zephyr News - Page 2 of 5 - CNX Software

January 21, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

ZSWatch open-source hardware nRF52833 smartwatch runs Zephyr RTOS

ZSWatch is an open-source hardware smartwatch based on an u-Blox ANNA-B402 module with Nordic Semi nRF52833 Bluetooth 5.1 SoC and running Zephyr real-time operating systems. We’ve seen several open-source hardware smartwatches over the years, as well as open-source firmware projects such as AsteroidOS or InfiniTime with the latter used in the PineTime smartwatch, and the ZSWatch adds to the list of interesting open-source wearables with all source files made public. ZSWatch specifications: Wireless module – u-blox ANNA-B402 based on Nordic Semi nRF52833 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller with Bluetooth LE 5.1 and direction finding support Storage – 8MB flash (MX25R6435FZNIL0) Display – 1.28-inch 240×240 IPS TFT circular display with GC9A01 driver; covered with Sapphire Crystal Glass. Sensors Accelerometer (LIS2DS12TR) for step counting, etc… MAX30101EFD for pulse oximetry and heart rate monitoring Misc 3x buttons for navigation (prev, next, enter) Vibration motor (DRV2603RUNT) with haptics driver to give better vibration control. Power Management […]

August 29, 2022September 2, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

SyncBot educational mobile robot supports NVIDIA Xavier NX or Intel Tiger Lake controller

SyncBot educational mobile robot RBX-I2000 controller

Syncbotic Syncbot is a four-wheel autonomous mobile robot (AMR) platform for research and education that can be fitted with an NVIDIA Xavier NX or an Intel Apollo Lake/Tiger Lake-based controller running Ubuntu 20.04 operating system with ROS 2 framework, and comes with an motion control MCU board with an EtherCat master and running Zephyr OS. The robot comes with four 400W TECO servo motors, can handle up to 80kg payloads for sensors and a robotic arm, features 12V and 24V power output for sensors, four USB 3.0 ports, and can also be equipped with an eight-camera kit with Intel RealSense and ToF cameras. Syncbot AMR specifications: Robot Controller Platform (one or the other) SyncBotic A100 evaluation ki (Apollo Lake E3940) SyncBotic SBC-T800 series (Intel Tiger Lake UP3) SyncBotic SBC W series (Intel Tiger Lake UP3, waterproof version) SyncBotic NSync-200 series (NVIDIA NX) Dimensions – 200 x 190 mm STM32-based Motion […]

February 2, 2022March 7, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Golioth IoT development platform offers Zephyr SDK, support for nRF9160, ESP32, and over 100 other platforms

There are already plenty of IoT development platforms, but here’s another one with Golioth that relies on a Zephyr SDK, “first-tier” support for Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 (cellular) and Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 (WiFi), as well as a QEMU-based simulator for easy testing. The use of an open-source Zephyr SDK even enables them to support over 100+ hardware components, and the company, also called Golioth, says their platform scales from one device for evaluation to one million devices during deployment, thanks notably to a free Dev Tier account to get started at no cost. Some of the other highlights of Golioth include: “Secure by Default” communication over efficient protocols like CoAP and soon MQTT Access to Device Services like Software updates that include secure boot and firmware management Real-time NoSQL database (LightDB) that can be useful for creating Digital Twins and synchronization Time-series database (LightDB Stream) for storing and querying sensor data […]

January 28, 2022May 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

The Eclipse Oniro Project aims to deliver consumer & IoT software that works across multiple platforms

Several of the embedded talks at FOSDEM 2022 mention the “Eclipse Oniro Project”. I had never heard about that project from the Eclipse Foundation, so let’s see how they describe it: Oniro is an Eclipse Foundation project focused on the development of a distributed open source operating system for consumer devices, regardless of the brand, model, make. Oniro is a compatible implementation for the global market of OpenHarmony, an open source operating system specified and hosted by the OpenAtom Foundation. Designed with modularity in mind, Oniro offers greater levels of flexibility and application portability across the broad spectrum of consumer and IoT devices — from tiny embedded sensors and actuators, to feature rich smart appliances and mobile companions. As a distributed and reusable collection of open source building blocks, Oniro enables compatibility with other open source technologies and ecosystems. Through close collaboration with projects and foundations such as OpenHarmony from […]

January 26, 2022September 23, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

FOSDEM 2022 schedule with embedded Linux, IoT, automotive… sessions

While typically taking place in Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM 2022 will take place online just like FOSDEM 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions. The good news is that it means anybody can attend it live from anywhere in the world, and makes it more like “FOSDIM”, replacing European with International, in “Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting”. FOSDEM 2022 will take place on February 5-6 with 637 speakers, 718 events, and 103 tracks. I’ve made my own little virtual schedule below mostly with sessions from the Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom, but also other devrooms including “Computer Aided Modeling and Design”, “FOSS on Mobile Devices”, “Libre-Open VLSI and FPGA”, and others. Saturday, February 5, 2022 12:30 – 13:00 – Five mysteries in Embedded Linux by Josef Holzmayr Once you start out in embedded Linux, there is a lot to do. Some things are obvious, some less so. First and foremost, […]

October 31, 2021November 1, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Status of Zephyr and NuttX RTOS support for ESP32

Espressif has recently announced that both Zephyr and NuttX open-source real-time operating systems had gotten official support for the ESP32 series of WiSoCs. It’s been a long time in the making, and when I first tried the community developer port of Zephyr OS on ESP32 in 2018 it did not work well at all, and I could not even make the blink LED sample work on Wemos Lolin32 board, and the WiFi sample would not even build. But time has passed, Espressif Systems started to officially work on Zephyr in 2020, and now I/Os, WiFi, and some other features work on Zephyr and NuttX RTOSes. Zephyr on ESP32 We first wrote about the Zephyr Project in 2016 describing the OS as follows: Zephyr Project is a lightweight real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for IoT applications and comprised of a microkernel for lower priority tasks, as well as a nanokernel to […]

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

The RISC-V Platform Specification aims to ensure RISC-V hardware and software compatibility

The RISC-V platform specification aims to define a set of rules to make sure operating systems like Linux or the Zephyr Project can boot properly on all RISC-V hardware compliant with the specs. If you’ve ever worked with the Arm Linux kernel over ten years ago, you may remember board files, which were replaced by device tree bindings, and eventually, Arm defined several standards culminating with Arm SystemReady certifications allowing compliant Arm platforms to boot off-the-shelf OS images like in the x86 world. While we are probably a long way from a “RISC-V SystemReady” platform certification program, the RISC-V platform specification is currently being worked on to define requirements for two types of platforms with optional extensions: OS-A Platform: This specifies a rich-OS platform for Linux/FreeBSD/Windows…flavors that run on enterprise and embedded class application processors. Current extension: Server Extension M Platform – This specifies an RTOS platform for bare-metal applications […]

March 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Sparkfun Thing Plus – Quicklogic EOS S3 Arm eFPGA board launched in Crowd Supply

SparkFun Electronics is a well-known electronics retailer that usually sells its in-house developed or third-party boards through its own online store. But this time around, the company decided to launch “Sparkfun Thing Plus – Quicklogic EOS S3” through Crowd Supply crowdfunding platform. The board is based on QuickFeather board designed with the same Quicklogic EOS S3 Arm Cortex-M4 plus embedded FPGA SoC, but follows Sparkfun’s Thing Plus form factor with a Qwiic connector and a different mix of sensors. Sparkfun Thing Plus – Quicklogic EOS S3 (QTPLUS-1.0) board specifications: SoC – QuickLogic EOS S3 MCU + eFPGA SoC with Arm Cortex-M4F Microcontroller up to 80 MHz, up to 512 Kb SRAM, and an embedded FPGA (eFPGA) with 2400 effective logic cells, 64 Kb RAM Storage – 16 Mbit SPI NOR flash (GigaDevice GD25Q16CEIGR) Sensors STMicro LIS2DH12TR accelerometer Digital pulse density modulation (PDM) microphone with Wake-on-Sound (WoS) feature: Vesper VM3011-U1 Expansion […]