CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 30, 2018June 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

My Sonoff TH16 Wireless Switch is Dead – Postmortem Analysis

Back in November 2016, I connected Sonoff TH16 WiFi switch to my water pump, and since then it worked fairly well, except for the occasional “offline error” in eWelink app, which was usually solved with a power cycle. But in the last couple of days, I noticed the pump would not start at the set time, and I could not control it using the Android app either, even after turning on and off the power. So I took it out to have a look, and one component indeed burnt. ITEAD Studio released the schematics in the Wiki, and the dead component is connected to a GND as well as to a transistor, so it must be R2 4.64 Ohm resistor [Corrected from R3 resistor after checking board with multimeter]. But what may have caused this? Resistors burn because too high of a current flows through them. We often have micro […]

May 30, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

MakerSpot CC2640 is a $20 Bluetooth 5 LE USB Dongle

Bluetooth 5 was announced in May 2016 with four times the range, twice the speed of Bluetooth 4.0. Since then SoCs, development boards, and smartphones have been announced with Bluetooth 5, but so far I had not seen any Bluetooth 5 USB dongle to add the new Bluetooth version to existing computer or boards. While I’ve not been able to find a consumer grade Bluetooth 5 USB dongle yet, today I found out something close it to with MakerSport CC2640 USB dongle / board based on TI CC2640 chip. GT-Tronics CC264BPA-UDOG (actual name) USB dongle specifications: MCU – Texas Instrument CC2640R2F Arm Cortex-M3 SimpleLink Wireless SoC with Bluetooth 5.0 Connectivity – Bluetooth 5 Low Energy BLE including built-in antenna; backward compatible with BLE 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 Silabs CP2110 HID to UART bridging device Debugging – 10-pins JTAG connector for CC2640 debugging and firmware flashing The dongle is enumerated as generic HID […]

May 30, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 is a Dedicated eXtended reality (XR) platform For XR / VR Headset

Qualcomm has unveiled its first Snapdragon XR platform specifically designed for extended / augmented / virtual reality headsets during a launch event leading up to the Augmented World Expo (AWE). Snapdragon XR1 features the usual Arm based Kryo cores, Adreno GPU, Hexagon DSP, ISP, and so on, but for whatever reason, the company did not disclose details specifications about the platform / SoC. XR1 also provides Qualcomm AI Engine for on-device processing, as well as an advanced XR software service layer, machine learning, the Snapdragon XR Software Development Kit (SDK) and Qualcomm Technologies connectivity and security technologies. Advanced vision processing capabilities of the SoC enabled technologies such as Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) The XR1 platform will be for higher headsets with 3 to 6 degrees of freedom (3DoF, 6DoF), support ultra high-definition 4K video resolution at up to 60 frames per second, and offer reduced unwanted noise using its Spectra […]

May 29, 2018May 30, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Run Windows Programs on Android Devices with ExaGear Windows Emulator App

In recent years, there have been efforts to run apps on operating systems they were not designed to run on. For example, Microsoft added Windows Subsystem for Linux to support Linux command line programs in Windows 10, and Google added the ability to run Android apps to Chrome OS, and is working on Linux programs support for Chromebooks. ExaGear has been providing software to run Windows programs in Linux, including on the Raspberry Pi boards, for several years, but they also published Exagear Windows Emulator – a paid Android app – to run Windows programs in any Android device with appropriate hardware specifications. The virtual machine works on Arm Android devices with with 32-bit x86 Windows applications. You just need to connect a keyboard and a mouse. 64-bit x86 applications and and x86 Android devices are not supported. Some of the supported apps and games include Caesar III, Heroes of […]

May 29, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Orange Pi 3G-IoT SBC Launched for $24.90

We had two Arm Linux SBCs with cellular connectivity from Shenzhen Xunlong so far: Orange Pi 2G-IoT for 2G connectivity, and Orange Pi 4G-IoT with LTE support in Asia and Europe. But what if you needed 3G connectivity, and did not want to spend $45 on the 4G board? There was no option until today, but the company has just launched Orange Pi 3G-IoT with WCDMA (UMTS), TD-CDMA and CDMA2000 support. Orange Pi 3G-IoT-B board specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT6572 dual core Cortex A7 processor @ up to 1.2 GHz with Arm Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 512MB DDR2 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot Display I/F – FPC connector for FWVGA display (854×480) Camera I/F – MIPI connector Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, built-in microphone, 2x solder pads for optional speakers Connectivity Cellular Nano SIM card slot 2G GSM – 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G WCDMA -(B1/B2/B5/B8), TD-CDMA, CDMA2000 […]

May 29, 2018May 29, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Vivo Y83 Mid-Range Smartphone Features MediaTek Helio P22 (MT6762) Processor with AI Acceleration

Last week, MediaTek unveiled their Helio P22 SoC for “mid range premium” smartphones manufactured with a 12nm FinFET process, and equipped with hardware blocks to accelerate artificial intelligence applications. Smartphones were expected later in Q2 2018, but it did not take long for the first announcement, as Vivo Y83 is one of the first Helio P22 smartphones. Vivo Y83 specifications: SoC – MediaTek Helio P22 (MT6762) eight-core Cortex A53 processor clocked up to 2.0 GHz with Imagination PowerVR GE8320 GPU System Memory – 4 GB RAM Storage – 64 GB storage, micro SD card slot up to 256 GB Display – 6.22″ multi-touch IPS display with 1520×720 resolution Camera – 8MP front-facing camera, 13MP rear camera with auto focus and flash; 1080p mp4 video recording Cellular Connectivity Dual SIM Dual Standby SIM card slot 2G GSM – 850/900/1800/1900MHz 3G – WCDMA: B1/B5/B8; TD-SCDMA: B34/B39;CDMA: BC0 4G – FDD-LTE: B1/B3/B5/B8; TDD-LTE: […]

May 28, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

IOTA Tangle is a Blockless Distributed Ledger for the Internet of Things – Running a IOTA Full Node on Rock64 Board

A lot of efforts is going into distributed ledger technologies like the blockchain, and while I keep hearing blockchain is the future, there’s a lot of hype, and so far I have not seen that many practical use cases. But recently I saw Open Source Foundries – a new company announced at Linaro Connect US 2017 – participated in the IOTA blockchain BoF at the OpenIoT Summit 2018 showing a demo publishing sensor data to the IOTA Tangle. So maybe we have a practical application here… Sadly, there’s no video recording of the IOTA blockchain BoF, so instead let’s go to the IOTA website to find out more. What is IOTA? That’s the short description of the solution: An Open-Source Distributed Ledger The first open-source distributed ledger that is being built to power the future of the Internet of Things with feeless microtransactions and data integrity for machines. The key technology […]

May 27, 2018June 26, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ACEPC GK1 is an Intel Celeron N4100 mini PC Cooled by a Fan

Last year, we shortly reviewed ACEPC AK1 mini PC powered by an Intel Celeron J3455 Apollo Lake processor, and greatly inspired from HP Elite Slice enclosure design. The company is now back with a upgraded model – ACEPC GK1 – that brings another Intel Celeron N4100 mini PC to the market, but with a 4GB/32GB RAM/storage configuration, and a detachable 2.5″ SATA drive bay. ACEPC GK1 specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core Gemini Lake processor clocked @ 1.10 GHz / 2.40 GHz (Turbo) with Intel UHD Graphics 600; 6W TDP System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, 2.5″ SATA bay, M.2 SSD slot, micro SD card slot Video Output – 2x HDMI 1.4 ports (but the processor supports HDMI 2.0 natively…) Audio – Via HDMI, 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – Gigabit Ethernet, dual band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x […]