wifi News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 17, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Espressif releases SDK for Aliro smart door locks based on ESP32-C or ESP32-H SoCs

Espressif Systems has just released the SDK for Aliro, designed for smart Matter door locks and other access control solutions built around ESP32-C (WiFi) or ESP32-H (Thread) microcontroller and third-party NFC chips. We recently wrote about the Aliro vendor-agnostic digital access control standard working over NFC, Bluetooth LE, or BLE+UWB. It’s basically the equivalent of Matter, but for smart locks, instead of the broader Smart Home ecosystem. The ultimate goal is to reduce fragmentation and allow users to use compliant wallets from Google, Apple, Samsung, and others to work with Aliro-compatible devices. Espressif’s SDK for Aliro (ESP-Aliro) currently supports the following features of Aliro-over-NFC: Standard Expedited Phase Fast Expedited Phase Reader Certificate Sending via AUTH1/LoadCert Command Keyslot to Look up Access Credential Public Key Mailbox of Exchange command Step-up Phase Espressif’s solution currently only works with Aliro NFC for tap-to-unlock applications, although Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth LE + UWB support […]

July 16, 2026July 16, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

pico-usb-wifi firmware converts the Raspberry Pi Pico W into a driverless USB WiFi adapter

pico-usb-wifi is an open-source firmware project that converts the Raspberry Pi Pico W into a driverless USB WiFi adapter that works with Windows, Linux, macOS, and other operating systems with USB CDC-NCM support. The Infineon CYW43439 chip found in the SBC can’t be used directly as a USB to WiFi bridge, and instead, the firmware implements a transparent Layer-2 bridge between the Pico W’s wireless module and USB interfaces. It basically works as an Ethernet to WiFi gateway/bridge, which exposes an Ethernet connection through USB (aka USB gadget mode) used to route Wi-Fi packets from the network. pico-usb-wifi highlights: Transparent Layer-2 Bridging between the Pico W’s wireless and USB interfaces Exposed as a USB CDC-NCM device IPv4 and IPv6 with no NAT, no private subnet, and no port-forwarding to configure Out-of-band management and debug consoles over CDC-ACM serial WPA2-PSK and WPA3-SAE authentication (and open networks) Throughput – Average 4.75 Mbits/sec; […]

July 2, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SONOFF NSPanel Pro Gen2 touch control panel review with eWeLink and Home Assistant

SONOFF sent us a sample of the NSPanel Pro Gen2 Smart Home control panel for review. It’s a standard 86-type controller powered by a Rockchip RK3326-S SoC, equipped with 2GB RAM and 32GB eMMC flash storage, a 3.95-inch touchscreen display, and a 2-channel relay supporting up to 10A. The Android device supports dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Zigbee 3.0, and Matter, and also includes a built-in 1.5W speaker and microphone for two-way audio. It’s an update to the NSPanel Pro we reviewed in 2024. In this review, we’ll start with an unboxing and a teardown, before going through the initial setup in standalone mode, and finally use the panel with the eWelink app and Home Assistant. We’ll connect one of the relays of the NSPanel Pro Gen2 to a ceiling LED light, test Zigbee through a SONOFF AirGuard TH (SNZB-02DR2) temperature and humidity sensor, WiFi through a SONOFF AirGuard PM2.5/PM10 air […]

June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 by Debashis Das - No Comments

DESLOC V150 Plus smart lock integrates a perovskite solar panel, supports 3D face recognition (Crowdfunding)

DESLOC V150 Plus Low Light Self Charging Solar Smart Lock

DESLOC V150 Plus is a smart lock with an integrated perovskite solar panel, which can generate power under low-light conditions, eliminating or at least reducing the need for manual battery charging. The V150 Plus is a two-part system consisting of exterior and interior units connected via wires through the door. The exterior unit includes the perovskite solar panel, two cameras with a 3D facial recognition system, and an AI-assisted fingerprint sensor, while the interior unit houses a 10,000mAh removable battery, a Battery Management System (BMS), and a lock motor. The BMS manages battery charging and power distribution. The rechargeable battery is rated to provide up to 8 months of backup operation when solar charging is unavailable, which is a little longer than the Lockzo AL501 3-in-1 smart door lock we reviewed earlier. DESLOC V150 Plus specifications: SoC – TBD (most probably a chip from Nordic or Espressif) Connectivity – Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Access […]

June 12, 2026June 12, 2026 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

$7.99 Seeed Studio Wio-S3 WiFi, Bluetooth LE, and LoRa IoT module combines ESP32-S3 and SX1262 RF transceiver

Seeed Studio Wio-S3 is a compact (21.6 x 16.5 x 3.3 mm) wireless module that combines an ESP32-S3R8 dual-core WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE MCU and a Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver. The module includes 16MB Flash and 8MB PSRAM, and supports LoRa (EU868/US915) with up to +20.9 dBm transmit power and -137 dBm sensitivity. It also supports Wi-Fi 4 and BLE 5.0, and comes with two IPEX connectors for external antennas. With interfaces such as UART, I2C, SPI, ADC, and USB, and support for -40°C to 85°C operation, it is designed for remote monitoring, industrial automation, smart agriculture, and IoT data logging. Seeed Studio Wio-S3 module specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration Memory – 8MB PSRAM Wireless – 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE + Mesh connectivity Storage – 16MB external SPI flash […]

June 5, 2026June 8, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Erqos EQSP32CE – An industrial IoT ESP32-S3 PLC with Ethernet, RS232, RS485, CAN Bus, DIN Rail support

Erqos EQSP32CE is a DIN rail-mountable industrial IoT PLC based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC and offering Ethernet, RS-485, RS-232, and CAN bus industrial communication interfaces. The IIoT logic controller also features several protected digital (16x) and analog (8x) inputs, eight current inputs, eight “special mode” analog inputs, and sixteen digital outputs with PWM support. A USB-C port is used for firmware flashing and monitoring, and the PLC takes a wide 7V – 26V DC input voltage and outputs 5V/1A for I/O expansion modules. Erqos EQSP32CE specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 processor @ 240 MHz with 8MB Flash, 512kB RAM, wireless connectivity (so probably ESP32-S3FN8) Communication interfaces 10/100 Mbps Ethernet RJ45 port Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Low Energy (on ESP32-S3) with internal antenna RS232 (protected) and RS485 half-duplex (protected) with support for Modbus RTU, DMX512, and custom serial protocols CAN Bus (protected) USB – 1x USB-C power for […]

May 26, 2026May 27, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ESPHome 2026.5.0 released with new ESPHome Device Builder (beta), performance/memory optimizations

ESPHome 2026.5.0 has just been released with the beta version of the new ESPHome Device Builder web app that replaces the legacy in-tree dashboard with a real configuration editor, a firmware job queue, multi-select bulk actions, labels and areas, out-of-sync detection, cross-config search, distributed builds, and a proper settings UI. The firmware itself gains optimizations of the main loop, scheduler, and task watchdog to lower CPU and power usage on supported platforms, and a range of other memory/performance optimizations across the API, audio, and helper hot paths. The audio decoder pipeline has been improved and features new microMP3, microWAV, and microFLAC streaming libraries. OTA has also been enhanced with partition-table and bootloader updates, web-server OTA, and soft-brick recovery, and ESP32 MCUs are now handled by up to the ESP-IDF v6.0.1 framework natively, while Zigbee support has been expanded to ESP32 H2 and ESP32-C6, among other features. Key features of the […]

May 22, 2026May 22, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

M5Stack StopWatch ESP32-S3 devkit offers 1.75-inch touch AMOLED, microphone, speaker, and GPIO expansion

M5Stack Core StopWatch is an ESP32-S3-powered WiFi and Bluetooth development board with a 1.75-inch round AMOLED touch display, 16MB flash, and 8MB PSRAM designed for portable IoT devices, electronic badges, and wearables. The device also features a 1W speaker and a MEMS microphone for voice interaction, two programmable buttons, a vibration motor, a 6-axis IMU sensor, an RTC, and expansion capabilities through a Grove connector and GPIO headers. It’s powered by a 450 mAh battery managed by an “M5PM1 multi-level power management” solution and charged over a USB-C port. M5Stack Core StopWatch specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration Memory – 8MB PSRAM Wireless – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE + Mesh connectivity Storage – 16MB flash Display – 1.75-inch AMOLED round touch display with 466 x 466 resolution Audio 1W speaker MEMS microphone ES8311 […]