ArduPico – An Arduino UNO compatible baseboard for Raspberry Pi Pico

wisdPi ArduPico Raspberry Pi Pico Arduino baseboard

WisdPi ArduPico is an Arduino UNO-shaped baseboard designed for the Raspberry Pi Pico and compatible boards that enables makers to reuse most 3.3V Arduino shields available on the market and also adds for few I/Os and features. ArduPico specifications: Compatible board – Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico H, Pico W, Pico WH, and other Pi Pico compatible board solderable using through holes or castellated holes Expansion Arduino UNO header compatible with a wide range of shields 5-pin and 6-pin headers for additional GPIOs and 3.3V, GND All Raspberry Pi Pico GPIOs are exposed 3.3V only, no 5V tolerant Debugging – SWD header Misc – Pico RESET key, WS2812 RGB LED Power Supply – 7 to 15V DC via DC jack Dimensions – 68.6 x 53.3 x 11.6 mm (Arduino UNO form factor) Weight – 18 grams   Compatibility with the Arduino UNO is not 100% percent as, for instance, only three […]

EVerest is an open-source software stack for car charging stations

EVerest open source car charging station software

EVerest is a software project initiated by PIONIX GmbH, but now part of the Linux Foundation’s LFEnergy initiative, whose primary goal is to develop and maintain an open-source software stack for EV charging infrastructure. EVerest supports multiple standards and it will run on any device from AC home chargers to public DC charging stations. I noticed the EVerest project in an upcoming talk at the Embedded Open Source Summit 2023 entitled ” EVerest: Electric Vehicle Chargers With Open Hardware and Software” and whose abstract reads in part: You will learn how to build your own electric vehicle charger using open hardware designs in combination with the EVerest open-source software stack for EV charging infrastructure. Following a quick introduction to EV charging technology, with explanations of the standards, protocols, and complexities involved, the talk will go into a deep dive into how you can build your own AC charging station. Reference […]

BLIKVM open-source KVM over IP works with Raspberry Pi CM4, Raspberry Pi HAT, PCIe card, and soon Allwinner H616

BLIKVM Raspberry Pi KVM

BLIKVM is an open-source KVM over IP software that helps you manage servers or workstations remotely regardless of the health of the target system, and currently working with Raspberry Pi CM4 hardware, a Raspberry Pi HAT, or a PCIe board, and a new model based on MangoPi’s Allwinner H616 CPU module is coming soon. We’ve previously written about the Raspberry Pi-based PiKVM DIY project, followed by the PiKVM v3 Raspberry Pi HAT from the same project, and now I can see there’s a CM4-based PiKVM V4 that was on Kickstarter last month and raised over $800,000… You’d think this kind of system would be rather a niche market, but there’s even demand to have a similar open-source project called BLIKVM offering many of the same features since it’s based on PiKVM, except for the option to use a PCIE card fitted with a CM4 module. Highlights of the BLIKVM project: […]

Sony IMX500-based smart camera works with AITRIOS software

LUCID SENSAiZ SZP123S AITRIOS camera

Raspberry Pi recently received a strategic investment from Sony (Semiconductor Solutions Corporation) in order to provide a development platform for the company’s edge AI devices leveraging the AITRIOS platform. We don’t have many details about the upcoming Raspberry Pi / Sony device, so instead, I decided to look into the AITRIOS platform, and currently, there’s a single hardware platform, LUCID Vision Labs SENSAiZ SZP123S-001 smart camera based on Sony IMX500 intelligent vision sensor, designed to work with Sony AITRIOS software. LUCID SENSAiZ Smart camera SENSAiZ SZP123S-001 specifications: Imaging  sensor – 12.33MP Sony IMX500 progressive scan CMOS sensor with rolling shutter, built-in DSP and dedicated on-chip SRAM to enable high-speed edge AI processing. Focal Length  – 4.35 mm Camera Sensor Format – 1/2.3″ Pixels (H x V) – 4,056 x 3,040 Pixel Size, H x V – 1.55 x 1.55 μm Networking – 10/100M RJ45 port Power Supply – PoE+ via […]

Indiedroid Nova is a Rockchip RK3588S SBC with full-body heatsink, fan, and a swappable eMMC flash

Indiedroid Nova SBC

Indiedroid Nova is another Rockchip RK3588S SBC with Raspberry Pi 4 form factor, up to 16GB RAM, with a heatsink that serves as a protective cover, fitted with a fan (if needed), and an optional swappable flash module up to 64GB capacity. The Nova board has basically the same port layout as the Raspberry Pi 4, except for one of the micro HDMI ports being replaced by a USB Type-C port with support for DisplayPort, so you’ll still get a Gigabit Ethernet port, WiFi 5 & Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity,  two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, MIPI CSI and DSI connectors, etc… Indiedroid Nova specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588S CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.2-2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU –  Arm Mali-G610 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2,  OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 support VPU – 8Kp60 video […]

Using Pico:ed V2 board as a replacement for BBC Micro:bit

Pico:ed V2 BBC Micro:bit Alternative

We’ve received a sample of the Pico:ed V2 board developed by ELECFREAKS and will show how to use it as a replacement for the BBC micro:bit in a project using CircuitPython. We’ve already covered the board in detail with specifications, block diagram, and pinout diagram before, and it’s basically a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 board with BBC Micro:bit form factor including a 17×7 Dot Matrix LED display, some buttons, a buzzer, but no wireless connectivity, relying only on USB instead. CircuitPython firmware installation on the Pico:ed V2 board The board supports C/C++, MicroPython, and CircuitPython programming languages, and for this review, we’ve decided to download the CircuitPython UF2 firmware. Press and hold the BOOTSEL button after having downloaded the firmware file… … and connect the board to your computer using a USB cable before releasing the BOOSEL button on the Pico:ed V2 board, which should then show up as the […]

Embedded Open Source Summit 2023 schedule – Zephyr OS, Security, IoT, Embedded Linux, and more

Embedded Open Source Summit 2023

The Linux Foundation has just announced the full schedule for the Embedded Open Source Summit, which will take place on June 27-30, 2023 in Prague, Czech Republic, as well as virtually starting on June 26. Over 175 sessions, birds of a feather (BoF) tracks, and workshops related to embedded and open-source innovation will be presented at the event itself comprised of six micro conferences: Automotive Linux Summit Europe, Embedded IoT Summit, Embedded Linux Conference, LF Energy Embedded Summit, Safety-Critical Software Summit, and Zephyr Project Developer Summit. Even though I’m not going to attend personally, I’ve gone through the schedule to create my own little virtual schedule with some sessions relevant that should be interesting to me and hopefully to CNX Software readers. Monday, June 26 (Virtual sessions) The first day of the event will have a Yocto Dev training in the morning, and a bunch of virtual sessions that are […]

Challenger RP2040 board gets DWM3000 UWB module for indoor positioning, up to 10 Mbps data transfers

Challenger RP2040 UWB

The Challenger RP2040 UWB board features a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller combined with a DWM300 UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) module in the Adafruit Feather form factor and is designed for indoor positioning and ranging applications with an up to 10-centimeter accuracy, and data transfers up to 10 Mbps. The first Challenger RP2040 board was introduced in 2021 with an ESP8285 WiFi chip, iLabs (Invector Labs) shortly followed up with the Challenger RP2040 LoRa with an RFM95W LoRa module, and they also made models with NFC and cellular connectivity. The Swedish company has now just introduced their latest Challenger board with the Challenger RP2040 UWB leveraging UWB technology. Challenger RP2040 LoRa board preliminary specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 133MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 8MB flash Wireless module – Qorvo DWM3000 UWB module connected via SPI Chip – Qorvo DW3110 ultra-wideband (UWB) transceiver IC, compliant with IEEE […]