Raspberry Pi News - Page 138 of 183 - CNX Software

February 9, 2018July 4, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Raspberry Pi 3 Sold for $29.95 on DFRobot (Promo)

As I browsed various sites checking out new arrivals and potential promotion, I found out DFRobot has now a promotion for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board for $29.95 apparently taking place between the 8th and 10th of each month (not only February). I added it to my cart to check out shipping to my address, and unless you can pick it up to their office, shipping adds $6, for a total of $35.95 shipped. Whether that is worth it depends where on your locale price and custom regulations. DFRobot does offer free (DHL) shipping for order over $150, but you can’t just buy 5 Raspberry Pi 3 boards at the discounted price, since the special offer apply to “one only one piece of Pi 3”, so you’d have to purchase something else from their website if you don’t want to pay for shipping. Nevertheless, even if you have […]

February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Sixfab Launches Arduino and Raspberry Pi NB-IoT Shields with Four Sensors

SixFab previously introduced a 3G/4G base shield for the Raspberry Pi boards that would take Quectel based mini PCIe card in order to add cellular connectivity to the popular development boards. The company is now back with NB-IoT shields that should better suited to IoT projects with lower hardware and data costs, and support either 40-pin Raspberry Pi boards or Arduino. SixFab Raspberry Pi NB-IoT Shield Specifications & features: Module – Quectel BC95-B20 NB-IoT Module supporting 800MHz frequency (suitable for the European market) Micro SIM card socket, PCB Antenna and u.FL socket for external antenna I/O expansions 4x Channel 12-bit ADC via ADS1015 Relay with optocoupler protection (24V DC, 120-220V AC Switching) 3-pin 1-Wire interface for DS18B20, DHT21, etc… 4-pin I2C interface 3.3V reference voltage Sensors MMA8452Q 3-axis accelerometer HDC1080 temperature sensor (-40 to +125 °C) HDC1080 humidity sensor (0 to 100%) ALS-PT19 ambient light sensor Misc – User button […]

February 7, 2018February 7, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mozilla Project Things Framework for the IoT Works with Raspberry Pi 3 and Other Boards / Computers

The Internet of Things today relies on many standards, and for example Google Cloud relies on Weave, Amazon AWS IoT and Samsung SmartThings on MQTT, Apple iCloud and so on. The web also relies on many different markup or programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, etc.. but as a user you don’t need to care, and in most cases, you can access any website with the same web browser. Last year, Mozilla started working on Project Things to bring the same ease of of use to the IoT, by implementing the proposed Web of Things standard by W3C that aims to reduce IoT fragmentation by allowing different vendors’ IoT offerings to work together. Mozilla has now announced the release of Project Things “open framework for connecting your devices to the web” suitable not only for hackers and developers, but easy enough to use for end users. The release includes […]

January 30, 2018July 2, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Getting Started with TinyLIDAR Time-of-Flight Sensor on Arduino and Raspberry Pi

TinyLIDAR is an inexpensive and compact board based on STMicro VL53L0X Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensor that allows you to measure distance up to 2 meters using infrared signals, and with up to 60 Hz. Contrary to most other VL53L0X boards, it also includes an STM32L0 micro-controller that takes care of most of the processing, frees up resource on your host board (e.g. Arduino UNO), and should be easier to control thanks to I2C commands. The project was successfully funded on Indiegogo by close to 600 backers, and the company contacted me to provided a sample of the board, which I have now received, and tested with Arduino (Leonardo), and Raspberry Pi (2). TinyLIDAR Unboxing I was expecting a single board, but instead I received a bubble envelop with five small zipped packages. Opening them up revealed three TinyLIDAR boards, the corresponding Grove to jumper cables, and a bracket PCB for […]

January 29, 2018January 29, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

$2 USB “18650 Battery Shield” Powers Arduino, ESP32, and Other Low Power Boards with a 18650 Battery

If you’re looking for battery power for one of your projects, you may consider a “18650 battery shield” – going for just above $2 on Aliexpress or eBay – for powering Arduino boards, Espressif ESP8266 or ESP32 boards, or any board that can be powered by 5V up to 2A via USB or headers, or by 3V up to 1A via headers. Specifications listed on eBay/Aliexpress: Power Input – 5 to 8V via micro USB port up to 0.5A charging Power Output 5V via Type A USB port 3V up to 1A via 3x 2-pin header 5V up to 2A via 3x 2-pin headers Misc – 1 switch control USB output, LED for charging status (green = full, red = charging) Battery protection (Over-charge or Over-discharge) Dimensions – 9.8 x 2.9 cm You’ll need to add your own 18650 battery, and be careful about polarity while installing it, since putting […]

January 25, 2018January 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Building a Compact Digital TV Transmitter with Raspberry Pi Zero, Pi Camera, and LimeSDR Mini USB SDR Board

There are few affordable standalone systems that allow you to transmit video over the air, and back in 2016, I had the chance to check out V-Bridge Muses-β MPEG-2/-4 encoder and DTV modular taking HDMI or composite video input. It was easy to use and worked fine, but it would still cost close to $600, and might have been a little smaller. Evariste Okcestbon has now created its own digital TV transmitter prototype, combining LimeSDR Mini USB SDR board with Raspberry Pi Zero board, and instead of supporting external input from HDMI or AV ports, he used an official Pi camera for video, and was able to transmit the video over a 1.2 GHz connection to a Raspberry Pi 2 with an RTL-SDR dongle, with the Pi 2 board also taking care of displaying the video signal. The full flow of transmission can be summarized as follows: Video from […]

January 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Pulurobot is a Low Cost Open Source Raspberry Pi based Load Carrying Autonomous Robot

Earlier today I wrote about FOSDEM 2018 schedule, and among the various talks I selected for my virtual schedule was “How to build an autonomous robot for less than 2K€”. Some excerpt from the abstract including a short description of the project, and its “open-sourceness”: PULUrobot solves the autonomous mobile robotics complexity issue without expensive parts, without compromise. By fearless integration and from-scratch design, our platform can do SLAM, avoid obstacles, feed itself, and carry payload over 100kg, for less than 2,000 EUR. Application ecosystem can be born around it, as we offer a ready-made Open Source (GPLv2) solution in a tightly coupled HW-SW codesign. So I decided to have a closer at this project, which can be used as a robot maid/helper of sort, and other applications. The robot was made by a brand new (July 2017) startup called Pulu Robotics Oy and based in Finland. They have three […]

January 23, 2018March 8, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

FOSDEM 2018 Open Source Developers Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) occurs every year on the first week-end of February, where developers meet for two days discussing about open source software projects. FOSDEM 2018 will take place on February 3-4 this year with 652 speakers, 684 events, and 57 tracks, an increase over last year 608 speakers, 653 events, and 54 tracks. There will be 8 main tracks namely: Community, History, Miscellaneous, Performance, Python, Security and Encryption, Space, and Global Diversity CFP Day. There will also be 33 developer rooms, and since the full schedule is now available, I’ll make a virtual schedule mostly based on sessions from the Embedded, mobile, and automotive, Hardware Enablement, and Internet of Things devrooms. Saturday 3, 2018 09:50 – 10:15 – Turning On the Lights with Home Assistant and MQTT by Leon Anavi In this presentation you will learn the exact steps for using MQTT JSON […]