Raspberry Pi News - Page 5 of 200 - CNX Software

November 17, 2025November 17, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

HackStar – An RP2040 or ESP32-S3-based USB hacking cable/dongle (Crowdfunding)

HackStar is an ethical hacking tool based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 or ESP32-S3 in a USB cable or dongle form factor for education, pentesters, and makers. While the email I received claimed the HackStar was the “first-ever production-ready ethical hacking product on Kickstarter”, we’ve written about a range of hacking devices based on ESP8266, ESP32, and/or RP2040 microcontroller(s) such as the popular Flipper Zero, the BUG USB stick, nRFBOX V2 ESP32 wireless hacking tool, ESP32 Marauder Double Barrel, HackyPi USB adapter, and many others. What’s relatively new, or at least less common (see HackCable project), here is that the HackStar is also available as a USB Type-A to USB Type-C WiFi hacking cable… HackStar Cable hardware specifications: Wireless SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 processor @ 240 MHz with 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE/dual mode USB Type-A male connector USB Type-C male connector Length – TBD HackStar […]

November 13, 2025November 13, 2025 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

The PV PI HAT adds 10A true MPPT solar charging to the Raspberry Pi (Crowdfunding)

PV Pi A Solar Charging Hat for Raspberry Pi

Developed by Luke Ditria and his team at AutoEcology, the PV PI is a plug-and-play MPPT solar charging HAT designed for Raspberry Pi and other SBCs like the Orange Pi, Banana Pi, and NVIDIA Jetson. Designed for outdoor and remote projects and built around TI BQ25756 charge controller and STM32F103 MCU, it supports LiFePO4 management, true MPPT charging, power monitoring, and automation over the RS-232 UART interface. It also produces 5V output via a high-current buck/boost converter, supports watchdog-based power cycling, RTC wake-up scheduling, and automatic restart at safe voltage levels. With XT30 connectors, stackable headers, and RTC backup, the PV PI HAT is ideal for solar-powered IoT like AI-based wildlife monitors, environmental monitoring, and remote data logging applications. PV PI HAT specifications Compatibility – Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, Banana Pi, NVIDIA Jetson, etc… Main MCU – STmicro STM32F103 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller @ 72 MHz Charge controller – BQ25756 I2C […]

November 11, 2025December 31, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 winners announced!

CNX Software’s Giveaway Week 2025 has just ended and we’ve now ready to announce the winners. We offered some of the review samples we tested, and three companies joined us offering new samples, namely Banana Pi with two router boards, VOIPAC with an industrial development kit, and RAKwireless offered two of their IoT development kits for the fifth year running. Besides the aforementioned prize, we also included an ESP32-P4 development kit, a dry switch from SONOFF, a Raspberry Pi CM4-based HMI with a 915MHz LoRa module, a 5-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display, and two USB PD voltage indicators on both CNX Software “International” and CNX Software Thailand. You can see all prizes shown below. Without further ado, here are the seven winners of Giveaway Week 2025 on CNX Software (English): M5Stack M5Tab – Ed Elecrow Pi Terminal – Tom Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite router board – Stef 5-inch Raspberry Pi […]

November 10, 2025November 10, 2025 by Debashis Das - 2 Comments

Raspberry Pi CM5 industrial carrier board features dual Ethernet, optional 4G LTE/5G cellular connectivity, metal case, and more

Waveshare CM5-DUAL-ETH-4G/5G-BASE is an industrial carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM5. It features dual Ethernet (GbE + 2.5GbE), 4G/5G options, and includes an optional metal enclosure, active cooling fan, and power supply, which is an upgrade from the previous CM5-DUAL-ETH-BASE carrier board. The board also offers two HDMI outputs supporting 4K displays, two MIPI DSI/CSI connectors for displays and/or cameras, two USB 3.2 ports, a 40-pin GPIO header, M.2 slots for both NVMe SSDs and 4G/5G modules, and PoE support via an add-on module. The board supports 7V–36V DC input, a PWM fan header, and RTC battery backup, with precise cutouts and labeled connectors for easy integration. Its main benefits over the CM5-DUAL-ETH-BASE are its more compact size and neatly arranged ports on the rear panels, while adding optional support for 4G LTE or 5G connectivity. CM5-DUAL-ETH-4G/5G-BASE specifications: Compatibility – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) Storage Optional NVMe SSD […]

November 9, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Using the Raspberry Pi 500+ keyboard PC as a regular Bluetooth keyboard

Using Raspberry Pi 500+ as a Bluetooth Keyboard

While the Raspberry Pi 500+ is a fully functional Linux keyboard PC, it’s also possible to use it as a regular mechanical Bluetooth keyboard. This week, I had a problem with my regular Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse combo, so I sent it back to the shop for repair since it was still under warranty. Then somebody forgot the RF dongle for her own combo at home, so long story short, we ended up with one third spare keyboard for two people. Not ideal. But luckily, we just completed the review of the Raspberry Pi 500+ keyboard PC, so we had a spare mechanical keyboard, and the btferret project allowed us to use it as a Bluetooth keyboard, which I’m using right now to write this article. We could have used the Pi 500+ as a Linux machine directly, but we would have had to reinstall all the software we […]

November 8, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Raspberry Pi 500+ mechanical keyboard PC review with Raspberry Pi OS “Trixie”

Today, we’ll review the Raspberry Pi 500+ mechanical keyboard PC using the recently released Raspberry Pi OS “Trixie” based on Debian 13. It’s quite similar to the earlier Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC, but comes with more memory (16GB vs 8GB), a 256GB NVMe SSD, and a proper mechanical keyboard with replaceable caps and RGB LED lighting, so we’ll focus on these aspects during our tests, after going through the usual unboxing and teardown process. Raspberry Pi 500+ unboxing We received an early prototype of the Raspberry Pi 500+ keyboard PC with a UK layout, white design in a retail package. The bottom side of the package includes a list of features and confirmation that it’s indeed a UK layout keyboard. Not ideal for Thai users (we usually rely on the US layout), but that was probably the only layout available when Raspberry Pi sent us a sample in mid-September. […]

November 6, 2025November 8, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 261 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 – 5-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2

The fourth prize of CNX Software Giveaway Week 2025 will be the official 5-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2. I was sent one for review, but I have yet to find anything interesting to use it for, like I did for the 7-inch Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 and the Raspberry Pi AI camera. So I might just as well give it away. To enter the draw, simply leave a comment with your country and whatever else you’d like to say (no links in the body of the comment). If the country is missing, I’ll consider the entry void. Other rules are as follows: Only one entry per contest. I will filter out entries with the same IP and/or email address. Contests are open for 48 hours starting at 10 am (Bangkok time) every day. Comments will be closed after 48 hours. If comments are open, the contest is still […]

November 4, 2025November 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 272 Comments

Giveaway Week 2025 – Elecrow Pi Terminal Raspberry CM4 industrial HMI display

Elecrow CrowPanel CM4 Pi Terminal Demo application

Sometimes we receive samples even though we did not ask for them, said we would have time to review them, or due to miscommunication. That’s exactly what has happened with the Elecrow Pi Terminal, a Raspberry Pi CM4-powered industrial HMI with a 7-inch touchscreen display. So instead of letting it go to waste, I decided to offer it as the second prize of the CNX Software Giveaway Week 2025 contest. Elecrow Pi Terminal specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A72 SoC @ 1.5GHz GPU – VideoCore VI with support for OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan 1.0 VPU Decode – H.265/HEVC up to 4Kp60, H.264 up to 1080p60 Encode – H.264 up to 1080p30 Memory – 4GB LPDDR4-3200 Storage – N/A Wireless – Dual-band WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 Storage 64GB microSD card preloaded with the Raspberry Pi OS + Node-RED software M.2 […]