PicoUART6 Raspberry Pi 5 UART USB bridge
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PicoUART6 6x UART to USB bridge supports up to 6 Raspberry Pi 5 boards

PicoUART6 is a small USB to UART bridge board that takes a Raspberry Pi Pico board and exposes six UART ports to connect up to six Raspberry Pi 5 SBC’s over the new 3-pin UART connector. The Raspberry Pi 5 has created a lot of buzz since its announcement in September 2023, and people most talked about its higher performance compared to a Raspberry Pi 4 and its new (non-standard) FCP PCIe connector,  but the new Raspberry Pi SBC also features a 3-pin JST UART connector that was not used in earlier and frees 3-pin on the 40-pin GPIO header. The PicoUART6 board makes use of this new connector to interface multiple Raspberry Pi 5 over UART and control them through the USB board of the Pico board. PicoUART6 specifications: Footprint for Raspberry Pi Pico board Serial – 6x 3-pin JST UART connectors Expansion – STEMMA QT/Qwiic I2C connector Debugging […]

ODROID M1S RK3566 SBC
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ODROID-M1S is a smaller, cheaper, and more efficient Rockchip RK3566 SBC with additional GPIOs

Designed for Hardkernel’s 15th anniversary, the ODROID-M1S is a smaller, cheaper ($49 and up), and more efficient single computer board compared to the ODROID-M1 single board computer introduced last year with a Rockchip RK3568 SoC. The new ODROID-M1S SBC features a Rockchip RK3566 SoC which is similar to the RK3568, but with fewer peripheral interfaces, 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4 memory, a 64GB eMMC flash solder on the board (instead of an eMMC flash connector), HDMI 2.0 and MIPI DSI video interfaces, gigabit Ethernet, a few USB ports, and two GPIO headers. It does lose a few features compared to the ODROID-M1, as its memory is clocked at a lower speed, the M.2 socket only supports PCIe 2.1, the SPI flash and SATA port are gone, and so is the MIPI CSI camera connector. The power supply has also changed from a 12V DC jack to a 5V USB-C port. ODROID-M1S […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
RaZBerry 7 Pro Z-Uno2 Z-Wave Review
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Review of RaZberry 7 Pro Z-Wave Raspberry Pi HAT and Z-Uno2 Z-Wave board

Z-Wave.Me has sent us a couple of Smart Home devices based on Z-Wave technology for review, namely the RaZberry 7 Pro Raspberry Pi HAT and the Z-Uno2 board. The Swiss company has primarily developed Z-Wave products for years and is a member of the Z-Wave Alliance. For those who are concerned about the issues of signal interference in the 2.4GHz range (WiFi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, and Thread), Z-Wave technology is an excellent choice because it operates on a less congested frequency range of 800-900MHz and the technology has been around for more than 20 years, resulting in a wide variety of Z-Wave devices available in the market, and they can work well together across different brands due to a proper certification process which is another advantage when compared to other protocols. The two devices we received are RaZberry 7 Pro, which is a shield that plugs into the 40-pin GPIO header […]

Arduino Portenta Hat Carrier
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The Portenta Hat Carrier board adds Raspberry Pi HAT support to the Portenta X8 SBC

The Arduino Portenta Hat Carrier board aims to interface the Linux-capable Portenta X8 board with the vast ecosystem of Raspberry Pi HAT (Hardware on Top) expansion boards. Introduced last year, the Arduino Portenta X8 is the first Arduino Pro hardware that can run Linux thanks to its NXP i.MX 8M Mini Arm Cortex-A53 quad-core processor. But it comes in a tiny 66.04 x 25.4 mm form factor which may be great for integration into products, but for prototyping or design of products such as IoT gateways, the company has now launched the Portenta Hat Carrier that enables the board to easily connect with the Raspberry Pi HATs available today. Portenta Hat Carrier specifications: Compatible with the Portenta X8 board and future Portenta with the same high-density connectors Storage – MicroSD card slot Camera I/F – MIPI CSI camera connector (CNXSoft: Arduino does not explicitly say whether it’s compatible with the […]

Raspberry Pi 5
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Raspberry Pi 5 SBC launched with 2.4 GHz Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Cortex-A76 SoC

The long-awaited Raspberry Pi 5 SBC is finally here with a powerful Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Cortex-A76 processor clocked at 2.4 GHz, 4GB or 8GB memory, and the usual Raspberry Pi Model B form factor. The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was introduced in June 2019, so it took over four years to get a new model, and the Raspberry Pi 5 should deliver 2 to 4 times the performance, compete directly with Raspberry Pi-shaped Rockchip RK3588S SBCs such as the Radxa Rock 5A or Cool Pi 4 Model B and benefit from a larger community and better software support. Raspberry Pi 5 specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2712 CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor @ 2.4 GHz with crypto extensions, 512KB per-core L2 caches, 2MB shared L3 cache GPU – VideoCore VII GPU @ 800 MHz with support for OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.2, 4Kp60 HEVC decoder System Memory – 4GB […]

Orange Pi Zero 2W
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Orange Pi Zero 2W – A Raspberry Pi Zero 2W alternative with up to 4GB RAM

As its name implies the Orange Pi Zero 2W is an alternative to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with basically the same features and form factor, but equipped with a slightly more powerful Allwinner H618 quad-core Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.5 GHz, and more RAM options from 1GB to 4GB. The new Orange Pi board comes with a mini HDMI port, two USB-C ports, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module, a microSD card for the OS, a 16MB SPI flash for the bootloader, the usual 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header, and a 24-pin “function” connector used for expansion boards and located where the camera connector is on the Pi Zero 2W. Orange Pi Zero 2W specifications: SoC – Allwinner H618 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5GHz with 1MB L2 cache and Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.0/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 System Memory – […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Raspberry Pi CM4 RISC-V CPU module
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Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible RISC-V SoM features StarFive JH7110 SoC

We’ve seen many Arm-based system-on-modules following the Raspberry Pi CM4 form factor, but we’ve now got a RISC-V one courtesy of the Milk-V Mars CM CPU module powered by a StarFive JH7110 quad-core RISC-V SoC. The RISC-V module comes with up to 8GB RAM, a 16MB SPI flash, an optional eMMC flash, onboard GbE PHY, and a wireless module with WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 plus the two 100-pin board-to-board connectors offering (partial) compatibility with carrier boards made for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. Specifications: SoC – StarFive JH7110 CPU – Quad-core RISC-V processor (RV64GC) at up to 1.5GHz GPU – Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU with support for OpenCL 1.2, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.2 VPU H.264 & H.265 4Kp60 decoding H.265 1080p30 encoding JPEG encoder / decoder System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4 Storage SDIO 2.0 (options to eMMC) 16MB NOR flash Networking Gigabit Ethernet PHY (YT8513C) […]

Orange Pi Compute Module 4
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Orange Pi Compute Module 4 – A low-cost Rockchip RK3566-powered alternative to Raspberry Pi CM4

Orange Pi Compute Module 4 is a system-on-module mechanically and electrically compatible with the Raspberry Pi CM4, but powered by a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 AI processor just like the Radxa CM3 introduced a few years ago, or more recently the Banana Pi BPI-CM2 (RK3568). The new module, also called Orange Pi CM4 for shorts, comes with 1GB to 8GB RAM, 8GB to 128GB eMMC flash, and an optional 128/256MBit SPI flash, as well as a Gigabit Ethernet PHY and on-board WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0. It comes with the two 100-pin high-density connectors found on the Raspberry Pi CM4, and a smaller 24-pin connector for extra I/Os. Orange Pi Compute Module 4 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.8 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoding, 1080p100f H.265/H.264 video encoding System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications