Bee S3 ultra-low-power ESP32-S3 board can last several years on a LiPo battery

Smart Bee Designs’ Bee S3 is an ultra-low-power development board based on Espressif ESP32-S3 WiFi & Bluetooth microcontroller that consumes less than 20 uA in deep sleep mode allowing the board to theoretically last over 5 years under specific conditions. The board provides WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5 LE connectivity, features a battery voltage monitoring circuitry to check the battery charge level, a USB Type-C port for power and programming, plus 20 through holes for extensions such as connecting sensors, and so on. Bee S3 specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3-MINI-1 module (PDF datasheet) with ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, 4MB or 8MB QSPI flash, PCB antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – 2x 10-pin headers with up to 15x GPIO, 8x ADC, touch support, I2C, SPI, UART, 5V In/out, 3.3V out, and GND Misc – […]

T-Watch-Keyboard-C3 with ESP32 “watch”, ESP32-C3 keyboard looks like a miniature PC replica

T-Watch-Keyboard-C3 is a device that looks like a miniature PC replica comprised of an ESP32-C3 powered keyboard, and the TTGO T-Watch ESP32 programmable device with a 1.54-inch touchscreen display. The LilyGo TTGO T-Watch ESP32 programmable touchscreen display has been around for a while, and the company used to provide an accessory keyboard based on Microchip ATSAM20 Cortex-M0+ microcontroller that has now been replaced with ESP32-C3 WiFi and Bluetooth RISC-V microcontroller to create the T-Watch-Keyboard-C3 devices pictured below.   T-Watch-Keyboard-C3 specifications: TTGO T-Watch MCU – ESP32-D0WDQ6 dual-core microcontroller @ 240 MHz with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.x with 520KB SRAM Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB QSPI flash Display – 1.54-inch LCD screen USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming via CP2104 USB to TTL chip Sensor – 3-axis accelerometer Misc – Power button, RTC Dimensions – 40 x 38 x 20 mm Weight – 43.19 grams […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

OpenHarmony development board borrows BBC Micro:bit edge connector

HopeRun’s HiHope development board features a HiSilicon Hi3861V100 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller compatible with OpenHarmony OS and looks very much like the BBC Micro:bit educational board notably with its edge connector. The board is also designed for youth education (in China) and comes with similar sensors, but there are some differences such as a 0.96-inch OLED instead of an LED matrix and support for offline voice recognition. There’s no wireless connectivity apart from NFC support. HiHope board specifications: MCU – HiSilicon Hi3861 32-bit microcontroller @ up to 160 MHz with 352 KB SRAM and 288 KB ROM, 2 MB flash memory Display – 0.96-inch OLED display with 128×64 resolution (SSD1306) Connectivity – NFC with R/W mode, card emulation,  and bidirectional mode USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Sensors – Temperature & humidity sensor, light sensor, microphone, 6-axis motion sensor Expansion – Edge connector with 5x rings (3x […]

ESP-Hosted simplifies adding WiFi connectivity to legacy Linux or MCU-based products

Most of the ESP8266 and ESP32 projects and products we cover here use the Espressif microcontroller as the main chip, but ESP8266 started as a WiFi module meant to be controlled with AT commands from a host device. But there are still “legacy” products that may benefit from connecting to the cloud, and Espressif introduced the ESP-Hosted for that purpose in 2020, and recently released a next-generation ESP-Hosted solution (ESP-Hosted-NG) specifically for Linux hosts. The solution is available in two variants: ESP-Hosted-FG (First generation) exposing an Ethernet interface to the host and suitable for microcontrollers and Linux hosts, and the ESP-Hosted-NG presenting an 802.11 network interface and designed for Linux hosts only. Both solutions include ESP32 firmware and a host driver running on the legacy system. Espressif Systems recommends using ESP-Hosted-FG on an MCU host, and ESP-Hosted-NG on a Linux host in order to benefit from Linux user space applications/services […]

Sipeed MetaSense RGB ToF 3D depth cameras are made for MCUs & ROS Robots (Crowfunding)

We’ve just written about the Arducam ToF camera to add depth sensing to Raspberry Pi, but there are now more choices, as Sipeed has just introduced its MetaSense ToF (Time-of-Flight) camera family for microcontrollers and robots running ROS with two models offering different sets of features and capabilities. The MetaSense A075V USB camera offers 320×240 depth resolution plus an extra RGB sensor, an IMU unit, and a CPU with built-in NPU that makes it ideal for ROS 1/2 robots, while the lower-end MetaSense A010 ToF camera offers up to 100×100 resolution, integrates a 1.14-inch LCD display to visualize depth data in real-time and can be connected to a microcontroller host, or even a Raspberry Pi, through UART or USB. MetaSense A075V specifications: SoC – Unnamed quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with 0.4 TOPS NPU System Memory – 128 MB RAM Storage – 128MB flash Cameras 800×600 @ 30 […]

GENE-ADP6 – An 3.5-inch SBC with Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake-P processor, DDR5 RAM

AAEON GENE-ADP6 is a 3.5-inch SBC equipped with a choice of Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake-P (and Alder Lake-U) processors and the first from the company to support DDR5 memory, of which up to 64GB can be installed through two SO-DIMM sockets. The single board computer also supports SATA and NVMe storage, up to two 8K displays (and up to four independent displays), 2.5GbE networking, USB 3.2 ports, four RS232/RS422/RS485 interfaces, and further expansion through three M.2 sockets for wireless connectivity (WiFi, 5Gm, 4G LTE…) as well as the already mentioned NVMe SSD storage. GENE-ADP6 SBC specifications: Intel Alder Lake-P SoC (one or the other) Core i7-1270PE 12-core/16-thread processor @ 3.30GHz / 4.50GHz (Turbo) with 96EU Intel Xe graphics – PBP: 28W, up to 64W MTP Core i7-1265UE 10-core/12-thread processor @ 3.50GHz / 4.70GHz (Turbo) with 96EU Intel Xe graphics – PBP: 15W, up 55W MTP Core i5-1250PE 12-core/16-thread processor […]

Intel Arc Graphics Technology

Banana Pi BPI-R3 WiFi 6 router board features MediaTek Filogic 830/MT7986 SoC

I first noticed the MediaTek MT7986 WiFi router processor in Linux 5.17 changelog. MT7986 is the codename for MediaTek Filogic 830 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor designed for Wi-Fi 6/6E routers with up to 6 Gbps bandwidth, and two 2.5Gbps Ethernet interfaces. Banana Pi BPI-R3 is a router board based on Filogic 830/MT7986A that offers an upgrade to the company’s Banana Pi BPI-R2 board powered by a MediaTek MT7623A quad-core Cortex-A7 processor or even the Banana Pi BPI-R64 board based on a MediaTek MT7622 dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 SoC. Banana Pi BPI-R3 specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7986A (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with hardware acceleration engines for Wi-Fi offloading and networking System Memory – 2GB DDR RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket, support for M.2 NVMe SSD Networking 2x 2.5GbE SFP cages, 5x Gigabit Ethernet ports (1x WAN + 4x LAN) via MT7531AE 7-port switch WiFi 6 4×4 […]

MangoPi MQ Quad SBC – Allwinner H616 meets Raspberry Pi Zero W form factor

MangoPi MQ Quad is an Allwinner H616 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 SBC following Raspberry Pi Zero W form factor, and the company’s earlier MangoPi MQ Pro RISC-V SBC featuring the Allwinner D1 processor. The MangoPi MQ Quad also comes with 1GB RAM, a mini HDMI output, two USB Type-C ports, WiFI 4 and Bluetooth connectivity, a microSD card, as well a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible GPIO header and an FPC connector with USB, Ethernet, and more GPIOs for expansion. MangoPi MQ Quad specifications: SoC – Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz with Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with OpenGL 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 API support System Memory – 1GB DDR3L Storage – MicroSD card slot, a footprint for SPI flash (on the bottom of the board) Video Output – Mini HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 via RTL8723DS; ceramic and u.FL antennas included USB […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC