can be controlled by voice, the included controller ring, a rapid button for shortcuts, or […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC