Xero MCU is a compact USB-C board based on STM32F411 microcontroller (Crowdfunding)

Xero MCU board

Xero MCU is a small STMicro STM32F411 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller board with a USB-C port, twenty through and castellated holes for GPIOs, a Debug connector, Reset and Boot buttons, and a few LEDs. The 100 MHz MCU embeds 512KB flash and 128KB SRAM, and the board is said to be designed for hobbyists, students, and professionals. For reference, the Xero MCU board features the same STM32F411CEU6 microcontroller found in the Black Bill board. However, it’s quite shorter at about half the size, and features castellated edges, making it suitable for soldering on a baseboard. Xero MCU specifications: Microcontroller – STMicro STM32F411CEU6 Arm Cortex-M4F MCU @ 100MHz with 512KB Flash, 128KB SRAM USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – 2x 20-pin through and castelled holes with up to 17x GPIO, I2C, 2x SPI, 2x UART, 4x ADC, 5V, 3.3V, and GND Debugging – 4-pin debug connector […]

Altech DO-1 Modbus monitor connects to up to 128 Modbus RTU/TCP devices

Altech DO-1 Modbus monitor

US-based Altech Corp has recently announced the DO-1 universal monitor for Modbus devices to enable companies to easily monitor, collect, and analyze their equipment and process data such as temperature, humidity, pressure, vibration, and energy usage without any subscription fees or licenses. The DO-1 is a vendor-agnostic solution that connects to up to 128 RTU-TCP Modbus devices, features 5GB of internal data storage expandable up to 128GB with a microSD card, dual Ethernet, and optional WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The device also implements dual power input with a 12V/24V DC input via a terminal block, and 5V via micro USB as power backup. Altech DO-1 specifications: Storage 5GB for data storage (I assume from 8GB eMMC flash) MicroSD card slot up to 128GB Networking 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet RJ45 port (LAN1) Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port (LAN2) LAN1 and LAN2 can be configured in switch or 2-port mode Optional WiFi 802.11 b/g/n […]

Flipper Blackhat is a Flipper Zero dual-band Wi-Fi card with an Allwinner A33 processor

Flipper Blackhat - Flipper Zero dual-band Wi-Fi card

Developed by Rootkit Labs in Switzerland, the Flipper Blackhat is an open-source Allwinner A33-based Flipper Zero dual-band Wi-Fi card running Linux and designed for penetration testing, cybersecurity research, and wireless network analysis. Built around an Allwinner A33 quad-core 1.5GHz processor, it comes with 1GB RAM, and an onboard 2.4GHz WiFi radio (RTL8723DS), with additional connectivity via two USB-A ports and one USB-C (FTDI-connected). The package also includes a 5GHz USB WiFi dongle (RTL8821CU) and a WiFi antenna for the built-in radio but requires an SD card and Flipper device separately. Flipper Blackhat Specifications: SoC – Allwinner A33 CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor GPU – Arm Mali-400 MP2 VPU – 1080p60 H.264, VP8, MPEG 1/2/4, JPEG/MJPEG video decoding 1080p60 H.264 video encoding Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – SD Card slot Wireless Connectivity Realtek RTL8723DS 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Includes Realtek RTL8821CU 5 GHz USB Wi-Fi dongle Supports additional third-party Wi-Fi […]

JetKVM – A $69 KVM over IP solution with open-source software

JetKVM

We’ve been writing about some low-cost KVM over IP solutions like the Sipeed NanoKVM Cube or GL.iNet Comet in recent times, but the JetKVM has been pointed out to me as another alternative with the benefit of having open-source software (which the NanoKVM also got last month). The JetKVM was launched for $69 on Kickstarter last fall and the crowdfunding campaign was amazingly successful with over 4 million dollars raised from just over 30,000 backers.  Key features include 1080p60 video with 30-60ms latency using H.264 encoding, mouse and keyboard emulation, remote management via JetKVM Cloud using WebRTC for accessing the devices from outside the LAN, and open-source software written in Golang on Linux. JetKVM specifications: SoC – Rockchip RV1106G3 CPU – Arm Cortex A7 @ 1.0GHz VPU – H264 & H265 hardware encoder Memory  – 256 MB DDR3L on-chip Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash Display – 1.69-inch IPS capacitive […]

Haasoscope Pro open-source, real-time sampling USB oscilloscope supports up to 2GHz bandwidth (Crowdfunding)

Haasoscope Pro USB oscilloscope

The Haasoscope Pro is an open-source hardware, high-bandwidth, and real-time sampling USB oscilloscope. Building upon its predecessor, the Haasoscope, the new Pro model offers a bandwidth of 2GHz, 12-bit resolution, and a 3.2GS/s sampling rate. The Haasoscope Pro USB oscilloscope is “designed to be low cost, while maintaining super-fast performance.” While it only comes with 2 channels, the flexible design makes it possible to combine and sync multiple devices (using Cat5 cables) to double the sample rate or add more channels. The oscilloscope works with standard x10 passive probes but a custom active probe, the Haasoscope Pro-be, is also offered. It supports the full 2GHz analog bandwidth and is priced much cheaper than similar probes. The Haasoscope Pro USB oscilloscope’s high sampling rate and bandwidth make it ideal for radio frequency signal analysis and high-speed digital debugging. It is similar to the ThunderScope Thunderbolt and PCIe oscilloscope which offers more […]

Femtofox Pro v1 LoRa and Meshtastic development board runs Linux-based Foxbuntu OS on Rockchip RV1103 SoC

Femtofox Pro v1 kit LoRa and Meshtastic development board

The Femtofox Pro v1 kit is a compact, low-power LoRa and Meshtastic development board running Linux specially designed for Meshtastic networks. Built around the Luckfox Pico Mini (Rockchip RV1103) SBC, this compact development platform supports USB host/device functionality, Ethernet, WiFi over USB, GPIO interfaces, I2C, UART, and a real-time clock (RTC). The most unique feature of this board is that it operates at very low power (0.27-0.4W), making it ideal for solar-powered applications. Additionally, Femtofox supports native Meshtastic client control, USB mass storage, and network reconfiguration via a USB flash drive. It also includes user-configurable buttons for WiFi toggling and system reboot, enhancing its usability. These features make Femtofox particularly useful for applications such as emergency response and off-grid messaging. Femtofox Pro v1 kit specifications Mainboard – Luckfox Pico Mini A SoC  – Rockchip RV1103 SoC CPU – Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.2GHz + RISC-V core Memory – 64MB DDR2 […]

LLMStick – An AI and LLM USB device based on Raspberry Pi Zero W and optimized llama.cpp

LLMStick

Youtuber and tech enthusiast Binh Pham has recently built a portable plug-and-play AI and LLM device housed in a USB stick called the LLMStick and built around a Raspberry Pi Zero W. This device portrays the concept of a local plug-and-play LLM which you can use without the internet. After DeepSeek shook the world with its performance and open-source accessibility, we have seen tools like Exo that allow you to run large language models (LLMs) on a cluster of devices, like computers, smartphones, and single-board computers, effectively distributing the processing load. We have also seen Radxa release instructions to run DeepSeek R1 (Qwen2 1.5B) on a Rockchip RK3588-based SBC with 6 TOPS NPU. Pham thought of using the llama.cpp project as it’s specifically designed for devices with limited resources. However, running llama.cpp on the Raspberry Pi Zero W wasn’t straightforward and he had to face architecture incompatibility as the old […]

SPOKE capacitive touch sensor board targets interactive computer interfaces (Crowdfunding)

Spoke capacitive touch sensor controller

SPOKE is a Raspberry Pi RP2040-based capacitive touch sensor board for interactive computer interfaces. It is designed to simplify the integration of touch-based control into various projects. SPOKE features up to 27 sensor inputs and can “turn almost any conductive material into a sensor” to control almost any computer input. Potential applications include music making, video game controlling, typing, and general software controlling. The board was designed by Tom Fox, an educator, maker, and musician in the UK. According to him, the board is accessible to beginners getting started with touch sensing while retaining enough power and customizability for professional use. It works with several conductive materials, including copper pipes, conductive paint, aluminum foil, pencils, conductive filaments, fruits, fabrics with conductive threads, and metallic surfaces. It can also be used with a non-conductive material (such as plywood) if a conductive material (e.g. tinfoil) is behind it. The fully-featured SPOKE capacitive […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC