Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on 8Power Vibration Energy Harvesting Technology Powers Batteryless LPWAN GPS Trackers, MEMS Sensors

8Power Vibration Energy Harvesting Technology Powers Batteryless LPWAN GPS Trackers, MEMS Sensors

While IoT products usually promises one to 10 years battery life, they will be several billions of them, and ARM’s CEO even forecast one trillion IoT devices in the next 20 years. Recharging batteries at home may be fine, but imagine having to recharge or replace batteries on top of electric poles, inside walls, in remote locations, and other hard to reach places, considerable resources would have to be deployed just to replace or recharge battery every year or whenever the battery is close to being depleted.  That’s why work on energy harvesting technology for batteryless devices may be so important, and 8Power is one of the companies working in the field through their vibration energy harvesting technology that is said to harvest up to 10x the power of competing devices under comparable condition thanks to the use of parametric resonance phenomenon. The company has recently announced their Track 100 family […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on This $8 USB Transceiver Can Add 433 MHz Device Support to your Home Automation Gateway

This $8 USB Transceiver Can Add 433 MHz Device Support to your Home Automation Gateway

With the advent of WiFi and Bluetooth IoT, 433 MHz devices are becoming less popular but are still used for doorbells, motions sensors, windows/door sensors, etc… If you have such devices at home, one way to integrate those into your home automation system is to use an ESP8266 WiFi to 433 Mhz bridge between your gateway and 433 MHz capable products. However, you don’t even need the middleman if you use a USB 433 MHz transceiver connected directly to the gateway. Nathan Chantrell found such USB dongle on Banggood for about $8, and managed to make it work with his Debian Gateway using Node-RED. 433 MHz USB dongle and features: Connectivity 433 MHz transceiver Range – up to 30 to 100 meters (Line of Sight) Tx and Rx for PT2262, PT2260, PT2264, PT2240, EV1527, HS2303-PT codes Can transmit multiple signals independently Control interface – Serial over USB @ 9600 bps […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Octa-core Processor To Feature ARM Cortex A75 Cores (Reports)

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Octa-core Processor To Feature ARM Cortex A75 Cores (Reports)

According to reports from China, Qualcomm’s next application processor (or rather mobile platform) will be Snapdragon 845, and if accurate, the comparison table below between the Snapdragon processor and Hisilicon Kirin 970 SoC shows the former will be powered by some customized (魔改) version of yet-to-be announced ARM Cortex 75 cores. Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor will be manufactured using Samsung 10nm LPE processor, come with four custom Cortex A75 cores, four Cortex A53 cores, an Adreno 630 GPU, and an LTE X20 modem supporting LTE Cat 18 for up to 1.2 Gbps download speed. Other features like 802.11ad (High bandwidth, short range WiFi), UFS 2.1, and LPDDR4X were already found on earlier model. I’ve been unable to find further details about ARM Cortex A75 right now, and we have to wait until ARM Techcon 2017 before getting more details. Mobile phones powered by Snapdragon 845 are supposed to start shipping […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on $399 Intel Euclid Robotics Devkit Runs Ubuntu & ROS on Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Processor

$399 Intel Euclid Robotics Devkit Runs Ubuntu & ROS on Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Processor

We’ve seen many mini PC based on Intel Atom x5/x7 “Cherry Trail” processor in the last year, but Intel has also integrated their low power processor into hardware aimed at robotics, such as Intel RealSense development kit based on Atom x5 UP Board and RealSense R200 depth camera. The company has now launched its one-in-all Intel Euclid development kit combining Atom X7-Z8700 processor with a RealSense camera in a single enclosure. Intel Euclid specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Cherry Trail quad core processor @ up to 2.4GHz with Intel HD Graphics Gen 8 System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3-1600 Storage – 32GB eMMC 5.0 flash, Micro SD slot up to 128GB Video Output – micro HDMI port up to 4K @ 30 Hz Audio – 2x I2S interfaces, 1W mono speaker, 3x DMIC with noise cancellation Camera – Intel RealSense ZR300 camera RGB camera – 2MP up to 1080p@30fps, 16:9 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Foxconn Bandott STB is an Amlogic S905D TV Box with Dual HDMI Input, Netflix 4K Support

Foxconn Bandott STB is an Amlogic S905D TV Box with Dual HDMI Input, Netflix 4K Support

So far, we’ve seen two dual tuner set-top boxes powered by Amlogic S905D processor with Sen5 Android STB and Mecool KI Pro, but earlier this year, Foxconn launched Bandott set-top box based on the processor, with any tuner, but two HDMI inputs, and Widevine L1 and PlayReady 3.0 support allowing for 4K video playback for premium services like Netflix (see Bandott page), CatchPlay, iqiyi, and myVideo. BANDOTT BA101 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905D quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with penta core Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 8GB flash Video Output – 1x HDMI 2.0b (HDCP) Video Input – 2x HDMI 1.4 Audio Output – HDMI, and 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet,  dual band Wi-Fi 802.11ac/b/g/n (2×2), Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1 x USB 2.0 DRM – Widevine L1 and PlayReady 3.0 The box runs Android TV 6.0, and was unveiled in […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on PragmatIC Manufactures Ultra Thin and Flexible Plastic Electronics Circuit, Plastic ARM Cortex M0 MCU Coming Soon

PragmatIC Manufactures Ultra Thin and Flexible Plastic Electronics Circuit, Plastic ARM Cortex M0 MCU Coming Soon

Electronics manufacturing now relies on silicon wafers, and it works great for many applications. However, some other applications require or benefit from a cheaper price, thinner circuits, and flexibility, and PragmatIC addresses all those three issues with technology to print electronics circuits on plastic sheets. The technology is said to costs less than 1/10th cost of silicon, with the circuit printed on 10 μm thick flexible plastic “wagers” with support for 10 layers. Circuit starts from basic gates up to ARM Cortex M0/M0+ chip as shown above. Simpler circuits are currently sold for as low as $0.01, but the area for Cortex M0 MCU is 1cm2, and a bit too big for commercial applications, so they plan on shrinking the process to make it commercial viable. ARM is an investor in the company, and PragmatIC is ramping production capacity with the ability to manufacture on billion plastic chips/circuits in 2018. […]

AAEON Intel Arc
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Arduino Cinque Combines SiFive RISC-V Freedom E310 MCU with ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC

Arduino Cinque Combines SiFive RISC-V Freedom E310 MCU with ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC

SiFive introduced the first Arduino compatible board based on RISC-V processor late last year with HiFive1 development board powered by Freedom E310 MCU, but  the company has been working with Arduino directly on Arduino Cinque board equipped with SiFive Freedom E310 processor, ESP32 for WiFi and Bluetooth, and an STM32 ARM MCU to handle programming. Few other technical details have been provided for the new board, but since it looks so similar to HiFive1, I’ve come with up with preliminary/tentative Arduino Cinque specifications: MCU – SiFive Freedom E310 (FE310) 32-bit RV32IMAC processor @ up to 320+ MHz (1.61 DMIPS/MHz) WiSoC – Espressif ESP32 for WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE Storage – 32-Mbit SPI flash I/Os 19x Digital I/O Pins 19x external interrupt pins 1x external wakeup pin 9x PWM pins 1/3 SPI Controllers/HW CS Pins I/O Voltages –  3.3V or 5V supported USB – 1x micro USB port for power, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments on Using GPIOs on NanoPi NEO 2 Board with BakeBit Starter Kit

Using GPIOs on NanoPi NEO 2 Board with BakeBit Starter Kit

NanoPi NEO 2 is a tiny 64-bit ARM development board powered by Allwinner H5 processor. FriendlyELEC sent me a couple of NEO 2 samples together with their BakeBit Start Kit with a NanoHat and various modules via GPIOs, analog input or I2C. I’ve already tested both Armbian with Linux 4.11 and Ubuntu Core Qt with Linux 3.10, and ran a few benchmarks on NanoPi NEO 2. You would normally prefer to use the Armbian image with Linux mainline since it provided better performance, but at the time I was told GPIO support was not there. Configuring NanoPi NEO 2 board with BakeBit library So this week-end, when I decided to test GPIO support and BakeBit Starter Kit, I decided to follow this advice, especially nanopi-neo2-ubuntu-core-qte-sd4g-20170329.img.zip image is still the recommended one in the Wiki. So I went with that image. I’ll use Python examples from Bakebit library, but if you […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC