Raspberry Pi

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on ARDHAT adds Arduino Shield Compatibility, an ISM Band Radio to Raspberry Pi and ODROID-C1 Boards (Crowdfunding)

ARDHAT adds Arduino Shield Compatibility, an ISM Band Radio to Raspberry Pi and ODROID-C1 Boards (Crowdfunding)

NinjaBlocks created Pi Crust add-ons board adding a 433MHz radio and Arduino compatibility to the Raspberry Pi Model A & B a few years ago, but the product has since been removed from their store. But a startup called ubIQio has now created a similar product compatible with Raspberry Pi Model A+, B+ and B2, as well as ODROID-C1 which also comes with a 40-pin R-Pi header. The ARDHAT board is a HAT compatible add-on board with an Atmel MCU, Arduino headers, as well as an optional long range mesh ISM radio (433, 868 and 915 MHz) and various sensors. There are four versions of the board: Basic Ardhat, Ardhat-I, and Ardhat-W and Ultra, which share the following specifications: MCU – Atmel MCU @ 16MHz Headers and I/Os Arduino compatible header accepting 5V Arduino shields 12 ch PWM O/P, 6 ch analog I/P Real-time Clock Programmable Power/Navigation combo switch Programmable […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Kodi 14.2 Final and Kodi 15 Alpha 2 Released

Kodi 14.2 Final and Kodi 15 Alpha 2 Released

Kodi developers have recently announced two release for Kodi: the stable version of Kodi 14.2 Helix, which should be the last Kodi 14 release, and Kodi 15 Alpha 2 Isengard with some interesting new features. Since Kodi 14.2 is a minor release, no new features have been added, but they fixed several bugs: Application stopped responding on Windows Gap-less playback on MP3 Playback of rtmp protocol Scanning of newly added episodes Fix multipath source scanning Loading external subtitles in some cases packaging of PIL module on Android. This fixes some script error when using weather add-on Fix video playback on all platform after refresh rate change Various bugs that were present in PVR add-ons. Save weather location Fix filtering of foreign add-ons ftps handling Use LastWrite instead of ChangeTime for file system on Windows As usual, you can download the release via Kodi download page for Windows, Linux. Mac OS […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on PiJuice Battery HAT Module for the Raspberry Pi Boards Comes with an Optional Solar Panel (Crowdfunding)

PiJuice Battery HAT Module for the Raspberry Pi Boards Comes with an Optional Solar Panel (Crowdfunding)

The Raspberry Pi is a low power board that can be powered a few hours or a few days with batteries, and the easiest solution is probably to use a USB power bank connected to the micro USB port of the board, but the solution is not really integrated. That’s where PiJuice comes into play. It’s a HAT compatible module that connects nicely to the latest Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin header (A+, B+ and B2), and include a 1,400 mAh battery that can be used as UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), an RTC, and more. Key features of PiJuice HAT: 1400 mAh  Lipo battery, good enough to last up to 24 hrs in constant use. 5,000 mAh batteries are also said to be supported. Full UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) solution Integrated RTC (Real Time Clock) On board intelligent on/off switch Low power deep-sleep state with wake on interrupt/calendar event On […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Experimental Android 5.x Lollipop Port for Raspberry Pi 2?

Experimental Android 5.x Lollipop Port for Raspberry Pi 2?

When Raspberry Pi 2 was announced, I was quite hopeful Android would be ported to the board since it now had the processing power and memory requirements to run Android. But members of the Raspberry Pi foundation put a damper on this expectation directly in their Android forums by closing some Android related threads, and stating the mobile operating system does not bring anything to the educational goal of the Raspberry Pi. But yesterday, I’ve been informed that there was an experimental Android 5.1 port for ODROID-C1 and another Android 5.x port for Raspberry Pi 2. One of the key challenges to port Android to Broadcom BCM2836 is allegedly the large number of changes required for VideoCore 4 GPU’s buffer management, which was done by Broadcom internally for BCM2835, but never ported to the Raspberry Pi. So it does not quite seem an easy task. The README on github describes […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Calaos is an Open Source Home Automation Suite for Raspberry Pi, Allwinner A10/A20 and x86 Platforms

Calaos is an Open Source Home Automation Suite for Raspberry Pi, Allwinner A10/A20 and x86 Platforms

Calaos is a Linux based home automation software released under GPLv3 license that works on Raspberry Pi, some Allwinner platforms like Cubiebaord 1/2, Mele A1000(G)/A2000, as well as x86 / amd64 hardware platforms that allows you control switches & lights in the rooms of your home or office, control your music, and manage security cameras.. The developers have recently released Calaos v2.0, the first stable release, so it’s a good time to have a look. The software stack is comprised of 6 main components: Calaos Server – Daemon that exports the state of the house via a JSON protocol. It can currently manage the following hardware components and protocols: Wago’s PLC, with digital or analog I/O, DALI or DMX light bus IPX800 web relay board GCE Electronics Eco Devices used to monitor power consumption. Web API 1-Wire, X10 Zibase I/O GPIO (Linux based GPIO, for direct use of RaspberryPI GPIO […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on DonglePi is a USB Dongle with a Raspberry Pi Header for your PC

DonglePi is a USB Dongle with a Raspberry Pi Header for your PC

While the newer Raspberry Pi A+, B+ and B2 boards feature the new 40-pin connector, the Raspberry Pi boards Model A and B have a 26-pin expansion header, but both are use to access GPIOs, UART, SPI, I2C and interface with external hardware, and many add-ons boards have been developed for the Raspberry Pi. But what if you’d like to use R-Pi add-ons board on your PC, or instead you are developing your own add-on board, but would like to do so directly on your PC for convenience? DonglePi is the answer. It’s a small USB dongle with Atmel SAMD21 MCU and a 26-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header, that you could use connect to your Android/Linux/Windows PC to play with GPIO, I2C, SPI, Serial, PWM just like on a Raspberry Pi, and using RPi/GPIO or smbus Python libraries for programming. The project is still in development, and so far most […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments on Raspbian Image with Docker 1.5.0 Released for Raspberry Pi Boards

Raspbian Image with Docker 1.5.0 Released for Raspberry Pi Boards

I’ve read quite a few articles mentioning Docker recently, but never really looked into it. So what is Docker? The developers describe it as: Docker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications. Consisting of Docker Engine, a portable, lightweight runtime and packaging tool, and Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, Docker enables apps to be quickly assembled from components and eliminates the friction between development, QA, and production environments. As a result, IT can ship faster and run the same app, unchanged, on laptops, data center VMs, and any cloud. In practice, it looks like a lightweight virtualization solution that facilitates apps distribution to different operating systems and hardware platforms. For example, if your development machine is running Ubuntu 14.04 and you’ve developed an app requiring Python 3.0, Docker should make it a breeze to it on […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 40 Comments on Build a Raspberry Pi 2 Minimal Image with The Yocto Project

Build a Raspberry Pi 2 Minimal Image with The Yocto Project

The Yocto Project is a build system that allows developers to make custom Linux distributions matching their exact needs. I’ve already shown how to build a 12MB Compressed image for the Raspberry Pi with Yocto, but the Raspberry Pi 2 has recently been added to the project, so I’ve tried to build it too in a machine running Ubuntu 14.04. I’ll use poky since it’s the default, but you could also build the system for Angstrom or without distributions (OpenEmbedded Core only). The steps to get the code is just the same as for the Raspberry Pi:

You just need to checkout master, and not any branch (like dizzy) since R-Pi 2 is not yet supported in any release. Initialize some environment variables and the build directory:

Now edit conf/local.conf with vim or nano to set the machine to raspberrypi2 instead of qemux86:

There are more Raspberry […]

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