Pinephone Keyboard
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PinePhone Keyboard to make for a cheaper, albeit slower Cosmo Communicator

Pine64 PinePhone is a popular Linux smartphone among the developers and Linux enthusiasts’ communities and some of the most popular Linux operating systems support by the phone include KDE Plasma Mobile, PostMarket OS, Manjaro, and UBports for an Ubuntu Touch like interface. But soon, you’ll be able to use your PinePhone like a portable Linux computer, a 5.95-inch mini laptop of sorts, that’s similar to the 2-in-1 Cosmo Communicator device, but at a much lower price, albeit with lower performance, thanks to PinePhone Keyboard accessory. The PinePhone Keyboard is not quite ready yet, but Lukasz Erecinski  (aka Luke) has shared the progress of the latest version of the prototype, and almost looks like a finished product, albeit we’re told another revision will be made as the tolerances on the keycaps are not suitable. Here are some of the main features we can expect from the keyboard: QWERTY keyboard (by default). […]

Best Intel AMD single board computers for makers
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The 5 best Intel & AMD single board computers for makers

A few weeks ago, we wrote a list of what we consider to be the top 5 most powerful Arm SBC’s and development kits, and this time around we’ll cover x86 SBC’s powered by Intel or AMD processors. But this time around, instead of focusing on the most powerful x86 single board computers which would lead to unaffordable, industrial Xeon SBC’s, we’ll be looking into the 5 best boards designed for makers. That means affordable pricing, I/O headers, and community support. The list is in no particular order. Rock Pi X – x86 on the cheap If you ever wanted the cheapest possible x86 board, Atomic Pi SBC $35 price tag was hard to beat, but it was only cheap because it was sourced from a failed robotics project, and not very convenient to use. But now in 2021, the cheapest x86 SBC that can run Windows is clearly Rock […]

Graperain Samsung, Rockchip RK3588, and Qualcomm CPU modules, SBCs, and carrier boards
Arduino Edge Control
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Arduino unveils Edge Control board for smart agriculture

Arduino hardware and software have been used for smart agriculture applications for years, but Arduino has now launched a board part of its Arduino Pro program specifically designed for smart farming. Meet Arduino Edge Control. Powered by a Nordic Semi nRF52840 Bluetooth microcontroller, the board offers the usual digital & analog I/O’s, plus four 60/V2.5A solid-state relays, hydrostatic watermark sensor inputs, support for DC or solar power input, and can be augmented with one or two Arduino MKR boards for WiFi, 3G NB-IoT, or LoRaWAN connectivity. Arduino Edge Control specifications: MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ 64 MHz with 1MB flash, 256KB SRAM Additional storage – 2 MB QSPI flash memory, MicroSD card slot Connectivity Bluetooth LE Optional Wifi, 2G, 3G, NB-IoT, eMTC, and/or LoRaWAN via Arduino MKR board USB – Full-speed 12 Mbps micro USB port Expansion I/Os Digital Input – 6x edge-sensitive wake-up pins Digital […]

Samsung Galaxy Upcycling light sensor
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Samsung Galaxy Upcycling at Home program aims to repurpose older phones into IoT devices

Electronics waste, also as known as e-waste, has been a problem talked about for years, and in 2015 we asked the question “What do you do with your old devices and boards?” as many devices just end up collecting dust or stored in a drawer. Some better ways include giving or selling them to others, or repurpose them. For instance, a cheap Arm HDMI dongle can make a torrent downloader, an old phone can be transformed into a surveillance camera, an ATX power supply could be converted into a bench power supply, etc… But repurposing devices require some technical skills which many of the smart CNX Software readers have, but it’s unrealistic to expect the typical consumer to be able to hack their old devices into new ones using some tutorials found on the Internet. Samsung Galaxy Upcycling Program aims to make recycling upcycling easier for owners of Galaxy smartphones, […]

Dual Ethernet SBC with display
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Dual Ethernet SigmaStar SSD201/SSD202 SBC supports 4-inch or 7-inch displays

SigmaStar SSD201/SSD202 are low-cost, highly integrated SoC’s with a dual Cortex-A7 processor, 64MB to 128MB on-chip RAM designed for Full HD smart displays, but we’ve also found SSD201 in a 4G LTE industrial gateway. There’s now a different type of board based on the SigmaStar processors with Wireless Tag/Industio IDO-SBC2D06-V1B-12W and IDO-SBC2D06-V1B-22W  SBC’s powered respectively by SSD201 and SSD202, and both equipped with dual Ethernet and a connector for a 4-inch or 7-inch display. Specifications: System-on-Module (one or the other) IDO-SBC2D06-V1B-12W SBC – IDO-SOM2D01  module with SigmaStar SSD201 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz with 2D GPU, 64MB DDR2,  2Gbit SPI NAND flash IDO-SBC2D06-V1B-22W SBC – IDO-SOM2D01 module with SigmaStar SSD202 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz with 2D GPU, 128MB DDR3,  2Gbit SPI NAND flash Storage – MicroSD card slot Display – 4-lane MIPI DSI connector for 4-inch RGB565 display or 7-inch RGB888 display Audio – 2-pin Microphone connector […]

TinyS2 ESP32-S2 board
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TinyS2 ESP32-S2 board is designed for battery operation

Unexpected Maker has launched a follow-up to the ESP32 based TinyPICO board with TinyS2 board equipped with an ESP32-S2 WiFi processor featuring 4MB flash and 2MP embedded PSRAM. The new board is still designed with a LiPo battery charging circuit, comes with an onboard RGB LED, and while it is compatible with TinyPICO form factor, it has become a little longer with a 41 x 17.8mm footprint to accommodate for extra I/Os. TinyS2 specifications: WiSoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S2FN4R2 single-core processor @ 240 MHz with 4MP SPI flash, 2MP PSRAM Connectivity – 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 plus 3D antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – 12 + 11-pin headers for up to 17x GPIOs, SPI, I2C, UART, ADC, DAC, 5V, 3.3V and BAT signals Misc – Boot and Reset buttons, battery charging status LED, power LED, user-programmable RGB LED that can be shut […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
Beacon EmbeddedWorks iMX8M Som & Devkit
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Zoom i.MX 8M Mini Development Kit supports power usage monitoring

NXP i.MX 8M Mini 14nm Cortex-A53/M4 processor has been around for a couple of years, and several SoM-based development kits are available including Variscite Symphony starter kit, HummingBoard Ripple SBC, or congatec conga-SEVAL007010 evaluation board. Beacon EmbeddedWorks’ Zoom i.MX 8M mini development kit is based on the company’s i.MX 8M Nano System on Module (SOM) and offers features not found on most other devkits or single board computers such as power usage monitoring and control through their Wattson power measurement application. Zoom i.MX 8M mini development kit key features & specifications: System-on-Module SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Mini processor with up to four Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz, an Arm Cortex-M4 real-time core at up to 400 MHz, Vivante 3D & 2D GPU’s System Memory – Up to 8GB of 32-bit wide LPDDR4 memory Storage – eMMC flash, QSPI NOR flash Networking Gigabit Ethernet PHY Wireless module […]

Smallest RP2040 boards
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The Tiniest Raspberry Pi RP2040 Boards – Tiny 2040 & Adafruit QT Py RP2040

The Raspberry Pi Pico officially board for RP2040 MCU has a lot of free space on the PCB. So when third parties made their own board they either added features like camera, display, and sensors as found on like on Arducam Pico4ML board, while others “cut the fat” to the minimum. Some of the tiniest Raspberry Pi RP2040 boards are Pimoroni Tiny 2040 & Adafruit QT Py RP2040, both of which come with the dual-core Cortex-M0+ MCU, a USB-C port, two buttons, some I/O ports, and not much else. Tiny 2040 Pimoroni Tiny 2040 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller@ up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM Storage – 8MB QSPI flash USB – USB Type-C port for power, data, and programming I/Os – 2x 8-pin castellated and through holes for 12 I/Os pins including 4x analog inputs, SPI, I2C, UART, 5V, 3.3V, and GND Debugging – […]

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