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November 5, 2023April 30, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

Raspberry Pi 5 review – Part 2: Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, benchmarks, power consumption, and more

Raspberry Pi 5 Review Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm

A few days ago I finally went through the Raspberry Pi 5 kit I received last September going through all the items and booting it with Raspberry Pi OS bookworm. I’ve now had time to perform more tests to check out the performance with benchmarks and test various features on the Raspberry Pi 5. So I’ll report my experience in the second part of the review and compare the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC to the Raspberry Pi 4 and some other Arm Linux SBCs.

System information in Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm

Last time around, I installed the Raspberry Pi 5 in its official case, but for most of the testing, I decided to go back to the bare board fitted with its active cooler since it’s the best cooling option as we’ll see further in the review.

November 4, 2023November 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Makeblock mBot Neo robot review with Smart World Add-on Pack

MakeBlock mBot Neo, also known as mBot2, is an educational robot that builds upon the previous generation mBot1 robot, and the company has sent us a review sample, following our earlier review of the Ultimate 2.0 10-in-1 educational robot kit, along with the Smart World Add-on Pack. The mBot Neo features a new ESP32-based CyberPi control board with WiFi connectivity for IoT and AI support. The robot is also equipped with a 2nd generation Ultrasonic sensor with improved object detection accuracy and status indicator, a built-in 4-ch RGB line sensor that can detect colors, as well as a new drive motor that comes with an encoder for more precise motion control. The mBot Neo robot kit is expandable with metal parts from other Makeblock models, mBuild modules and various electronic modules can be added making it also possible to build custom robots with third-party structural parts. The mBot Neo robot […]

October 14, 2023October 13, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

M5Stack Cardputer – A $30 card-sized ESP32-S3 computer with display and keyboard

M5Stack Cardputer is a card-sized portable computer based on the ESP32-S3-powered M5Stamp S3 wireless module and equipped with a 56-key keyboard and 1.14-inch TFT display, plus some sensors and peripheral expansion ports. At first, it’s hard to imagine what it could be used for apart from being a hardware hacking toy, but the company says the card-sized WiFi computer can be used for rapid functional verification, industrial control, and home automation systems. M5Stack Cardputer specifications: Wireless MCU module – M5Stack M5Stamp S3 with SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3FN8 dual-core 32-bit Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with AI vector instructions up to 240MHz, RISC-V ULP co-processor, 512KB SRAM, 2.4GHz WiFi 4 (802.11b/g/n), Bluetooth 5.0 BLE + Mesh, 8MB flash 2.4GHz 3D antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port Expansion connectors for I/Os such as SPI, I2C, UART, ADC, and more Storage – MicroSD card socket Display – 1.14-inch IPS LCD with 240×135 resolution […]

October 8, 2023October 7, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

M5Dial – An ESP32-S3 smart rotary knob with a touchscreen display

M5Stack M5Dial is a WiFi and Bluetooth-connected smart rotary knob with a round 1.28-inch touchscreen TFT display powered by an ESP32-S3 board, more precisely, the M5Stamp S3 IoT module. The user-programmable device comes with a rotary encoder recording the position and direction of the knob, an RFID module, an RTC, a buzzer, and under-screen buttons, as well as two Grove connectors for expansion enabling all sorts of projects. M5Dial specifications: Wireless MCU module – M5Stack M5Stamp S3 with SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3FN8 dual-core 32-bit Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with AI vector instructions up to 240MHz, RISC-V ULP co-processor, 512KB SRAM, 2.4GHz WiFi 4 (802.11b/g/n), Bluetooth 5.0 BLE + Mesh, 8MB flash 2.4GHz 3D antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port Expansion connectors for I/Os such as SPI, I2C, UART, ADC, and more Display – 1.28-inch TFT display with 240×240 resolution using GC9A01 driver, and FT3267 capacitive touchscreen controller RFID – […]

September 27, 2023September 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

LILYGO T-ETH-Lite – An ESP32-S3 board with Ethernet, optional PoE support

LILYGO T-ETH-Lite ESP32-S3 is a new ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth development board with a low-profile Ethernet RJ45 connector using a WIZnet W5500 Ethernet controller, supporting PoE with an extra shield, and also equipped with a microSD card socket and expansion I/Os. ESP32-based development boards with Ethernet have been around for years including LILYGO’s own “TTGO T-Lite W5500“, but so far we haven’t many based on the more recent ESP32-S3 microcontroller except for the SB Components’ ESPi board that we covered last April. But LILYGO T-ETH-Lite ESP32-S3 adds another cost-effective board with Ethernet. LILYGO T-ETH-Lite ESP32-S3 specifications: Wireless module ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 MCU – ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 microprocessor @ up to 240 MHz with Vector extension for machine learning Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB SPI flash Connectivity – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5 with LE/Mesh PCB antenna Storage – MicroSD card slot Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 up to 150 Mbps and […]

September 16, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Sparkfun launches cheaper no-code “DataLogger IoT” board compatible with Qwiic modules

Last May, SparkFun introduced the “Datalogger IoT – 9DoF” no-code platform with support for over 50 Qwiic sensor modules and a built-in 9-axis IMU sensor and magnetometer. Taking into consideration that some users may not make use of the built-in sensors, the company decided to launch a cheaper version called the “DataLogger IoT” that can still get data from Qwiic sensor and GPS modules without any programming thanks to the “no-code” Arduino firmware preloaded on the ESP32-WROOM-32E module. SparkFun DataLogger IoT specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32E with: ESP32 dual-core microcontroller 4MB flash 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity, built-in PCB antenna Storage – MicroSD card slot USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and configuration via CH340C Expansion – 2x Qwicc I2C connectors for sensors and/or GPS module Misc Boot and Reset buttons Status and charging LED, WS2812 RGB LED Jumpers to enable/disable LEDs, I2C pull-up resistors, and […]

September 9, 2023September 12, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Orange Pi Zero 2W – A Raspberry Pi Zero 2W alternative with up to 4GB RAM

As its name implies the Orange Pi Zero 2W is an alternative to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with basically the same features and form factor, but equipped with a slightly more powerful Allwinner H618 quad-core Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.5 GHz, and more RAM options from 1GB to 4GB. The new Orange Pi board comes with a mini HDMI port, two USB-C ports, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module, a microSD card for the OS, a 16MB SPI flash for the bootloader, the usual 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header, and a 24-pin “function” connector used for expansion boards and located where the camera connector is on the Pi Zero 2W. Orange Pi Zero 2W specifications: SoC – Allwinner H618 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with 1MB L2 cache and Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.0/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 System Memory – […]

September 7, 2023September 7, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Gateworks GW7400 networking SBC features 6 Gigabit Ethernet ports, M.2 & mini PCIe sockets for wireless connectivity

NXP I.MX 8M Networking SBC 6 Ethernet ports

Gateworks Venice GW7400 is a rugged industrial single board computer for networking and gateway applications with six Gigabit Ethernet ports, and one M.2 and three mini PCIe sockets for WiFi, cellular, and other wireless options. We first mentioned the GW7400 board around three years ago, when the company introduced the Venice family powered by NXP i.MX 8M processor. But the board launched today has a different design with more Ethernet, an NXP i.MX8M Plus AI processor, up to 4GB RAM, up to 64GB eMMC flash, and various interfaces such as USB 3.0, dual CAN Bus, DIO, I2C, SPI, and UART. Gateworks GW7400 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Plus CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.6 GHz (industrial-grade) Real-time core – Arm Cortex-M7 @ up to 800 MHz GPU – Vivante GC7000UL 3D GPU, Vivante GC520L 2D GPU VPU – Up to 1080p60 video encoding and decoding AI accelerator […]