CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 20, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Beware of Fake Heart Rate Sensors in Low-Cost Fitness Trackers

Manufacturers always attempt to lower the BoM costs of their products to increase sales and boost profits. Most do it in an honest way, but some are either incompetent or deceptive as we’ve recently seen in an IR thermometer was the infrared unit was not connected to the mainboard. I’ve just been informed about another trick that’s been going on for a while. Some ultra-cheap fitness trackers come with fake heart rate sensors that are simply replaced by two LED’s to simulate the real thing. The trick was discovered last year by Aaron Christophel who purchased several fitness trackers believe to be based on Nordic Semi nRF52832 in order to as he wanted to use Arduino firmware with those. He managed to do so in several with IWOWNFIT I6HRC tracker being the best suited for the tasks. But he also found some bad apples in the lot with several trackers […]

July 19, 2020August 19, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

ODYSSEY-X86J4105 Gemini Lake & Arduino SBC Review with Windows 10 Enterprise

I’ve recently received ODYSSEY-X86J4105 SBC with Re_Computer case, and we’ve had a look at the SBC hardware, installed some internal components like an M.2 SATA SSD, and play around Re_Computer case using Raspberry Pi 4, Beaglebone Green Wireless and Jetson Nano SBC, before assembling the Intel SBC into the enclosure. I’ve now taken the time to test the combo using the pre-installed Windows 10 Enterprise operating systems. ODYSSEY-X86J4105 is very much like any Intel Gemini Lake mini PC, but with the addition of Arduino and Raspberry Pi headers, so we’ll look at those as well. Connections and First Boot For the first boot, I connect USB mouse and keyboard, a HDMI cable to a 4K TV, an Ethernet cable, a USB 3.0 hard drive, and finally the power supply. I actually had a small problem during boot, but we’ll talk about it later as it’s really specific to my setup, […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

July 18, 2020July 18, 2020 by Ayo Ayibiowu - No Comments

Sparkfun Launches the ZED-F9R GPS Dead Reckoning Raspberry Pi pHAT for Mobile Robots

The SparkFun ZED-F9R GPS pHAT module is targeted at single board computers like the Raspberry Pi, Jetson Nano, and other boards with the 2 x 20mm header form factor supporting the GPS RTK (Real-time kinematic) capable of centimeter-level accuracy. Dead Reckoning in robotics allows one to calculate one’s position by using a previously known location or landmarks. Dead Reckoning is an essential aspect of robot navigation, especially Autonomous vehicles like mobile robots or UAVs. For dead Reckoning to be realistic and minimize the position uncertainty, it usually requires the fusion of position estimation sources like Lidar, Radar, IMU, Odometry, GNSS, accelerometer, and some others. Sparkfun understands this and has launched the Dead Reckoning add-on module that can be used for applications in mobile robots, UAVs, and others. The Sparkfun ZED-F9R GPS pHAT is an exciting sensor fusion board (having been a fan of Extended Kalmar Filter) that provides accurate and […]

July 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Star Lite Mk III Pentium N5000 Laptop Ships with a Choice of 6 Linux Distributions

There aren’t that many companies shipping Linux laptops, and often it’s either at the entry-level of the market with Arm-based Pine64 PineBook or PineBook Pro, or at the higher-end with products such as Dell XPS 13 developer edition or System76 Linux laptops. If you’d like something in between, you could install Ubuntu on a laptop yourself, but drivers are not always working, and sometimes when the laptop is confirmed to work, the manufacturer may decide to completely redesign the hardware. Star Lite Mk III Linux laptop may be an interesting alternative, as the Intel Pentium N5000 Gemini Lake laptop is up for pre-order for $427 US and up with delivery scheduled to start in September. Specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium N5000 quad-core Gemini Lake processor @ 1.1 GHz / 2.7 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB cache, Intel UHD 605 graphics @ 200/750 MHz; 6W TDP System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 @ […]

July 17, 2020July 21, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Rock Pi E SBC Comes with WiFi, Bluetooth, Two Ethernet Ports, and Optional PoE

Radxa has launched several Rockchip boards from the higher-end Rock Pi N10 (RK3399Pro) and Rock Pi 4 (RK3399) SBC’s, to the low-end and tiny Rock Pi S powered by an RK3308 Cortex-A35 processor. The company has now launched Rock Pi E single board computer equipped with the popular Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor and designed for router & gateway application with two Ethernet ports, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) also comes as an option. Rock Pi E specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.3 GHz System Memory – 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB DDR3 Storage – MicroSD card slot up to 128GB, eMMC module support ( 16GB / 32GB / 64GB / 128GB) Video & Audio – 3.5mm AV output jack (Not 100% sure whether composite video is supported) Connectivity 1x Gigabit Ethernet port with PoE support via an additional HAT 10/100M Ethernet Wireless […]

July 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Coming Next Year with PCIe/NVMe Support

The Raspberry Pi 4 features a Broadcom BCM2711 processor with Cortex-A72/A53 cores that makes it competitive against other SBC’s based on Rockchip RK3399 or Amlogic S922X/A311D processors. The new processor also happens to have a PCIe interface, but it’s not exposed on the board since the interface is used by VIA VL805 PCIe USB 3.0 controller for the four USB 3.0 ports on the little computer. At the time, we expected the PCIe interface to be exposed in future Raspberry Pi boards or a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. But some people did not feel like waiting and instead hack the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC to access the PCIe interface. That hack is clearly not for everyone though… But based on a recent interview of Eben Upton with Tom’s Hardware we got pretty much confirmation that the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 will be coming next year, and expose PCIe […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

July 16, 2020November 8, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 53 Comments

ODROID-N2 Plus SBC Gets Amlogic S922X Rev. C Processor Clocked at up to 2.4 GHz

Announced in February 2019, ODROID-N2 Amlogic S922X SBC launched the following month with 2GB to 4GB RAM, HDMI 2.0 output, Gigabit Ethernet, multiple USB 3.0 ports with pricing starting at $63 making very good value for an hexa-core Cortex-A73/A53 processor. The company has now announced an upgraded with ODROID-N2 Plus SBC featuring Amlogic S922X Rev.C bringing the Cortex-A73 big core maximum clock frequency from 1.8 GHz to 2.2GHz. But Hardkernel also found out they could overclock the processor up to 2.4 GHz in all 300 boards they have delivered a 33% boost over the original ODROID-N2 board. The Cortex-A53 cores are also a bit faster up to 2.0 GHz. ODROID-N2+ specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X Rev.C hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 4x Arm Cortex A73 cores @ up to 2.2/2.4GHz, 2x Arm Cortex A53 cores @ 2.0GHz, Arm Mali-G52 GPU @ 846MHz; 12nm manufacturing process System Memory – 2GB or 4GB […]

July 16, 2020July 16, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Xiaomi Mi TV Stick with Android TV Launched for as low as $29.99

There’s been a fair amount of leaks related to Xiaomi Mi TV Stick around the web for the last few months, but the company has now finally launched their Android TV TV stick with a quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, and 8GB storage. While there were rumors about a 4K version, Xiaomi Mi TV Stick only outputs up to 1080p60, and since it runs the official Android TV OS, supports Chromecast and Google Assistant out of the box. Official Price: 39.99 Euros. But you can get it on Aliexpress for as low as $29.99 with coupon 715MITVSTICK. Xiaomi Mi TV Stick specifications: SoC- Amlogic S805Y quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.2 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP GPU (Source: Twitter) System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 8GB storage Video Output – HDMI up to 1080p60 Video Codecs – VP9-10, H.265, H.264, VC-1, MPEG1/2/4, real 8/9/10 Audio – Via HDMI, Dolby and DTS support […]