Espressif ESP Thread Border Router board combines ESP32-H2 & ESP32-S3 wireless chips

ESP Thread Border Router Zigbee Gateway

Espressif Systems has launched the ESP Thread Border Router/Zigbee Gateway board based on ESP32-H2 (802.15.4) and ESP32-S3 (WiFi + BLE) modules following the contention of the Thread Interoperability Certificate V1.3 for the board and associated ESP Thread Boarder Router SDK built on top of the ESP-IDF framework and the open-source OpenThread protocol stack. The ESP Thread Border Router supports the protocol functions of the 1.3 Thread standard such as bidirectional IPv6 connectivity, Service Discovery Delegate, Service Registration Server, Multicast Forwarding, NAT64, and more, as well as product-level features such as a Web GUI for device configuration, automatic RCP (Radio Co-Processor) upgrade, RF coexistence, and so on. ESP Thread Border Router/Zigbee Gateway board specifications: Wireless modules ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 wireless module SoC –  ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ 240 MHz with 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity Memory – 2MB PSRAM Storage – 4MB SPI flash PCB antenna […]

ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1 ESP32-H2 development board launched for $10

ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1

Espressif Systems unveiled the ESP32-H2 Bluetooth 5.2 LE & 802.15.4 RISC-V microcontroller in August 2021, but the ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1 development board based on the ESP32-H2-MINI-1 module has only been selling on the official Espressif’s Aliexpress store for $9.90 for a few weeks. The ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1 development board allows the development of applications with Bluetooth 5.2 LE, Zigbee, Thread, and/or Matter connectivity, features two USB Type-C ports, Boot & Reset buttons, and RGB LED, and two rows of 15 pins exposing all I/Os from the ESP32-H2-MINI-1 module. ESP32-H2-DevKitM-1 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 (E1N4 on the photo above should mean 4MB, but there are also ESP32-H2-MINI-1 modules with 1MB and 2MB flash) PCB antenna Dimensions – 13.2×16.6×2.4 […]

Nordic Semi nRF54H20 Cortex-M33 + RISC-V wireless SoC supports Bluetooth 5.4, LE Audio, Bluetooth mesh, Thread, Matter, and more

nRF54H20

Nordic Semi nRF54H20 is a 320 MHz multiprotocol wireless SoC with several Arm Cortex-M33 and RISC-V cores, support for Bluetooth 5.4 and greater with features like LE Audio and Bluetooth mesh, as well as Thread, Matter, and so on. It is the first part of the fourth generation nRF54 family manufactured with a 22nm process, and its application processor doubles the processing power (2x CoreMark) of the Arm Cortex-M33 application core in the nRF5340 SoC and embeds up to 2MB flash, 1MB SRAM. nRF54H20 preliminary specifications and highlights: CPU Application core  – Arm Cortex-M33 @ up to 320 MHz with 2 MB Flash + 1MB SRAM Network core –  Arm Cortex-M33 Several RISC-V cores (for low power?) Wireless Bluetooth 5.4 LE with direction-finding, Bluetooth mesh, LE audio, etc… 802.15.4 radio for Thread, Matter -100 dBm RX sensitivity @ 1 Mbps for Bluetooth LE Up to 10 dBm TX power New […]

Synaptics SYN4382 SoC supports Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and 802.15.4 connectivity

Synaptics SYN4382

Synaptics SYN4382 is a triple combo SoC with Wi-Fi 5/6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee/Thread/Matter) radios, and manufactured with a 16nm process to lower power consumption for IoT and multimedia applications. The chip can deliver up to 1,200 Mbps WiFi throughput, supports dual-band (RSDB) 2.4 and 5 or 6/6E GHz operation to combine the links at different frequencies, as well as features such as LE Audio for multiple concurrent audio streams in a multi-device environment. Synaptics SYN4382 key features: Wireless Triband 2×2 Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) with 1200 Mbps throughput, RSDB, and support for legacy 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio,  Channel Sounding (HADM = High Accuracy Distance Measurement) for accurate positioning 802.15.4 radio for Thread and Zigbee Matter interoperability Smart Co-Ex for coexistence in the 2.4 GHz band Multipoint external coexistence interface for LTE, GPS On-chip power amplifiers (PAs) and low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) with support for external PAs […]

Silicon Labs announces MG27 and BG27 Bluetooth LE & 802.15.4 SoCs for small devices, healthcare

BG27 Bluetooth LE SoC

Silicon Labs has just announced the tiny BG27 Bluetooth LE and MG27 multiprotocol wireless SoCs designed for small devices, and they will be especially useful in connected health applications, or the so-called Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), as well as wearables, sensors, switches, smart locks, and commercial and LED lighting. Both chips feature a Cortex-M33 core clocked at 76.8 MHz, up to 768KB flash, and up to 64KB RAM, but the BG27 only supports Bluetooth LE, Mesh, and propriety 2.4 GHz connectivity, while the MG27 also adds an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee, OpenThread, and Matter protocols Silicon Labs BG27 and MG27 specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 76.8 MHz with DSP instruction and floating-point unit Memory – Up to 64 kB RAM data memory Storage – Up to 768 kB flash program memory 2.4 GHz Radio BLE 5.3 Bluetooth mesh Proprietary 2.4 GHz MG27 adds Matter OpenThread Zigbee Modulation – […]

SONOFF iHost Smart Home Hub enables local control of SONOFF, Tasmota, Matter home automation devices

SONOFF iHost package

SONOFF iHost is a Smart Home Hub that enables local control of SONOFF smart switches, lightbulbs, Zigbee sensors, and so on without having to require a connection to the cloud (e.g. eWelink). Future software upgrades will also add more devices such as the ones flashed with Tasmota firmware and any device compatible with the Matter IoT protocol. The gateway is based on either a Rockchip RV1109 SoC with 2GB RAM or a Rockchip RV1126 with 4GB RAM and offers 10/100M Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth LE, and Zigbee 3.0 connectivity, as well as a USB 2.0 port to allow for more connectivity. SONFF iHost Smart Home Hub specifications: SoC and Memory Rockchip RV1109 dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.5 GHz with RISC-V MCU @ 400 MHz, 2D graphics engine, 1.2 TOPS NPU, 5MP H.264 and H.265 hardware video decoder and encoder, and 2GB DDR4 Rockchip RV1126 quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 @ 1.5 GHz with […]

SparkFun Thing Plus Matter – MGM240P board supports Matter, Zigbee, OpenThread, and Bluetooth Low Energy 5.3

SparkFun Thing Plus Matter - MGM240P

SparkFun Thing Plus Matter – MGM240P board targets the development of applications using the Matter IoT protocol and features the MGM240P module based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG24 Arm Cortex-M33 wireless microcontroller with an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee and OpenThread plus a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.3 radio. The board also offers two rows of I/Os for upto 21 GPIOs and a Qwiic connector for expansion, another EFRM32 MCU acting as a J-link debugger, a microSD card, and can be powered via USB-C or a LiPo battery. SparkFun Thing Plus Matter – MGM240P specifications: MGM240P wireless module SoC –  Silicon Labs EFR32MG24 microcontroller CPU – 32-bit Arm Cortex-M33 @ 39 MHz (MCU/module specs say up to 78 MHz, but maybe it’s clocked lower in this board for some reason, maybe lower power consumption?) Memory/Storage – 1536kB Flash Memory, 256kB RAM Wireless – 802.15.4 wireless protocols (Zigbee and OpenThread) and Bluetooth Low […]

FOSDEM 2023 schedule – Open-source Embedded, Mobile, IoT, Arm, RISC-V, etc… projects

FOSDEM 2023

After two years of taking place exclusively online, FOSDEM 2023 is back in Brussels, Belgium with thousands expected to attend the 2023 version of the “Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting” both onsite and online. FOSDEM 2023 will take place on February 4-5 with 776 speakers, 762 events, and 63 tracks. As usual, I’ve made my own little virtual schedule below mostly with sessions from the Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom, but also other devrooms including “Open Media”, “FOSS Educational Programming Languages devroom”, “RISC-V”, and others. FOSDEM Day 1 – Saturday February 4, 2023 10:30 – 10:55 – GStreamer State of the Union 2023 by Olivier Crête GStreamer is a popular multimedia framework making it possible to create a large variety of applications dealing with audio and video. Since the last FOSDEM, it has received a lot of new features: its RTP & WebRTC stack has greatly improved, Rust […]