esp32 News - Page 55 of 68 - CNX Software

August 30, 2019March 15, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

ULX3S Education Board is Powered by Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA & ESP32 WiFi/BLE Module

ULX3S Lattice ECP5 FPGA Educational Board

A few days ago, we covered the KiCAD designed OrangeCrab open-source hardware board powered by a Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA, and compliant with Adafruit Feather form factor. It’s turned out there’s another Lattice Semi ECP5 FPGA board that’s also designed with KiCAD and open source hardware. Radiona ULX3S differs are it’s larger and exposes more I/Os since it was specifically designed to meet the meets of the digital logic course at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) of the University of Zagreb in Croatia. ULX3S specifications: FPGA – Lattice ECP5 LFE5U-85F-6BG381C with 84K LUT System Memory – 32MB SDRAM @ 166 MHz Storage – 4–16MB Quad-SPI Flash for FPGA config and user data storage; MicroSD slot Audio – 3.5 mm jack with 4 contacts (analog stereo + digital audio or composite video) Video – Digital video (GPDI General-Purpose Diferential Interface) with 3.3V-5V I2C bidirectional level shifter Display – […]

August 25, 2019 by Ayo Ayibiowu - 4 Comments

ESP32-MeshKit is a Development Kit for ESP32 Mesh Networking

The ESP8266 was a jewel in its peak, it ruled the maker’s world in the need for creating a low-cost WiFi module. Being Arduino compatible also furthered its glory then the ESP32 came in. ESP32 offered so much more than the ESP8266, and most importantly it was also affordable. With support for Bluetooth and WiFi, ESP32 was to open a new frontier for the development of Internet of Things applications. A major drawback of the affordable ESP32 was the lack of official support of mesh network for the chip, something that was easily possible with the ESP8266. Mesh network allows you to build a network of nodes that can communicate with each other, self heal, and many more possibilities. But thankfully, back in 2018, Espressif Systems released the ESP Mesh Development Framework (ESP-MDF) which sits on top of the IoT Development Framework (ESP-IDF), the official development framework for the chip. […]

August 20, 2019August 20, 2019 by Siji Sunny - 5 Comments

mDash Cloud platform for IoT Devices Targets ESP8266/ESP32, STM32, and TI CC3220 Wireless MCUs

Cesanta (a company based in Dublin, Ireland) recently launched mDash – an IoT cloud platform for administration of various IoT modules. This platform supports Espressif’s modules ESP32 & ESP8266, STM32 (L4,M4) and TI CC3220, and offers a bunch of features which are known to be challenging tasks in the IoT world. This includes OTA (Over-The-Air) firmware updates, remote configuration and administration, alerts and notifications, remote device control and file management. This can be achieved through 3 programming platforms – Arduino IDE, ESP-IDF and through Mongoose OS. For evaluation and testing purpose mDash offers a simulator that run as a docker container. Refer our previous post, to understand how to get started with Cesanta’s Moongoose OS for ESP8266. Basic WorkFlow mDash Library The company offers reference firmware/library for the defined hardware platforms. This been implements by using secure MQTT for communication, re-connection and initial provisioning with mDash cloud. You can find […]

July 25, 2019July 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Espressif Systems Gets Listed on the Shanghai Stock Market

Espressif Systems is widely popular community thanks to their low-cost ESP8266 and ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC, modules, and development kit as well as their extensive software ecosystem, and community support. If you wonder how they did outside of the maker sphere, you don’t need to worry, as the company founded in 2008 is already profitable ($23 US million profit in 2018), and even launched an IPO on the new STAR market for science and technology sectors on the Shanghai stock market that was completed on July 9 and oversubscribed around 2,880 times. A bank source informed me the IPO was only available to local Chinese people, and the IPO price was set to 62.60 CNY ($9.1). Listing started this Monday (July 22, 2019), and the stock has done extremely well with the price having reached 161.54 CNY at the time of writing. For reference, the stock code is 688018, […]

July 19, 2019July 19, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Olimex ESP32-ADF Board is Made for Smart Speakers, Internet Radios, VoIP Phones, and More

We’ve already covered several (smart) audio boards based on ESP32 WiSoC, including the Espressif’s own ESP32-LyraTD-MSC Audio Mic HDK, as well as third party boards such as TTGO TAudio or Seeed Studio ESP32-A1S all compatible with the company’s ESP-ADF (Audio Development Framework) compatible with Baidu DuerOS, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Olimex ESP32-ADF adds another ESP32 audio option, and AFAIK the first one that is open source hardware, with two speakers, and a dual-microphone that enable projects such as Alexa smart speaker, internet radio receiver, or SiP VoIP phone. Olimex ESP32-ADF specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-WROVER-B with 8MB PSRAM, 4MB Flash, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 LE Audio Stereo microphones Stereo 2x3W speakers with amplifier Audio output jack Display – UEXT connector for optional 2.8″ LCD display USB – 1x micro USB port for power supply and programming Misc – IR receiver, 4x touch buttons, 3x tactile buttons Build-in programmer […]

July 4, 2019February 16, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

$15 TTGO T-Call Board Combines ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC with SIM800 GPRS Module

LilyGo has launched several TTGO boards usually based on Espressif ESP8266 or ESP32 over the years. Here’s another that could be useful if 2G cellular networks have not sunset in your country: TTGO T-Call. The new board combines ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth WiSoC with SIMCom SIM800L GPRS module, and also happens to rely on a USB-C port for power and programming instead of the more common micro USB port on this type of hardware. TTGO T-Call board (BLINK_V1.3) specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-WROVER-B based on ESP32 dual core Xtensa processor @ 240MHz with 520kB SRAM on-chip, 4MB QSPI flash, 8MB PSRAM Connectivity – WiFi 4 802.11 b/g/n (2.4 GHz) up to 150 Mbps Bluetooth 4.2 Classic + LE Cellular – 2G GSM/GPRS via SIMcom SIM800L module + Nano SIM card slot USB – 1x USB-C for power and programming (via CP2104) Expansion – 2x 21-pin headers with UART, SPI, SDIO, […]

June 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Open Source ESP32 3D Printer Board Supports Marlin 2.0 Firmware

Espressif ESP32 processor was initially designed for cost-sensitive IoT projects thanks to its built-in WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity and low price, but the WiSoC’s fairly powerful two Xtensa cores found other uses such as face detection and audio applications among others. But a few people are now collaborating to bring ESP32 to the world of 3D printers with an open source hardware RepRap 3D printer controller board that has beta support in Marlin 2.0 RC1 firmware. There’s no commercially available ESP32 3D printer controller board right now, so only prototypes from the community are available. There are mainly two version of the boards: R1 and R2 designed by Simon Jouet, and at least one member – Felixstorm – made his own R2 board from the MIT licensed KiCad based design. R2 is a better design leveraging ESP32’s I2S interface to have more output pins and improve stepping. Felixstorm connected the […]

June 20, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Obsidian ESP32 Board Follows Raspberry Pi Model A Form Factor (Crowdfunding)

When Thomas McKahan‏ had been playing with ESP32 for a while, he found the need to use Raspberry Pi HAT boards and enclosure with his new hardware, so he went ahead and designed his own ESP32 board compatible with Raspberry Pi accessories, and following the smaller Raspberry Pi Model A / 3 Model A+ form factor. Obsidian ESP32 specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-WROVER-B 802.11 b/g/n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.2 / BLE module with 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming Audio – 3.5mm TRS audio jack connected to ESP32 DACs Expansion 40-pin GPIO header compatible with popular HAT expansion boards with 3.3 V signalling, I²S for audio DAC, I²C and SPI, Serial UART available on header or via microUSB, I²C GPIO expander with interrupts & address selection 8-pim unpopulated header from remaining I/Os accessible through GPIO expander 5-pin unpopulated […]