CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

August 27, 2018August 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Tanix TX3 Mini L Amlogic S905W TV Box with 2GB RAM Sells for as low as $16.99 (Promo)

Last year, it was relatively easy to find promotions for ultra cheap TV boxes selling for under $20, but with the price increase of flash and RAM chips it has become harder to find. GearBest has now launched a promotion for Tanix TV boxes, and you could get Tanix TX3 Mini L model with an Amlogic S905W Processor and 2GB RAM for as low as $16.99. The trick is here is that price is only for flash sales with 5 pieces selling for $16.99 at 9:00 UTC until the end of the week. You’ll apparently need to use coupon GBTXL to qualify for the discount. Note that Flash sale can be frustrating since you’ll be competing with other customer, one trick that may work to get ahead is the add the device to the cart before 9:00, then click on check out at exactly 9:00. If you miss out the […]

August 26, 2018August 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Arduino Releases Command Line Interface (CLI) Alpha Preview

So far, AFAIK the only official ways to program Arduino boards were through the Arduino IDE program, or the cloud-based Arduino Create which works in your web browser and does not require any installation on your computer. While graphical interfaces are nice and user-friendly, many of us are more productive while working using the command line, especially if commands can be scripted. So Arduino decided to work on a command line interface (CLI) for professional users, and have just announced a preview release. arduino-cli works in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, and allows you install libraries, boards, and cores (e.g. esp32 Arduino core), compile the code, and upload the binary to the target board. If you want to get started quickly, you can download the binary “alpha” releases in the announcement board, but instead I opted to build the client myself as explained on Github. Everything below is done in […]

August 25, 2018August 25, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Axiomtek SDM300S is an Intel Apollo Lake Smart Display Module (SDM-S) for Digital Signage

SDM300S Intel Smart Display Module (SDM)

Way back in 2010, Intel introduced the Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) defining mechanical and electrical parameters for players to be integrated into digital signage displays, with the goal of providing an easier upgrade path. Even if it was defined by Intel we’ve seem some Arm based OPS digital players such as the ones offered by ZidooLab. If you’ve checked out the latter link, you’ll know OPS players normally come with a case, and measure 180 x 119 x 30mm to comply with the specifications. But it turns out Intel also introduced a more compact card format for digital signage / displays with Intel SDM (Smart Display Module) available as SDM-S (Small: 60 mm x 100 mm x ~20 mm; up to ~10W TDP) or SDM-L (Large: 175 mm x 100 mm x ~20 mm; up to ~45W TDP) Axiomtek made one of those module with their SDM300S SDM-S module equipped with […]

August 24, 2018August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

NanoPi M4 Raspberry Pi Inspired RK3399 Board Launched for $65 and Up

As expected, FriendlyELEC has now launched NanoPi M4 board, a lower cost version of NanoPC-T4 Rockchip RK3399 SBC, and mostly following Raspberry Pi form factor. How much you may ask? That would be $65 plus shipping for the 2GBRAM version, and $95 for the 4GB RAM version, which means it sells in the same ballpark as RockPro64 board. NanoPi M4 board specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU with support OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 6decoding System Memory – Dual-channel 4GB LPDDR3-1866, or dual-channel 2GB DDR3-1866 Storage – eMMC module socket, micro SD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDCP 1.4/2.2 support 4-Lane MIPI-DSI connector Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI digital audio […]

August 24, 2018August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

CHOETECH 24W Foldable Solar Charger Review

Foldable Solar Charger Charging Smartphone

A short while ago, I wrote about a tri-panel waterproof solar power bank that delivers up to 4 Watts and comes with 10,000 mAh capacity. I’ve now received a sample of a somewhat similar product, except CHOETECH told me it can deliver up to 24 Watts, which should be more suitable for charging devices like smartphone daily. CHOETECH 24W Solar Charger Unboxing The gadget is supposed to be fitted on larger backpacks as we’ll see below, but it comes in a relatively small package. The thing just looks like some purse or wallet out of the box. Once it’s unfolded we’ll see four solar panel, six hoops around the design, and some pouch / pocket on the right. The “junction box” includes a micro USB to USB cable, some silica gel, and four metal hoops to hook around some of the 6 fabric hoops The text on the photo above […]

August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

PiMecha Humanoid Robot Based on Raspberry Pi Sells for about $500

SB Components introduced PiMecha humanoid robot powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero (W)/ A+ / 2 / 3 (B+) board, and offering 17 degrees of freedom (DoF) on Kickstarter a few months ago. But with KS backers expecting their rewards in September, the company is now taking pre-orders on their own website for the robot for 399 GBP, or about $511 at today’s exchange rate. The company has apparently not published any detailed specifications of the robot on their website. But the robot is basically comprised of an outer shell comprised of removable metal pieces, and precise smartbus servo motors. Your chosen Raspberry Pi board would be fitted to the robot’s chest together with PiMecha shield add-on board handling the servo control. PiMecha can be easily customized with a Pi camera, an LCD display, your own sensors an so on. SB Components provide software to program the robot in order […]

August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 32 Comments

TableX Arm Linux Tablet Runs Armbian Ubuntu, To Launch for 89 Euros

If you want an Arm Linux laptop, you have already some choices with products such as Pine64 Pinebook, or Olimex TERES-I open source hardware laptop, but if instead you’d rather do without keyboard, and get an Arm Linux tablet, choices are much more limited, if any at all. Back in 2012, Allwinner A10 based PengPod 700 & 1000 tablets were available for the company has since folded, and this year, RasPad case launched to allow you to build your own thick tablet with a Raspberry Pi 3 (B+). However, if you want to normal looking tablet, your best option right now is to get an Android tablet and mess around to install Linux on it. That’s not for everyone, and the good news is that what looks like a proper – albeit low-end – Arm Linux tablet is coming to market soon with TableX. TableX preliminary hardware specifications: SoC – […]

August 23, 2018August 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

MuxPi Board Relies on NanoPi NEO to Enable Remote Testing of Development Boards

Product development often occurs in different location over the world, there may be one team in Asia, and another in Europe and the US. At the beginning, the number of working samples for a board may be limited, so the project manager may have to decide who gets the boards since those may not be available to all teams. So it would be great if somehow there was a way to do remote testing of boards, so maybe the team in Asia could setup the testbed, used it during there time, and once they are back home, the US team can take over remotely to carry on their own development work on the hardware. That’s exactly what MuxPi board is all about. The solution provide remote access via the Ethernet port of a NanoPi NEO board, and connects to the DUT (Device under Test) via HDMI, Ethernet, USB and other […]