open source News - Page 35 of 92 - CNX Software

August 19, 2020August 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Keyboard FeatherWing Brings Keyboard & Display to Adafruit Feather Boards

Solder Party is a brand new Swedish startup founded by Arturo182 who previously designed several maker boards including the tiny Serpente R2 CircuitPython prototyping board, and its first product, named Keyboard FeatherWing, brings a QWERTY keyboard and 2.6” color LCD with resistive touch screen to any boards compatible with Adafruit Feather for factor. That means you can build a portable device that runs Linux via the Giant Board, features an FPGA (Orange Crab), or a wide range of connectivity options including WiFi, Bluetooth LE, LoRa, etc… depending on your chosen board. The solution actually brings a bit more than just a keyboard and color, as shown by the list of Keyboard FeatherWing key features: Display – 2.6” 320×240 16-bit color LCD with resistive touch screen (SPI) Storage – MicroSD card slot (SPI) User Inputs controlled by a Microchip SAMD20 MCU QWERTY keyboard (I2C) 5-way button 4 soft tactile buttons Expansion […]

July 27, 2020February 21, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Now Supports Tasmota Firmware, Home Assistant, Zigbee2Tasmota

Sonoff Zigbee Bridge & Tasomota Home Assistant

Sonoff ZBBridge (aka Sonoff Zigbee Bridge) WiFi to Zigbee gateway was launched a few months ago for $16.90 plus shipping, and it’s now also listed on Banggood for $17.99 shipped. It allows users to control Zigbee devices connected to the gateway using the eWelink mobile app used with other Sonoff devices. But many people like to run Tasmota firmware on their Sonoff devices since it’s open-source and provided more flexibility such as integration with Home Assitant or Domoticz. There was already support for Zigbee in Tasmota at the time but only for Texas Instruments SimpleLink CC253x Zigbee MCU’s, and Sonoff ZBBridge is made of an ESP8266 WiSoC and a Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 Gecko Series 2 Cortex-M33 Zigbee microcontroller. So I just suspected that eventually, Sonoff Zigbee Bridge could support Tasmota open-source firmware but that would take some time… It took about four months. Not too bad. It started in the […]

July 24, 2020July 24, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

CANTact Pro Open-source USB to CAN Device Enables Car Hacking (Crowdfunding)

The Controller Area Network (CAN) serial communication bus allows microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other without a host computer. It’s especially used in automotive applications where various components (dashboard, ABS, air conditioner, and other sensors) may need to communicate with each other, but it has also found its way into robots, industrial control systems, and avionics. CANTact Pro is an open-source USB to CAN device that can help you debugging or hack components inside a car or other vehicle. The tool features two CAN Interfaces and can be controlled from Windows, Linux, or Mac OS computers. CANTact Pro key features and specifications: CAN Interfaces – 1x CAN/CAN-FD/SWCAN (Single Wire CAN), 1x CAN/CAN-FD; Both via DB9 connectors Host Interface – USB 2.0 device port Misc – 4x LEDs Safety – Isolation between CAN and USB Power Supply – 5V via USB port CANTact Pro works with Windows, macOS, and […]

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

ATCwatch Arduino Firmware Works with PineTime, COLMI P8, “Da Fit” Smartwatches

Earlier this week, we wrote about fake heart rate sensors found in ultra-low-cost fitness trackers as reported by Aaron Christophel. It turns out he also maintains an open-source project specific to P8 watch, PineTime, and other smartwatches compatible with Da Fit Android app: ATCwatch Arduino firmware. The firmware provides a basic menu system, notifications, and the latest implementation enables direct HTTP or HTTPS GET requests to control IoT devices and get info from the Internet. The current firmware consumes about 150-200uA standby current, and last roughly 92 hours on a charge with heavy notification and usage. While it’s possible to connect an SWD St-Link V2 to flash the bootloader and firmware, it’s not necessary, as it’s possible to flash ATCwatch Arduino firmware without having to open the watch by using over-the-air update function with DaFlasherFiles for PineTime or P8 watch together with DaFlasher Android app. Once the update is done, […]

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

Pinephone “Community Edition: PostmarketOS” Launched with 3GB RAM, 32GB Flash, USB-C Hub

After PinePhone “BraveHeart Edition” with any OS pre-installed introduced at the end of last year, Pine64 launched PinePhone “Community Edition: UBports” with Ubuntu Touch last April, and now the company is taking pre-orders for Pinephone “Community Edition: PostmarketOS with Convergence Package”. Besides using a different operating system, the new PinePhone also got a hardware upgrade with 3GB RAM and 32GB flash instead of the 2GB/16GB configuration from earlier models. Due to the changes and the addition of a USB-C dock for convergence, the price has also gone up from $149.99 to $199.99 with shipping scheduled to start at the end of August. If you don’t need the extra memory, storage, and convergence package, you can still pre-order PinePhone with postmarketOS for $149.99. PinePhone “Community Edition: PostmarketOS with Convergence Package” specifications: SoC – Allwinner A64 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.2 GHz with Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 3GB […]

July 15, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

GloDroid Brings Android 10 OS to Raspberry Pi 4, Orange Pi SBC’s, PinePhone, and PineTab

The community of developers working on software for single board computers often prefer to focus on Linux support, as companies will often provide Android firmware images. But those Android OS images are often not maintained at all, so we’ve seen some projects like the past such as H3droid bringing a better Android OS to Allwinner H3 and H2+ boards and devices. The project is still using Android 4.4 KitKat and that’s getting old with some apps like the latest version of Kodi not working anymore. But a new project has just been brought to my attention with GloDroid leveraging AOSP to bring Android 10 to various Allwinner based boards and platforms, as well as Raspberry Pi 4B. List of supported Allwinner hardware: Allwinner H3 (32-bit) based – Orange Pi Plus 2 SBC, Orange Pi Plus 2E board, Orange Pi PC Allwinner H5 (64-bit) based – Orange Pi Prime, Orange Pi […]

July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Ignitial Tukhla High-End Open Source Hardware NXP i.MX 8QuadMax SBC in the Works

[Update: The European company that initiated the project is Ignitial based in the west of France. So while we refer to the board as Olimex Tukhla in the post, it will be offered as Ignitial Tukhla once it becomes available] Most open-source hardware Arm Linux SBCs are optimized for cost, and there are few higher-end boards with extensive connectivity designed for professionals. Beagleboard X15 would be one of the rare examples currently available on the market, but it was launched five years ago. One European company noticed the void in this market and asked Olimex to develop a high-end open-source Linux board with a well-documented processor. They ruled out RK3399, and instead went Olimex Tukhla SBC will be powered by NXP i.MX 8QuadMax, the top processor of i.MX 8 family with two Cortex-A72 cores, four Cortex-A53 cores, and two real-time Cortex-M4F cores. As you can see from the screenshot above, […]

July 7, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Design an Open-Source SoC with Google SkyWater PDK, Get It Manufactured for Free

With open ISAs like RISC-V, it’s become easier – provided you have the skills – to develop or customize your own SoC using RTL files, compile it with EDA tools, and run the resulting bitstream on an FPGA. But if you ever wanted to get an actual chip that would become more complex, as you’d need to request a process design kit (PDK) from a foundry, and pay for the manufacturing cost, which amounts to at least several thousand dollars for older process nodes. But the FOSSi (Free and Open Source Silicon) Foundation has good news with Tim Ansell of Google announcing the SkyWater PDK, the first manufacturable, open-source process design kit. There are other open-source PDKs, but they aren’t manufacturable and/or only support older 0.35/0.5 micron nodes. The SkyWater PDK allows you to produce chips with the SkyWater foundry in the 130nm node. That’s a big improvement since you […]