CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 15, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

YC-CDA19Q is an 8-Port Quick Charge 3.0 Capable USB Charger with a Display Showing Power Consumption

USB charger doctor is a cheap and easy way to monitor the voltage and current from a USB 2.0 port or charger, but you may have more than one device to monitor, and USB 3.0 type C ports as well as fast charger are now quite common, so it may not be suitable for all situations. Bakeey YC-CDA19Q USB charger hub could be an interesting power monitoring device with 7 USB ports, including one supporting Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging, and an extra USB type C port. Specifications: 8x USB Ports 7x USB type A ports including 6x red USB 2.0 port up to 5V/2.4A each 1x blue USB port supporting QC 3.0 (3.6-6.5V/3A, 6.5-9V/2A or 9-12V/1.5A) 1 USB type C port up to 5V/3A Max Power – 40 Watts (5V/8A) Display – LCD display showing – real-time current and voltage, active charging ports, and charge status Power Supply – […]

May 15, 2018May 15, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Wi-Fi EasyMesh is a Standard for WiFi Mesh Networking

It’s been possible for add multiple WiFi routers and/or WiFi repeaters in order to provide good coverage in a house / building for years, so this required some manual configuration. So in recent years, companies came up with WiFi mesh networking solutions that do very much the same, but are easier to setup, and – as I understand it – mostly plug-and-play. Some examples are Google WiFi router or eeRo Pro WiFi system, but apparently so far every company would do their own proprietary WiFi mesh implementation, so you would not be able to mix brands for such features. That’s why the WiFi Alliance worked on, and now announced Wi-Fi EasyMesh, an industry standard for “simple to use, self-organizing, smart Wi-Fi networks”. Key benefits listed by the organization: Flexible design – Allows for best placement of multiple APs providing extended coverage Easy setup – Delivers automatic device on-boarding and configuration […]

May 15, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Alfawise T1 Mini PC Powered by Intel Celeron N4100 Gemini Lake Processor is Going for $200

It’s been a long wait, but it appears it’s now possible to purchase Gemini Lake mini PCs and get them shipped within a few days. One example would be Alfawise T1 mini PC based on Intel Celeron N4100 quad core processor that’s now selling for $199.99 on GearBest with shipping expected on May 19-22. Alfawise T1 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core Gemini Lake processor up to 2.4 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 600; 6W TDP System Memory – 4GB DDR4 Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, 2.5″ SATA bay, M.2 SSD slot, micro SD card Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.0 ports up to 4K @ 60 Hz Audio – Via HDMI, built-in microphone, 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB type C port Misc – Power button and LED, […]

May 15, 2018May 15, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

MT3620 Development Board for Azure Sphere is Up for Pre-order for $84.90

Microsoft unveiled Azure Sphere solutions last month in order to provide a complete secure IoT solution from the hardware to the cloud with three main components: a secure MCU, Linux based Azure Sphere OS, and Azure Sphere Security (Cloud) Service. The company already stated Mediatek MT3620 would be the first Azure Sphere compliant MCU, and today Seeed Studio has announced MT3620 development board for Azure Sphere is up for pre-order for $84.90 with a $5 deposit, and shipping scheduled for the end of September. Preliminary specifications of MT3620 development board for Azure Sphere: WiSoC – Mediatek MT3620AN single core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 500 MHz, dual core Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core, Pluton security sub-system, and WiFi. System Memory – Over 5MB of embedded RAM, split among the various cores (4MB for Arm Cortex A7 core) Storage – 2x 8MB dual channel quad SPI (16MB in total) Connectivity – Dual band […]

May 14, 2018May 15, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

ULEWELL Z28 MINI is a $40 RK3328 TV Stick with 2GB RAM, 16GB Storage, and a USB 3.0 Port

While we’ve already covered many Rockchip RK3328 TV boxes and development boards, if you want a TV stick form factor the choice becomes much more limited. So far I was only aware of Rikomagic RKM V3 , but today I’ve come across ULEWELL Z28 MINI, selling for about $40 on Aliexpress with 2GB RAM, 16 GB storage, HDMI 2.0a, and a USB 3.0 port. ULEWELL Z28 MINI TV stick specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Mali-450MP2 GPU System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDR10 and HLG support Video Codec – 4K VP9, H.265 and H.264. 1080p VC-1, MPEG-1/2/4, VP6/8 Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (2.4 GHz), Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 3.0 port Misc – Power button and LED Power Supply […]

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Arduino Introduces Two New IoT Boards – MKR WiFi 1010 (ESP32) and MKR NB 1500 (NB-IoT + eMTC)

Arduino introduced its MKR family of breadboard compatible maker boards with MKR1000 featuring an Atmel SAMD21 microcontroller combined with a Microchip WINC1500 WiFi module. The board was followed by MRKZero without wireless connectivity, then MKRFOX1200 Sigfox board, and finally MKR WAN 1300 & MKR GSM 1400 boards at the end of 2017 with LoRaWAN and 3.75G cellular connectivity. The company has now launched two new boards: Espressif ESP32 based MKR WiFi 1010 with WiFi and Bluetooth, and MKR NB 1500 equipped with an NB-IoT & LTE CAT M1 module. Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 MKR WIFI 1010 is an evolution of the MKR1000 board, and is equipped with a U-Blox ESP32 module. Preliminary specifications: MCU – Microchip SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 32KB SRAM, 256 KB flash memory Wireless Connectivity – 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE via U-blox NINA-W10 Series module based on ESP32 processor. […]

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

Running out of RAM in Ubuntu? Enable ZRAM

Whenever I ran out of RAM on a Linux system, I used to enable swap memory using the storage device to provide an extra bit of memory. The main advantage is that it’s does not require extra hardware, but come at the cost of much slower access, and potential issues or wear and tear, unless you only use it temporary. This week-end, I compiled Arm Compute Library on ODROID-XU4Q board, and the first time it crashed because the system ran out of memory, so I enable swap on the eMMC flash module to restart and complete the build successfully. However, I was told it would have been better to enable ZRAM instead. So what is ZRAM? Wikipedia explains: zram, formerly called compcache, is a Linux kernel module for creating a compressed block device in RAM, i.e. a RAM disk, but with on-the-fly “disk” compression. So it’s similar to swap, expect […]

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

How to Run Chrome OS in Android Emulator

While it’s possible to run the open source Chromium OS in your computer or a virtual machine, AFAIK there was only was way to test Chrome OS: purchasing an actual Chromebook, or other device running the operating system. But this week-end, I read the news that Chrome OS was now available in Android Studio, and you can run in Android Emulator while emulating a Pixelbook, so I gave it a try by following the instructions on Android Developer website. If you haven’t done so already, we first need to install Android Studio. I’m running Ubuntu 16.04 in my computer, but this will also work in Windows and Mac OS X. After download the IDE zip file, we can extract it… and then open a console, go into “{installation home}/bin” and run the program:

./studio.sh

1	./studio.sh

After a few seconds, we got into Android Studio 3.1.2 welcome screen. We can now click […]