RM500U-CN Raspberry Pi 5G HAT kit sells for under $200… for the Chinese market

low-cost Raspberry Pi 5G HAT

Waveshare has introduced a new Raspberry Pi 5G HAT kit with a Quectel RM500U-CN 5G module, four antennas, and other accessories that sells for under $200, Raspberry Pi SBC not included. On the face of it, it looks like an incredible deal, considering we’ve previously covered two other 5G development kits for the Raspberry Pi, namely Waveshare SIM8200EA-M2 HAT with a Snapdragon X55 5G modem and Sixfab “Raspberry Pi 5G Development Kit” that sold for about $400 to $600. What’s the trick? It’s designed for the Chinese market. RM500U-CN Raspberry Pi 5G HAT kit content: Waveshare Raspberry Pi M.2 TO 4G/5G HAT Quectel RM500U-CN 5G M.2 module 4x antennas plus SMA protective caps and IPEX adapter cables USB 3.0 male to male cable 1x USB 3.0 adapter and 1x USB 2.0 adapter 40-pin header 5V/3A USB Type-C power adapter Screws pack We can find more details about the RM500U-CN module […]

OASIS – ROS 2 based Smart Home operating system integrates with Kodi

OASIS Kinect 2 computer vision

OASIS is a Smart Home operating system based on ROS 2 that currently implements computer vision, input streaming, and general automation features, and can be integrated into Kodi media center. The operating system was recently released by Garrett Brown (a.k.a. garbear or eigendude), who is also known for being the RetroPlayer developer from Team Kodi/XBMC, and provides a complete implementation of the Firmata protocol for communicating with Arduino boards, plus additional support for temperature and humidity sensors, I2C, servos, sonar, SPI, stepper motors, and 4-wire CPU fans. Two main use cases are computer vision and input streaming at this time. The illustration above shows the former with the Kinect 2 driver ported to ROS 2, a background subtractor on all camera feeds using bgslibrary C++ background subtraction library, and Kodi as the visual interface. The second, input streaming, can be seen below with a Lego train (including a Falcon spaceship!) […]

Lakka 4.0 game emulator released with LibreELEC 10.0.2 and RetroArch 1.10.1

Lakka 4.0 release

Lakka 4.0 is the latest release of the game emulator based on LibreELEC 10.0.2 and RetroArch 1.10.1 frontend GUI for LibRetro game emulators cores. While Lakka was initially designed for Raspberry Pi boards in a way similar to RetroPie, it also works just fine on many other Arm platforms and PCs. Main changes to Lakka 4.0 compared to version 3.7: Build system based on LibreELEC 10.0.2 RetroArch updated to 1.10.1 Cores updated to their most recent versions superbroswar: added new libretro core sameduck: added new libretro core Mesa updated to 22.0.0 Mainline kernel updated to 5.10.103 (PC, Amlogic, Allwinner, NXP) Raspberry kernel updated to 5.10.95 Most arm devices switched to aarch64 Rockchip RK3288, RK3328 and RK3399 switched to mainline kernel 5.10.76 Added support for additional Allwinner and Amlogic devices (not tested on our side, as we do not own many of these devices) Nintendo Switch: complete rewrite of the port […]

Quadric devkit features q16 hybrid AI, DSP, computer vision accelerator

Quadric devkit Raspberry Pi CM4

The Quadric devkit is an M.2 Key M module equipped with the company’s q16 edge processor offering a hybrid data-flow + Von Neumann machine for not only neural networks, but also computer vision, digital signal processing, BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms), and other workloads. This architecture allows the Quadric q16 to be more flexible than traditional AI accelerators and can deliver more effective solutions for heterogonous systems that may have multiple accelerators or require a powerful processor. The M.2 form factor enables easy integration into boards with an M.2 Key M socket such as the Gumstix Raspberry Pi 4 development board shown below with the Quadric devkit. Quadric devkit specifications: Accelerator – Quadric q16x4 Processor with 256 Vortex Cores, 8 MB on-chip memory, 4 kB per core memory, multi-precision multiply accumulate; 16 x 16mm package Memory – 4GB LPDDR4, 32-bit, dual-rank up to 3677 MHz Host Interface – 2-lane PCIe […]

CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box – A Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 box for industrial IoT applications

CM4-IO-PoE-4G-Box

While the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is basically unobtanium, companies keep introducing products based on the Arm system-on-module, and Waveshare CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box is a complete system designed for industrial IoT applications with CAN Bus, RS232 and RS485 interfaces, Ethernet with PoE support, plus optional support for 2G to 5G cellular connectivity. The CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box is based on the “Compute Module 4 PoE 4G” carrier board which itself appears to be an update to the company’s earlier “Compute Module PoE 4G” carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM3 module. CM4-IO-POE-4G-Box / Compute Module 4 PoE 4GB board specifications: Support SoM – All variants of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Storage – MicroSD card socket used for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Lite (without eMMC) Display 2x HDMI ports up to 4Kp30 (I suppose even 4Kp60) 2x 15-pin MIPI DSI connectors + openings in the enclosure for flat cables Camera – 2x internal […]

DevTerm modular Linux terminal gets a RISC-V module compatible with Raspberry Pi CM3

DevTerm R-01 Linux RISV-C modular computer

ClockworkPi DevTerm retro-looking modular portable Linux computer has gotten a 64-bit RISC-V module based on Allwinner D1 1GHz SoC and offers an alternative to existing Arm-based modules such as Raspberry Pi CM3, or alternatives powered by Allwinner H6 or Rockchip RK3399 SoC’s. The new DevTerm Kit R-01 modular & portable terminal has exactly the same specifications with a 6.8-inch IPS screen, a keyboard with 67 keys, and a battery module, all connected to ClockworkPi v3.14 carrier board, but replaces the Arm modules with the R-01 module equipped with the Allwinner D1 processor and 1GB of RAM. DevTerm Kit R-01 kit items: SoM – R-01 Core module with Allwinner D1 single-core 64-bit RISC-V RV64IMAFDCVU processor @ 1.0GHz without GPU, and 1GB DDR3 Carrier board – ClockworkPi v3.14 mainboard Storage – 32GB MicroSD card preloaded with clockworkOS Display – 6.86-inch IPS screen module Audio – Dual speaker Keyboard – Clockwork 65% keyboard […]

Doom ported to Raspberry Pi RP2040

Raspberry Pi RP2040 Doom

Doom has been ported to all sorts of platforms, including ESP32 platforms with 4MB PSRAM but “RP2040 doom” port of Doom to the Raspberry Pi RP2040 is more challenging, since RAM is limited to the measly 264KB built-in into the microcontroller, and for boards with only 2MB flash like the Raspberry Pi Pico, storage capacity becomes an issue. But Graham Sanderson solved all those issues by compressing the data, changing the code to use less RAM, making full use of the two Arm Cortex-M0+ cores, both overclocked at 270 MHz, in order to run Doom (DOOM1.WAD) on Raspberry Pi Pico at 320×240 resolution @ 60 fps, and the full Ultimate Doom and DOOM II WADs expected to fit into Raspberry Pi RP2040 boards with 8MB SPI flash. The port was based on Chocolate Doom, OPL2 emulation for audio support was derived from the emu8950 project, and sound effects were compressed […]

OnLogic announces Factor 201 Raspberry Pi CM4 industrial PC, Factor 202 controller coming soon

Onlogic Factor 201

OnLogic has announced the launch of the Factor 201, a compact fanless industrial PC based on Raspberry Pi CM4 (Compute Module 4) for Edge IoT applications, and is working on the Factor 202 industrial controller with onboard digital and analog I/Os (DIO & AIO), as well as a capacitive touchscreen. OnLogic Factor 201 Specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Arm Cortex-A72 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz, up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM, up to 32GB eMMC flash Additional storage – Optional M.2 SATA SSD (See Expansion section) Video Output – HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Networking 2x Gigabit Ethernet LAN (Optional PoE PD Input) via Realtek RTL8153 controller Optional WiFi/Bluetooth module on Raspberry Pi CM4 module + 3x antenna holes Optional 4G LTE wireless module via M.2 socket USB – 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 port, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB-C management port Serial – […]