CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 5, 2019November 7, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 82 Comments

Giveaway Week – WisCellular NB-IoT & eMTC GPS Tracker

Rak Wireless WisCellular is an NB-IoT & eMTC Arduino shield based on Quectel BG96 module with 2G fallback that is similar to the company’s previous-generation WisLTE board, except it is certified for the global markets. I received a beta sample last year and went through the instructions to use it with a Hologram SIM card, but sadly I never managed to make it work, and eventually learned the Hologram SIM card did not support NB-IoT in Thailand. So I would have had to buy a local SIM card, but at the time, they didn’t sell those, and the only way to get an NB-IoT SIM card was to buy a development kit. Before going ahead with the purchase, I asked about coverage in my area but never managed to get a definitive answer so I gave up. So instead of keeping it in a drawer at home, I’d better just […]

November 5, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - No Comments

AuverCare is a Predictive AI 24/7 Monitor for Patients and Elderly

Information on the Internet for Monitoring Patients and Elderly If you are in the healthcare field or caring for an elderly or disabled person, you know all about trying to keep them safe. The internet is crowded with camera and audio monitors, wearable fall alert alarms, and the emergency services connected panic button. All these devices have one problem, they only work after there is a problem. What is Predictive AI? There has been a great deal of chatter since the 2016 announcement of a future predicting AI platform. The article reported on this platform was Predicting the Future – especially use cases such as falls by the elderly. With the advances in the field of AI and object recognition and behavior that is based on data gathered from a variety of sensors, it is not really a stretch to see a predictive healthcare monitor come onto the scene. Predictive […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 30 Comments

Fix for Raspberry Pi 4 4GB model’s USB Ports not Working on Ubuntu 19.10

Ubuntu 19.10 server was recently released with official support for Raspberry Pi 4 SBC. Shortly after I read stories about the USB ports not working on the board, but it took another interesting turn as Canonical now explains the bug only affects RPI 4 with 4GB RAM, and USB works just fine on boards with just 1/2GB RAM. The issue has been identified and it’s been found to be a kernel bug with a solution in the works that being tested. In the meantime, you can access to your Raspberry Pi 4 4GB USB ports by limiting the memory to 3GB in /boot/firmware/usercfg.txt as follows:

total_mem=3072

1	total_mem=3072

Alternatively here’s the link to an updated kernel provided by Hui Wang with you want to test it out: I built a testing kernel, not only includes the fix for USB host, but also includes all new patches from https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux.git rpi-5.3.y branch (about 107 […]

November 4, 2019November 8, 2019 by Karl Johnson - 24 Comments

Sovol SV01 Upgrade with BigTreeTech SKR mini E3 Control Board

Sovol SV01 Upgrade: Bigtreetech SKR mini E3

Karl here with a quick upgrade guide. The one complaint I had in the review of the SV01 3D printer was it was loud. Today we are going to look at resolving part of the problem by replacing the Creality board with the BigTreeTech SKR mini E3 V1.2 control board sold on Amazon for around $37. Fan noise at a later date. This board is ideal because the SD card, USB, and screws line up for nearly a perfect replacement. I did not bother hooking up the filament runout sensor. I have never found them particularly useful and always ensure I start with enough filament and bypassed it for the review. The board comes with TMC2209 drivers which significantly reduce the stepper motor noise as well as stop any salmon skin. SKR Mini E3 Warning This board is a replacement for the board found on the Ender 3. Below is […]

November 4, 2019February 16, 2020 by Stephen Vicinanza - 1 Comment

Digilent Offers 2 Zynq-Based Linux Development Boards Supporting SYZYGY Expansion

Digilent Announces SYZYGY high-speed SBCs Digilent has announced two new SBCs that are ultra-high-speed and built to be more modular than its other boards. The company, which has a great deal of experience in Pmod lower speed FPGA standards has now entered the open-source, SYZYGY high-speed standards with its Eclypse Z7 and the Genesys ZU development SBCs. Background on the Digilent Zybo FPGA SoC SBC We reported on the Zybo development board FPGA SoC from Digilent and that seems to have lead to the latest format for the Eclypse Z7. Zmod There is also a release planned for the new Zmod modules, built to work with both the Eclypse Z7 and the Genesys ZU as SYZYGY compliant expansion modules. Opal Kelly and Zmod expansion The Zmods are Opal Kelly module standard, called SYZYGY, first seen in the Opal Kelly SYZYGY Brain-1 SBC. The standard was developed to jump the gap […]

November 4, 2019November 6, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 149 Comments

Giveaway Week – Balena Fin Developer Kit

balenaFin, RPi Compute Module, Power Supply, Enclosure

We’ve been organizing “giveaway weeks” every year since 2014 on CNX Software to send some of the review samples to our readers. Let’s do it again in 2019 starting with Balena Fin developer kit based on Raspberry Pi 3+ Computer Module (CM3+) with 8GB flash and a carrier board in order to get started with BalenaOS operating system and the company’s balenaCloud service. Instead of a traditional review, we wrote a getting started guide for balenaFin Developer Kit, balenaOS and balenaCloud, where we explain how to flash the OS to the board, configure it, run a container, and manage the device, including container updates, from Balenacloud. The winner will receive the full kit below with carrier board, Raspberry Pi CM3+ module, CR1225 battery, enclosure, power supply, and MicroUSB cable. It will come already assembled as shown in the first photo. To enter the draw simply leave a comment below. Other […]

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

November 3, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

BOOTPRINT X2 96Boards AIoT Development Kit Features Sunrise 2.0 AI Processor

Horizon Robotics BOOTPRINT X2 is an AIoT / AI computing development kit providing a complete reference solution from device to cloud integration. The board is powered by the company’s Sunrise 2.0 AI edge processor based on the second-generation BPU (“Brain Processing Unit”) architecture that delivers up to 4 TOPS at low power consumption and is said to follow 96Boards specification, although from the photo below they’ve taken some liberties with the option (e.g. added a Gigabit Ethernet port). The board has now launched yet, and we have limited information about BOOTPRINT X2 kit specifications: SoC – Horizon Sunrise 2.0 AI edge processor with 4 TOPS equivalent AI processing power (no mention of architecture) System Memory – 1GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet Camera I/F – Dual 1080p camera inputs for symmetric binocular camera, combination of infrared and visible light. Audio – […]

November 2, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Pantahub Enables Seamless, Remote Linux Firmware Updates Over-the-Air

Let’s say you’re running Raspbian on your Raspberry Pi 4 board, but would like to check out the latest Ubuntu 19.10 for the board. What would you normally have to do? After downloading the firmware and turning off your Raspberry Pi 4, you’d normally need physical access to your Raspberry Pi 4 to remove the MicroSD card, insert it into your computer and start balenaEtcher or other utility to flash the image. Once it’s done remove the MicroSD card from your PC and insert it back into the Raspberry Pi SBC, before booting it up. That’s fine for experimentation, but time-consuming if you had to do this for multiple boards that may be placed in various locations. That’s where Pantacor’s PantaHub, PantaVisor, and PVR utility come in. Pantahub is a web dashboard used for registration, to monitor your devices, and documentation, Pantavisor is an Alpine Linux based device init system […]

Boardcon LGA3576 Rockchip RK3576 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications