Transform Your ESP8266 Board into a USB to Serial Board Easily with Arduino Serial Bypass Sketch

USB to serial boards are necessary to program and debug boards, and/or access the serial console, and while they are very cheap, you may be in a situation where you don’t have any around, but you do have some Arduino compatible boards. It’s been possible to transform an Arduino board into a USB to TTL debug for several years using ArduinoSerialBypass.ino sketch, but I’ve been informed this also works on ESP8266 boards such as Wemos D1 Mini. The sketch could not be simpler:

The code simply makes sure that Tx and Rx pins are set as inputs in order not to disturb the serial connection as explained below: This code makes the Arduino not interfere with pins 0 and 1 which are connected to RX and TX on the FTDI chip. This allows the data coming from the FTDI USB 2 Serial chip to flow directly to another device. […]

Hornbill ESP32 Development Boards Come with an Optional IP67 Rated Enclosure (Crowdfunding)

While there are plenty of ESP32 development boards, and prices have recently plummeted, getting a case for your project can still be a problem especially if you plan to use it outdoor, as you need to protect your hardware from rain and dust. Hornbill project offers two ESP-WROOM-32 based boards, a prototype board, and an IP67 certified case that could be useful for outdoor use. Hornbill ESP32 Development Boards Let’s start by checking the boards available starting with ” Hornbill ESP32 Dev” board with the following specs: ESP-WROOM-32 module with WiFi, Bluetooth LE,  FCC, CE, IC, MIC (Telec), KCC, and NCC certifications I/O headers 2x 19-pin headers with GPIOs, I2C, UART, SPI, ADC, DAC, touch interface, VN/VP, 5V, 3.3V and GND Breadboard-friendly Debug – Built-in CP21XX USB-to-serial Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port, battery header + single cell LiPo charger Dimensions – TBD ESP32 Minima is also based […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

GIGABYTE BRIX IoT Apollo Lake Fanless mini PC is Designed for the Internet of Things, Digital Signage, Thin Clients

GIGABYTE has unveiled BRIX IoT mini PC powered by either Intel Celeron N3450 or Pentium N4200 processor both part of Intel’s Apollo Lake family, and as the name implied the devices target Internet of Things applications. GIGABYTE BRIX IoT specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Celeron  N3450 quad core processor @ up to 2.2GHz with Intel HD graphics 500 (6W TDP) Intel Pentium N4200 quad core processor @ up to 2.5GHz with Intel HD graphics 505 (6W TDP) System Memory – 2x SO-DIMM DDR3L slots @ 1333/1600/1866 MHz up to 8GB Storage – 1x M.2 slot, 1x micro SD slot, optional 32 or 64GB eMMC flash Connectivity Dual Gigabit Ethernet via Realtek RTL8111HS Intel Dual band Wireless-AC 3165 module with two SMA antenna connectors 3G via mini PCIe slot and SIM card slot with one SMA antenna connector Video Output – Dual HDMI 1.4b up to 3840×2160 @ 30 […]

Azul Systems’ Zulu Embedded is a Build of OpenJDK for ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and x86 Compliant with Java SE standard

Yesterday as I wrote about the Embedded Systems Conference 2017 schedule I came across a potentially interesting talk entitled “Building A Brain With Raspberry Pi and Zulu Embedded JVM” by Azul Systems that will explain how to build a brain emulator using a cluster of Raspberry Pi boards. I wanted to find more about it, but I have not been able to find any details about the project/demo at this stage. However, I could still learn a bit more about Zulu Embedded, which is said to be an open source Java Virtual Machine based on OpenJDK, compliant with Java SE standard, working on 32-bit & 64-bit ARM & x86, MIPS, and PowerPC, as well as  multiple operating systems. Some of the key features of Zulu Embedded include: Java Support – Java 6, 7, 8, and 9 when available Java Configurations – Headless, headful, or compact Java Compact Profiles Hardware – […]

UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE IoT Modules Integrate Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and 6LOWPAN Connectivity

UDOO is known for their Linux boards based on NXP and Intel processors for makers and the education market such as UDOO NEO or UDOO x86, but the company has now developed UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE battery powered modules based on Texas Instruments CC2650 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, both with Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and 6LOWPAN connectivity, and the SENSE model adds some extra sensors. UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE specifications: Wireless MCU – Texas Instruments CC2650 ARM Cortex M3 MCU @ 48 MHz with 128KB flash, 8KB SRAM with 2.4 GHz radio Connectivity – Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), ZigBee, 6LoWPAN Sensors (BLU SENSE only) –  NXP FX0S8700CQ accelerometer & magnetometer sensor, NXP FXAS21002C gyroscope & temperature sensor Expansion 1x 5-pin sensors Snap-In I2C connector for UDOO Bricks 2x 10-pin headers with 8x Digital GPIOs, 6x ADCs, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 1x UART Misc – 3x User Configurable LEDs (Red, […]

That USB Stick Looks Suspicious! Camera, Microphone and Battery Included.

I had previously read about USB flash drives dropped on the parking with some malware, so that if you pick it up and use it it infects your computer in order to spy on your activity. But I browser new arrivals on DealExtreme, I found another nefarious use case thanks to U8 Mini USB drive / spy camera sold for around $10 shipped. If we look the picture below, it looks just like any other USB flash drives.But once we have a closer look at U8 mini specifications: USB – 1x USB 2.0 male port Storage – micro SD slot up to 32GB (no internal storage) Camera Video up to 720 x 480 @ 25~30fps recording to AVI/M-JPEG Photo up to 1280×1024 in JPG format Audio recording with built-in microphone Misc – Motion detection camera button, power button, picture button, status LED Battery – 300 mAh good for about 60 […]

AAEON Intel Arc

Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 Tablet Launched with Mediatek MT8176 Hexa-Core Processor, 7.9″ Display

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 was powered by an Intel Cherry Trail, but the Chinese company has decided to go back to ARM for the third iteration of their MiPad tablet as they used Mediatek MT8719 hexa-core Cortex A72/A52 processor with 4GB RAM, 64GB flash, and the same 7.9″ display with 2048 x 1536 resolution. Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT8176 hexa-core processor with 2x ARM Cortex A72 cores @ 2.1 GHz, 4x ARM Cortex A53 cores @ 1.7 GHz, and Imagination PowerVR GX6250 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR3 Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, no micro SD slot Display – 7.9″ capacitive touch screen IPS LCD display with 2048 x 1536 resolution Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2 LE Camera – 5MP front-facing camera, 13 MP rear camera with auto-focus, dual LED flash USB – 1x USB type C […]

Canonical Refocuses Ubuntu Development Efforts on Cloud and IoT, Drops Convergence and Mobile

Mark Shuttleworth has published a new blog post in Ubuntu Insights, and this is not all good news, as the title “Growing Ubuntu for Cloud and IoT, rather than Phone and convergence” implies. Canonical has decided to drop Unity8, and replace it with Gnome in Ubuntu 18.04, and by extension stop any investment in Ubuntu phone and convergence. The main reasons given for the drop were that few commercial partners were interested in the project, preferring to stick with the most popular mobile operating systems like Android, and the community did not see the work as innovation, but instead fragmentation, probably referring to the Mir vs Wayland saga. On the better news, Canonical is still committed to work on Ubuntu desktop, and will focus on the Cloud and IoT applications such as automotive, robotics, networking, and machine learning, for which the company has gone well so far with multiple commercial […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC