LibreELEC (Kodi Linux) on Voyo V1 VMac Mini Apollo Lake Mini PC

I’ve just posted Voyo V1 VMac Mini review with Windows 10 this morning, and at the end I mentioned I quickly tried to run Ubuntu 16.04 without success. Reader Piotr who also happens to be a LibreELEC together with about 65 other team members, noticed it, provided me a link to a development version of LibreELEC 8.0 (mirror link) working with Apollo Lake processors, and explained Ubuntu was not working because Linux needs updated Mesa and Intel drivers. The image is based on Linux 4.10-rc5 with the necessary drivers and Kodi 17. The changes were mostly made by FernetMenta (Rainer Hochecker), and will be merged in Linux 4.10 and Mesa 17.0. He also implemented 10-bit HEVC support that will officially be available in Kodi 18 only and found in daily builds. So let’s try this out. After downloading LibreELEC-Intel.x86_64-8.0-devel-20170130110609-r25167-gd210441.img.gz, I tried to flash it (N.B.: no need to extract it) […]

ASUS Tinker Board’s Debian & Kodi Linux Images, Schematics and Documentation

We discovered ASUS Tinker Board powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor earlier this year via some slides hidden in a dark corner of the Internet… ASUS has been incredibly quiet about it, but as the board has finally started to sell in Europe on sites like CPC Farnell UK, Proshop (Denmark), or Jimm’s (Finland)  for the equivalent of $57.5 without VAT or $69 including VAT, and more technology sites have started to write about it. So people have been buying the board, and one even uploaded an unboxing video. One interesting part is the the top comment from the uploader in that video: Currently, a £55 paperweight as I can’t seem to find a link to the OS image anywhere. And indeed, ASUS appears to have launched a board without any support website, firmware image and documentation. Maybe that’s why they are quiet about it. But after using some of my […]

Linux.conf.au Linux Conference Australia Videos Uploaded to YouTube

Linux.conf.au is a Linux conference that takes place yearly in Australia or New Zealand. This year, the event took place on January 16-20 in  Hobart in Tasmania, and the schedule was divided into 6 categories/rooms: Sysadmin, WOOTConf, Open Knowledge, Kernel, Games and FOSS, and Open Radio. There was not that many talks related to embedded or dev boards, but some notable sessions included “Building Escape Room Horror Experiences with Arduino and C++“, “Decoding Satellites with SatNOGS“, or “My adventures building hamlib support for the OpenSDR board” among others. The organizers have now uploaded videos of the talks in Youtube with one session embedded below. Via Phoronix Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

GOLE360 360 Degrees Video Camera Works with Android Smartphones and in Standalone Mode

GOLE is better known for their mini PC tablet combos like GOLE1 and GOLE1 Plus, but the company is about to launch GOLE360 360 Degree Panorama VR Action Camera looking very similar to Insta360 Nano camera, but instead of being designed for iPhones, they made is for Android smartphones with either a micro USB port, or a USB type C port. GOLE360 camera specifications: SoC – InfoTM C23 32-bit processor @ up to 600MHz with 128MB RAM on-chip Storage – micro SD slot up to 128GB Camera 4 MP sensor Camera lens: aperture F2.4,  focuses: Efl 0.94, angle: 210o Video – H.264/MOV up to 1920×960@30fps /1472×736@30fps Photo – JPEG @ 3008×1504 /1920×960 USB – 1x micro USB 2.0 port, or 1x USB 2.0 type C port depending on model Battery – 3.7V/800mAh Dimensions – 11.68 x 3.7 x 2.2cm The camera runs Linux 3.10. This is not the first 360 […]

Inforce 6309L Board is Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 410E Processor with 10-year Availability

Inforce Computing launched 6309 micro single board computer powered by Snapdragon 410 processor, and compatible with 96Boards Dragon 410c board, a little over a year ago. The company has sent a newsletter promoting the launch of cost-down version with long term support equipped with Snapdragon 410E processor, and named Inforce 6309L. Comparison table between Inforce 6309L board and DragonBoard 410C provided by the company: Inforce 6309L Dragonboard 410C SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 410E quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor with Adreno 306 GPU Dimensions 54mm x 85mm Memory Storage 1GB LPDDR3 8GB eMMC Micro SD Connectivity Wi-Fi/BT/GPS Video 1080p HD video 720p HEVC playback Camera Dual cameras 13MP on MIPI-CSI Interfaces Micro USB, USB, Micro HDMI, MIPI-CSI, expansion header Micro USB, USB, HDMI, expansion header Operating System Android Lollipop 5.1 Linux (Debian) Win10 IoT core Both boards are pretty similar, except Inforce 6901L replaced the HDMI port with a mico HDMI […]

How to use Sonoff POW with ESPurna Firmware and Domoticz Home Automation System

Sonoff POW is an ESP8266 based wireless switch with a power meter that comes pre-loaded with a closed-source firmware that works with eWelink app for Android or iOS by default. But we’ve also seen Sonoff POW, and other Sonoff wireless switches from the same family, can be flash with open source firmware supporting MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) lightweight messaging protocol such as ESPurna, and I initially sent data from Sonoff POW to ThingSpeak via an MQTT broker (mosquitto) to draw some pretty charts. I did that with the switch connected to a lightbulb, but I’ve since installed Sonoff POW in my office to measure the room’s power consumption minus the ceiling light and aircon as shown below. Sonoff cable mechanism is really a pain for hard copper wires, as they are hard to push inside the mechanism, and something come out. I finally managed by it took longer than […]

e-con Systems Launches e-CAM130_CUTX1 Ultra HD Camera for Nvidia Jetson TX1 Development Board

e-con Systems, an embedded camera solution company, has just announced the launch of e-CAM130_CUTX1 MIPI camera board for NVIDIA Jetson Tegra X1 development kit. The 13MP camera is based on On Semiconductor AR1820 CMOS image sensor, connects to TX1 board via its 4-lane MIPI CSI-2 connector, and supporting up to 3840 x 2160 @ 30fps/ 13MP@ 20 fps video streaming in uncompressed YUV format. e-CAM130_CUTX1 4K camera board features & specifications: Sensor – 1/2.3″ Optical form factor AR1820HS sensor with on-board high performance ISP. Focus Type – Fixed focus Resolution: – 13MP on e-CAM130_CUTX1 (The sensor is capable of 18MP) Pixel size – 1.25μm pixel with Aptina / ON Semiconductor A-PixHS with BSI technology and advanced pixel architecture Sensor Active Area – 4912(H) x 3684(V) Responsivity – 0.62 V/lux-sec (545nm); SNR: 36.3 dB; Dynamic Range: 65.8 dB Output Format – Uncompressed YUV422 format and compressed MJPEG format. YUV422 resolutions: VGA @ […]

How to Install Domoticz Home Automation System in NanoPi NEO and Other ARM Linux Boards

I’ve recently started experimenting with IoT projects, and the first hurdle is to select the hardware and software for your projects are there are simply so many options. For the hardware your first have to choose the communication protocols for your sensors and actuators, and if you are going to go with WiFi, ESP8266 is the obvious solution, used together with your favorite low cost Linux development board such as Raspberry Pi or Orange Pi to run some IoT server software locally or leveraging the cloud. But the most difficult & confusing part for me was to select the server software / cloud services as there are just so many options. I prefer having a local server than something running only in the cloud, as my Internet goes a few hours a month, so I started with a solution combining ThingSpeak with MQTT gathering data from Sonoff power switches running […]