wifi News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 26, 2025April 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Air Lab is a portable Wi-Fi & Bluetooth LE air quality monitor with an e-paper touchscreen display (Crowdfunding)

Networked Artifacts’ Air Lab is a portable air quality monitor based on ESP32-S3 Wi-Fi & Bluetooth LE wireless SoC, equipped with an e-paper touchscreen display, and plenty of sensors to measure CO2, temperature, relative humidity, air pollutants (VOC, NOx), and atmospheric pressure. The Air Lab ships with a rechargeable 1,500 mAh battery that will be good for about 21 days on a charge in passive mode (taking measurements every minute), and you can also power it over its USB-C ports. It includes a debug port for people wanting to change the firmware, and a GPIO header to connect additional sensors if required. Data can be visualized on the e-paper display or transmitted over BLE or MQTT for integration with Home Assistant. The company also provides a CSV export function and a web-based dashboard for data visualization. Air Lab specifications: Main module – ESP32-S3 module with PCB antenna for 2.4GHz WiFi […]

April 21, 2025April 21, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ANAVI Miracle Emitter – A WiFi and BLE RGB LED controller compatible with Home Assistant, WLED firmware (Crowdfunding)

ANAVI Miracle Emitter is an open-source hardware ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE controller designed to control 5V addressable RGB LED strips, which works with Home Assistant over MQTT and also supports the popular WLED firmware to easily control the LED strip through a web interface. It also features four I2C expansion headers for sensors and a small OLED display, a UART header, and a GPIO header. It’s an update to Leon ANAVI’s Miracle Controller introduced in 2019 with an ESP8266. A lot of things have changed since then, and it’s gotten easier than ever to control RGB LED strips using open-source software and firmware. ANAVI Miracle Emitter specifications: Wireless Module – Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 single-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 160 MHz with 400KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, 4MB flash, Wi-Fi 4 & Bluetooth LE 5.0 connectivity Antenna – External u.FL antenna USB – USB Type-C port […]

April 14, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Pimoroni Presto – A Raspberry Pi RP2350-powered 4-inch wireless desktop touch display

Pimoroni Presto is a 4-inch desktop color touch display powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller, and equipped with a Raspberry Pi RM2 wireless module for WiFi 4 and Bluetooth connectivity. The display comes with 16MB of SQPI flash and 8MB of PSRAM, seven RGB LEDs for ambient lighting, a microSD card slot, a piezo speaker, a Qwiic/STEMMA QT connector for expansion, a USB-C port for power and programming, and a 2-pin JST connector for an optional battery. Pimoroni Presto specifications: Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2350B MCU CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @150MHz with Arm Trustzone Dual-core 32-bit Hazard3 RISC-V @ 150MHz Up to two cores can be used at the same time Memory – 520KB SRAM Package – QFN-80; 10×10 mm Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage 16MB QSPI flash MicroSD card slot Display – 4-inch square IPS LCD screen with 480 x 480 resolution, capacitive touchscreen Wireless – Raspberry Pi […]

April 9, 2025April 10, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Antenna hack more than doubles the range of cheap ESP32-C3 USB-C boards

There are plenty of small ESP32-C3 IoT boards with a USB-C connector on the market, and while they all look very similar, antenna designs differ, and less thought-out ones may severely impact the WiFi and Bluetooth range. Peter Neufeld decided to hack one of those cheap ESP32-C3 boards by adding a custom antenna, and this resulted in the board having more than twice the range and almost three times in some cases. Those tiny boards are cramped, so there’s very little space around the ceramic antenna typically used, leading to poor RF performance. To work around that issue, Peter added a 31mm long antenna made of silver-plated wire, making a loop of about 8mm in diameter outside of the board and soldered on the ceramic antenna’s solder joints, and the rest of the wire (about 15mm) points upwards. As you can see from the photo above, he didn’t remove the […]

April 7, 2025April 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

TwoTrees TTC6050 CNC router review with vacuum cleaner Monster (M1) kit and a 800W spindle upgrade

Twotrees has sent us a TTC6050 CNC router for review, along with a vacuum cleaner Monster (M1) kit and an 800W spindle upgrade with a speed of 30,000 RPM. The machine is designed for carving and milling various materials such as wood, plastic, and metal. It features a working area of 600 x 500 x 100 mm and comes equipped with a 500W spindle by default, upgradable to an 800W spindle. It’s capable of handling larger workpieces, works faster, and supports a broader variety of materials than the TwoTrees TTC 450 CNC router we reviewed in 2023 with a 500W spindle. In this review, we will start by listing the specifications and going through an unboxing, before assembling the TTC6050 CNC router and the vacuum cleaner Monster (M1) Kit, and installing the Candle CNC software to conduct milling tests on thick MDF wood. After that, we’ll install the 800W high-speed […]

April 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

LILYGO T-Deck Pro – An ESP32-S3 LoRa messenger with e-paper touch display, keyboard, and 4G LTE or audio codec option

LILYGO T-Deck Pro is a LoRa messenger based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.x SoC, and offered with a 3.1-inch e-paper display with touchscreen, a Blackberry-like QWERTY keyboard, a GPS module, speaker, microphone, and a 3.5mm audio, as well as IMU and light sensors. It builds upon the T-Deck Plus design, but replacing the 2.8-inch IPS display with a 3.1-inch e-paper display allows for a slimmer design and should offer longer battery life despite the smaller 1,400 mAh battery used in the new model. Two versions of the T-Deck Pro are available: one with a Simcom 4G LTE modem and a cheaper one with a PCM5102A audio codec. LILYGO T-Deck Pro specifications: SoC – ESP32-S3FN16R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ up to 240 MHz 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB SPI flash Storage – MicroSD card […]

March 28, 2025March 28, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

MINIX B14 1-to-4 wireless HDMI kit supports up to four Full HD displays

We’ve covered various wireless HDMI solutions over the years, such as the Xiaomi Wireless Casting Adapter or ProScreenCast SC02, but I think it’s the first time I’ve come across something like the MINIX B14 1-to-4 wireless HDMI kit with support for up to four Full HD displays. The MINIX B14 comes with a single HDMI Tx dongle and four HDMI Rx dongles to be connected to four monitors or TVs. The solution works over dual-band WiFi and additional HDMI Rx can be added if needed. MINIX B14 specifications: Wireless HDMI – 1x HDMI transmitter and 4x HDMI receivers WiFi – Dual-band (2.4GHz+5GHz) WiFi with up to 50 meters range Resolution – 1080p HD (not frame rate provided) Features Simultaneous connection to multiple devices (1-to-4 Capability) Plug-and-Play operation High-definition video streaming Audio-Video sync Power Supply – 5V/2A via USB-C port Dimensions – 10.6 x 4.4 x 2 cm when the antennas […]

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025 by Debashis Das - 2 Comments

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 […]