Freescale WaRPBoard Reference Platform for Wearables is Now Available for Pre-order

Back in January, Freescale announced WaRP (Wearable Reference Platform) comprised of the WaRPboard, a tiny board based on Freescale i.MX 6SoloLite running Android, and a daughter board with KL16 Cortex M0+ MCU and several sensors. The company collaborated with Revolution Robotics for the hardware design, and Kynetics for the software, and the platform is now available for pre-order for $149, and a few more details have surfaced since my first article. The hardware specifications of WaRP are as follows: WaRPboard: SoC – Freescale i.MX 6SoloLite Cortex A9 processor @ 1GHz with 2D graphics Vivante GC355 and  GC320 GPUs. System Memory – LPDDR2 (Micron Multi-Chip Package) Storage – 4Gbit eMMC  (Same Micron MCP chip as for RAM) Connectivity – WLAN and Bluetooth 4.0 LE via Murata LBEH17YSHC Display I/F: MIPI DSI for LCD display + touchscreen EPCD for E-Ink Display Sensors – Xtrinsic FXOS8700CQ, 6-Axis Sensor with Integrated Linear Accelerometer and Magnetometer. Daughtercard: […]

Imagination Technologies Unveils Low Power Low Footprint PowerVR GX5300 GPU for Wearables

Up to now most wearables are based on MCU solutions or derived from mobile platforms, which may either not provide the advanced features required by users, or consume too much power and take more space than needed. With Ineda Dhanush and Mediatek Aster, we’ve already seen silicon vendors design wearables SoCs, and now Imagination Technologies has just announced PowerVR GX5300 GPU targeting wearables with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, 480p to 720p resolution, and using 0.55mm2 silicon area based on 28nm process. PowerVR GX5300 GPU will be support Android, Android Wear, and Linux based operation systems, and according to the company has the following key features: Unified shaders – The TBDR graphics architecture offers unified shaders where vertex, pixel and GPU compute resources are scaled simultaneously. Low power and high precision graphics – All PowerVR GPUs offer a mix of low (FP16) and high precision (FP32) rendering and implement the […]

More Details on Mediatek MT2502 Aster SoC and Linkit Platform for Wearables (Video)

Last month, Mediatek announced their Mediatek MT2502 SoC for wearables, codenamed Aster, as well as the Linkit development platform targeting the developer’s community. But at the time they did show the actual hardware, and thanks to Charbax we know have more interesting details about Aster and Linkit. First they compare a design based on Aster to Samsung Galaxy Fit wearable band, and show why it uses less space, will cost less, and they claim  over twice the battery life. Simple and smaller design (~36% reduction in size) Aster solution – MT2504 (6.2 x 5.4 mm) plus all required resistors, capacitors and inductors require 89.97 mm2 Galaxy Fit – MCU. Bluetooth Transceiver,  external memory, a linear charger, and all required resistors, capacitors and inductors require 140.97 mm2 Battery life – Samsung Galaxy Fit is supposed to last between 1 and 1.5 days on a charge, whereas devices based on Aster should last about […]

Google Releases Android Wear SDK, LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live Smartwatches Are Now Available

I’ve just covered what’s new in Android L?, and I’m going to focus on Google I/O 2014’s announcements related by Android wear starting with hardware with LG G Watch ,and Samsung Gear smartwatches, followed by some details about the first official release of Android Wear SDK. LG G Watch Specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 @ 1.2 GHz System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB eMMC Display – 1.65” IPS display (280 x 280) Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0 LE Sensors – 9-Axis (Gyro / Accelerometer / Compass) IP Rating – IP67 dust and water resistant Battery – Li-ion 400mAh Dimensions – 37.9 x 46.5 x 9.95 mm Weight – 62.5 grams LG G watch will run Android Wear (as it’s the subject of this post), and it currently available on Google Play for $229 (US only?) with shipping scheduled for early July. Samsung Gear Live Specifications: Processor – Unnamed […]

Ineda Systems Dhanush WPU is a MIPS based SoC Specifically Designed for Wearables

What’s a WPU? It stands for Wearable Processor Unit, and as you may guess it’s a processor specifically designed to be used in wearables such as smartwatches or fitness trackers. Currently, many wearables are based on application processors that are used in smartphones (e.g. Galaxy Gear), and lower-end versions are based on standard low power MCUs (e.g. Pebble), but none of them are actually based on SoC specifically designed for wearables, and analysts are asserting that new types of SoC are definitely needed if companies are to provide wearables with the battery life and features consumers want. Ineda Systems Dhanush WPU is not the first Wearable SoC announced, as for instance AllWinner mentioned their WX quad-core SoC for Wearables should become available in Q4 2014 in their roadmap, and Mediatek vaguely unveiled their Aster SoC at CES 2014, but it’s the first that I know of where we’ve got most of the […]

$80 Zebble WaterProof Smartwatch Features an E-Paper Display, Just like the Pebble…

The Zebble smartwatch does not look exactly like the Pebble, but it still share lots of the features found in the original watch including a 1.2″ e-paper display with 144×168 resolution, Bluetooth connectivity, similar buttons placements, and sells for nearly half the price of the original Pebble at $79.99 on Chinavasion. Zebble specifications provided on Chinavasion: MCU – Unknown @ 48 MHz Display – 1.26″ e-Paper display @ 144×168 with touchscreen Connectivity – Bluetooth 3.0 Misc – Built in Vibrator IP ratings – IP67 Waterproof and dustproof Battery – 240mAh Li-on. Standby Time: 10 Days. Dimensions – 40x222x13 mm (L x W x D) Weight – 49g Temperature Range – Operating: -10 to +60 Degrees Celsius;  Battery charging temperature: 0 to +45 Degrees Celsius The watch is said to support Android 4.0 and above, without mention of iOS support. It can be used for smartphone sync for texting, or answering […]

Kairos High-End Mechanical Smart Watch Features a Transparent OLED Display

Many companies have now launched their own smartwatch, and with the exception of models such as Motorola Moto 360, they are not always the most stylish you can find. Kairos, a Korean start-up, is about to change that, as it has designed an interesting and good-looking watch that, most of the time, just looks like a standard mechanical watch. But it can actually connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth LE?, and receive notifications for SMS, emails, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat etc… just like any other smartwatch via a thin 1.1m transparent OLED (TOLED) display that can turn 60% opaque. This type of watch also have some practical advantages. The Kairos watch will make use of either a Japanese (Miyota) or Swiss (SOPROD) automatic movement, which will still work, even if the battery is depleted. Since the OLED display is only used to show notifications, the battery is expected to last about […]

Samsung Gear 2 Smartwatches are Powered by Exynos 3250 SoC

When Samsung announced their Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches running Tizen, they only vaguely mentioned a dual core processor running at 1 GHz powered the devices. SamMobile reports the two watches should be powered by a new processor called Exynos 3250 with two cores and clocked at 1 GHz as initially announced. Ifixit also made a tear down of the Gear 2 watch, and at first, it seems Exynos 3250 is nowhere to be seen, but it turns out it’s probably combined with a DRAM (and Flash?) package named KMF5X0005M, and shown inside a red square in the picture above. Samsung Galaxy Gear, the company’s first smartwatch, was a modified version of Exynos 4212 dual core processor, but using only one core and downclocked to 800 MHz. SamMobile thinks the Gear 2 can use a dual core processor @ 1 GHz, due to battery life gains achieved by […]

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