CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 13, 2019April 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Customize Amazfit Bip Smartwatch – Thai Language and Mickey Mouse

I’ve been wearing WeLoop Hey 3S smartwatch for well over a year now, and I’m still very satisfied with it, but a small problem is that it does not support the Thai language, so when I receive messages it’s just blank, or only shows the ASCII characters part of the string. There’s also no real community for this watch, so customization options are limited, and readers recommended Amazfit Bip instead. I’ve writing about this, because one person I know looked for a smartwatch, and first wanted to get an Apple Smartwatch, but where I live it’s over one month of the minimum salary and around two to three weeks of a typical office salary. So instead I recommended the much cheaper Amazfit Bip after I was told the requirements were support for Thai language notifications, and custom watch faces in order to install a Mickey Mouse watch face, and both […]

May 13, 2019May 14, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 34 Comments

How One Line of Code Tripled Allwinner A20 SATA Write Performance

If you’ve been following this blog long enough, you may remember that all linux-sunxi community work aiming at improving u-boot and Linux software support on Allwinner processors started with Allwinner A10 processor found in MeLE A1000 TV box back in 2012, which at the time provided an interesting alternative to Raspberry Pi board that was in short supply at launch time and several months after. One of the most interesting feature found in Allwinner A10 single core Arm Cortex-A8 processor was its SATA interface, and Allwinner A20 was announced a few months later with a dual core Cortex-A7 processor and virtually the same peripherals as Allwinner A10, including SATA. However when I tested CubieTruck board connected to a mechanical drive, I noticed sequential SATA performance was fine for reads (~180MB/s), but writes were fairly slow at around 36 MB/s. Other people complained about it, and some looked into it, and […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards

May 12, 2019May 13, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Low Power TinyPICO ESP32 Board Ships with Micropython (Crowdfunding)

There are so many ESP32 boards available now, so why bother with another ones. Some of the key selling points of TinyPICO are that it is really small at 32 x 18 mm, it’s easy to use out of the box with MicroPython firmware pre-loaded, and supports LiPo batteries with an optimized power path for low-power battery usage. The developer, named Unexpected Maker, also provides various shields for TinyPICO adding a display, sensors, an audio amplifier, an RTC, Grove headers, and more. TinyPICO board specifications: System-in-Package – Espressif Systems ESP32-PICO-D4 SiP with ESP32 dual-core processor operating at 240 MHz, 4 MB SPI flash External System Memory – 4 MB PSRAM Connectivity – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, 3D antenna Expansion – 14x GPIO broken out to standard pitch headers Debugging / Programming – USB + serial/UART for programming Misc – Power (red) & charge (orange) LED’s, APA102 […]

May 11, 2019May 12, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Volumio Motivo is a Gorgeous Audio Streamer Powered by SOPINE A64 SoM

Volumio is a well-known Linux based open source music player for Raspberry Pi, UDOO, Cubox-I, Beaglebone Black, and other single board computers. Some companies even made audiophile boards with support for Volumio including Khadas Tone high-resolution audio board for VIM/VIM2 SBC’s, and the tiny VoltaStream ZERO following Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. But Volumio team has decided to make their own hardware with Motivo, an awesomely looking audio streamer designed in collaboration with Yottamusic engineering firm, and Design Narratives industrial design company. Motivo was introduced at High-End Munich, the world’s biggest Hi-Fi trade fair, and Pine64 posted some photos in a tweet claiming it was powered by their SOPINE A64 system-on-module. The full details about the device have not been published at the time of writing, but we can still derive some of Volumio Motivo specifications and key features from the photos and a few bits of public information: System-on-Module […]

May 10, 2019May 11, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Rockchip RK1808 AI Compute Stick Launched with Linux SDK

Rockchip RK1808 looks like a nifty and inexpensive little chip for artificial intelligence applications delivering up to 3.0 TOPS at low power, and the company has already released documentation and a Linux SDK with Caffe and Tensorflow framework support for the chip. So the main hurdle now is to get hardware to play with. Some people are selling (samples?) of the official RK1808-EVB on Taobao, but it costs close to $500 US. There’s still no RK1808 development board, but Rockchip has discreetly launched the RK1808 AI Compute Stick a few weeks ago. RK1808 AI Compute Stick specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK1808 dual core Cortex-A35 processor with NPU AI inference performance – 3 TOPS for INT8, 300 GOPS for INT16, 100 GOPS for FP16 Video – 1080p60 H.264 decoding, 1080p30 H.264 encoding Camera, ISP – 2MP camera support, ISP with BT.601/656/1120 support Host Interface – USB 3.0 port Power Supply – […]

May 10, 2019May 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Gateworks Introduces GW16126 Mini-PCIe Cat M1 Modem and Bluetooth LE Radio

Gateworks has launched another mini PCIe card providing IoT connectivity for their NXP i.MX 6 and Cavium Octeon TX powered SBC’s. Last month we covered GW16130 Mini PCIe satellite modem, and the company has now announced GW16126 mini PCIe card with a Cat M1 (eMTC) modem and a Bluetooth Low Energy radio for the US market, and other regions or countries where LTE Cat M1 networks have been deployed. Gateworks GW16126 mini PCIe card specifications: LTE Cat M1 Module – U-blox SARA-R410M-52 LTE CAT M1 cellular modem with up to 375 kb/s upload and 300 kb/s download; LTE Bands 2,4,5,12,13 SIM card – nano-SIM socket with hologram starter SIM included with free 1MB/month starter plan included BLE module – u-blox NINA-B301 Open CPU Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy Radio based on Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 chipset, Zephyr RTOS with Bluetooth HCI UART Host Interface. BLE Rates up to 2Mbps Antennas – 2x […]

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

May 9, 2019May 13, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

$25 Wechip X88 Pro TV Box Features Low Cost Rockchip RK3318 Processor

With RK3328 SoC, Rockchip already has a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor with an Arm Mali-450MP GPU, more exactly a Mali-450MP2 GPU. However, that GPU was found to underperform the penta-core Mali-450MP3 GPU handling graphics in Amlogic S905X processor. If that listing on Aliexpress is correct, it appears the company has made another quad-core Cortex-A53 processor with the same penta-core Mali-450MP3 GPU as found in the Amlogic processor. [Update: The description is wrong, and RK3318 GPU is not faster, so it must be the same (TBC). RK3318 is just a cost-down version of RK3328, but details have not been provided] The new Rockchip RK3318 processor can be found in Wechip X88 Pro TV box with the following specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3318 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with penta-core Arm Mali-450MP3 GPU @ up to 750 MHz System Memory – 2 or 4GB RAM Storage – 16, 32 or 64GB […]

May 9, 2019May 10, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

$40 Elecrow 5″ HDMI Raspberry Pi Display Features Backlight Control, a Resistive Touch Panel

There are plenty of small touch screen displays for Raspberry Pi board, including the official 7″ display that connects to the board’s MIPI DSI connector. Some people may prefer getting a small HDMI display however, as it can be used with most devices with an HDMI input port, and the touch screen function may be achieved over USB, I2C or SPI depending on the design. Elecrow has just launched a new 5″ HDMI display with resistive touch screen designed for the Raspberry Pi boards, and whose main feature is to support backlight control over GPIO 11 in order to lower power consumption according to the announcement tweet from the company. Specifications for RPD19048A display: Screen – 5″ TFT resistive touch screen display with 800×480 resolution @ 60 Hz; LCD Driver IC – Display Future ILI9486L (Likely wrong as this only supports 480×320 resolution) Touch controller – XPT2046 4-wire resistive […]

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