sensor News - Page 7 of 23 - CNX Software

July 28, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

EMIT ESP32 IoT Development Board Comes with Temperature & Humidity Sensor, 5A SPST Relay (Crowdfunding)

ControlBits EMIT (Environmental Monitoring for the Internet of Things) is a baseboard compatible with DOIT ESP32 DevKit V1 development board and equipped with a temperature and humidity sensor, a relay, a 12-pinGPIO connector, and a MicroSD card. EMIT ESP32 IoT development board specifications: Socket for DOIT ESP32 DevKit v1 board with WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity Storage – MicroSD card socket Sensor – AM2302 temperature & humidity sensor with -40° to +80° C and 0 to 99.9 %RH ranges. Relay – 5A SPST relay output with status LED Expansion – 12-pin GPIO header Misc – 2x programmable status LEDs (red & green) Power Supply – 5V via USB on ESP32 board, or external 7-12 V supply via terminal block Dimensions – 81 x 81 mm (PCB only) The board comes with mounting holes so it can be wall-mounted, and an optional enclosure is also available. Some applications for the board […]

July 27, 2020December 2, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Edge Impulse Enables Machine Learning on Cortex-M Embedded Devices

Artificial intelligence used to happen almost exclusively in the cloud, but this introduces delays (latency) for the users and higher costs for the provider, so it’s now very common to have on-device AI on mobile phones or other systems powered by application processors. But recently there’s been a push to bring machine learning capabilities to even lower-end embedded systems powered by microcontrollers, as we’ve seen with GAP8 RISC-V IoT processor or Arm Cortex-M55 core and the Ethos-U55 micro NPU for Cortex-M microcontrollers, as well as Tensorflow Lite. Edge Impulse is another solution that aims to ease deployment of machine learning applications on Cortex-M embedded devices (aka Embedded ML or TinyML) by collecting real-world sensor data, training ML models on this data in the cloud, and then deploying the model back to the embedded device. The company collaborated with Arduino and announced support for the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense and […]

July 20, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Beware of Fake Heart Rate Sensors in Low-Cost Fitness Trackers

Manufacturers always attempt to lower the BoM costs of their products to increase sales and boost profits. Most do it in an honest way, but some are either incompetent or deceptive as we’ve recently seen in an IR thermometer was the infrared unit was not connected to the mainboard. I’ve just been informed about another trick that’s been going on for a while. Some ultra-cheap fitness trackers come with fake heart rate sensors that are simply replaced by two LED’s to simulate the real thing. The trick was discovered last year by Aaron Christophel who purchased several fitness trackers believe to be based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 in order to as he wanted to use Arduino firmware with those. He managed to do so in several with IWOWNFIT I6HRC tracker being the best suited for the tasks. But he also found some bad apples in the lot with several trackers […]

July 15, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

STM32 IoT Discovery Kit Runs AWS-Ready FreeRTOS, Supports Arduino and Pmod Expansion Boards

STMicroelectronics STM32 IoT Discovery Kit is supposed to ease software development for IoT nodes thanks to a qualified port of FreeRTOS integrated into the STM32Cube ecosystem, and ready to connect to Amazon Web Services (AWS). The hardware is comprised of an STM32L4+ Cortex-M4F microcontroller, various MEMS sensors, a secure element, and offers WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, and NFC connectivity. STM32 IoT Discovery Kit (B-L4S5I-IOT01A) key features and specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32L4+ (STM32L4S5VIT6) Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller with 2 MB Flash, 640 KB RAM in LQFP100 package storage – 64 Mbit Quad-SPI Flash Connectivity Bluetooth 4.1 module (STMicro SPBTLE-RF) 802.11 b/g/n compliant Wi-Fi module (Inventek ISM43362-M3G-L44) Dynamic NFC tag based on ST25DV04K with its printed NFC antenna USB – Micro USB OTG port STMicro Sensors 2 digital omnidirectional microphones (MP34DT01) Relative humidity and temperature sensor (HTS221) 3-axis magnetometer (LIS3MDL) 3D accelerometer and 3D gyroscope (LSM6DSL) 260-1260 hPa absolute digital output barometer (LPS22HB) […]

July 13, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Report: Most DS18B20 Temperature Sensors Sold Online are Fakes or Counterfeit Parts

We’ve already covered counterfeit components with a method to detect STM32 fakes, and several years ago, FTDI decided to take action by bricking clones of their USB to serial chips, although they’ve fairly quickly reversed course following the backlash. But Chris Petrich decided to look at another type of component: Maxim Integrated DS18B20 temperature sensor often found in waterproof temperature probes. His team bought over 1000 waterproof probes or bare chips from more than 70 different vendors on eBay, AliExpress, and online stores in 2019, and found the vast majority to be fake, counterfeit, or clones. So if you have such sensor not quite working as expected, you likely bought a clone as some of the counterfeit sensors do not work in parasitic power mode, have a high noise level, a temperature offset outside the advertised ±0.5 °C band, do not contain an EEPROM, have bugs and unspecified failure rates. […]

June 19, 2020June 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

nRF52805 Tiny Bluetooth 5.2 SoC is Optimized for Small Two-layer PCB Designs

Nordic Semi has just added a new member to its nRF52 Bluetooth 5 wireless SoC family with nRF52805 offered in a tiny WLCSP package measuring 2.48×2.46 mm and optimized for cost-effective 2-layer PCB designs. nRF52805 key features and specifications: MCU Core – Arm Cortex-M4 @ 64 MHz Storage & Memory – 192 KB Flash, 24 KB RAM Wireless Bluetooth Low Energy and 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols. High bitrate – 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps +4 dBm TX power -97 dBm RX sensitivity (1 Mbps Bluetooth LE) Integrated balun with single-ended output I/Os – UART, SPI, TWI, 2-channel 12-bit ADC Security 128-bit AES Power Consumption 7 mA in TX (4 dBm) 4.6 mA in TX (0 dBm) 4.6 mA in RX (1 Mbps) 0.3 μA in System OFF 1.1 μA in System ON with 24 KB RAM retained and RTC running Supply Voltage – 3.6V max Package – 2.48×2.46 mm WLCSP Note […]

June 7, 2020June 6, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

STM32 based Indoor Air Quality Sensor Connects to Raspberry Pi or Arduino (Crowdfunding)

Indoor Air Quality Sensor Raspberry Pi Arduino

Even before the COVID-19 lockdown, people spent most of their time indoors (around 90% according to some studies), so it’s important to monitor air quality and other metrics like light and sound levels in our homes, workplaces, schools, cars, etc… Metriful Sense indoor environment monitor does just that by reporting multiple metrics such as temperature, humidity, particle concentration, etc… over I2C to microcontroller or processor boards such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Sense hardware specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32G071KB Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 64 MHz with 128 KB Flash, 36 KB SRAM Sensors Bosch Sensortec BME680 4-in-1 air quality sensor with relative humidity, barometric pressure, ambient temperature, and gas (VOC). Vishay VEML6030 ambient light sensor Knowles SPH0645LM4H-B MEMS microphone Optional – Shinyei PPD42 particle sensor unit I/Os – 10-pin unpopulated header with air particles sensor input, light and sound interrupt outputs, I2C, VPU pin for 3.3V/5V selection, GND, VDD, VIN […]

June 2, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Sonoff SNZB Zigbee Sensors and Switches Launched for under $10

ITEAD had started to expand from WiFi and RF433 capable Sonoff home automation devices into Zigbee smart home solutions in recent months with the launch of products such as Sonoff ZBBridge WiFi to Zigbee gateway and a TI CC2531 based Zigbee USB dongle preloaded with firmware compatible with Zigbee2MQTT. But so far, they had only one Zigbee node, namely Sonoff BASICZBR3 Zigbee power switch. More options are now available with the launch of four Sonoff SNZB Zigbee sensors and switches working with the company’s ZBBridge. Key features of the four new Zigbee sensors & switches: SNZB-01 Zigbee wireless switch Touch button with single, double press and long press support Battery – 3V (CR2450) Dimension – 43x43x16mm SNZB-02 Zigbee temperature & humidity sensor Unnamed temperature and humidity sensor Battery – 3V (CR2450) Dimension – 43x43x14mm SNZB-03 Zigbee motion sensor Built-in PIR sensor with 6m range and 110°viewing angle. Battery – 3V […]