$69.99 Amazon Fire TV 2017 TV Box Supports 4K HDR-10 Video Playback

Amazon has just announced a new Fire TV TV box with support for 4K Ultra HD and HDR (High Dynamic Range), and a cheaper price, as it is selling for $69.99 on Amazon US with delivery scheduled to start on October 25, 2017. Amazon Fire TV 2017 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905Z quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz with penta-core Mali-450MP3 GPU System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 8GB flash Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K 60 Hz with HDCP 2.2, Doby Atmos support Video – HDR-10. H.265, H.264 Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi + Bluetooth 4.1 LE USB – 1x micro USB port for power (and optional USB Ethernet adapter) Dimensions – 65 x 65 x 15 mm Weight – 87 grams Amazon just mentions “Amlogic Quad-core 1.5GHz | ARM 4xCA53” for Fire TV processor, so it first assumed it could […]

Review of Vobot Alarm Clock with Alexa

Karl here with a review of Vobot sent By Cafago. I had to Google it when I was asked to review it. Turned out it was an Echo type device with a pixel display and a battery. It started as an Indiegogo campaign. I had been wanting to try to do some sort of voice control with my home automation so I agreed to review it. Vobot Clock C1 Specifications These are pulled from Vobot’s website. No power supply is included but a long USB cable is. Vobot Setup I let my wife do the initial setup as I figured that she would use it the most. She followed the instructions, and it seemed straightforward from what she told me. She said she had to reboot it once during a step but it continued the setup with no problems. She tied to our Amazon Prime account, and she quickly was […]

Design Amazon Alexa Gateways, Robots and Smart Speakers with WisCore Modular Development Kit

RAK Wireless has launched a new development board powered by Mediatek MT7628A processor running OpenWrt with built-in WiFi and Ethernet connectivity, and audio codec and microphone to support Amazon Alexa voice service. Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Z-wave will also be supported via UART modules. Wiscore Specifications: Processor – Mediatek MT7628A MIPS24KEc CPU @ up to  580MHz System Memory –  128MB DDR2 (64 MB optional) Storage – 16 MB flash + micro SD card Audio MicroSemi ZL38062 for audio in and out MicroSemi ZL38067 to handle “Alexa” keyword single or dual digital microphone up to 5 meter range Far field voice wake up Support for echo cancellation Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 2×2 MIMO up to 300 Mbps 2x 10/100M Ethernet (LAN and WAN) Optional UART modules for Bluetooth, ZigBeem Z-Wave USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port Expansion – Arduino headers with UART, I2C, SPI and GPIOs Power Supply – 5V via […]

Amazon AWS Greengrass Brings Local Compute, Messaging, Data Caching & Sync to ARM & x86 Devices

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides cloud computing services to manage & store data from IoT Nodes over the Internet, but in some cases latency may be an issue, and Internet connectivity may not be reliable in all locations. AWS Greengrass provides a solution to those issues by running some of the IoT tasks within the local network in ARM or x86 edge gateways running Linux. You can still manage your devices from AWS cloud, but a Linux gateway running Greengrass Core runtime will be able to run AWS Lambda functions to perform tasks locally, keep device data in sync, and communicate with devices running AWS IoT Device SDK. Greengrass benefits include: Response to Local Events in Near Real-time Offline operation – Connected devices can operate with intermittent connectivity to the cloud, and synchronizes with AWS IoT once it is restored Secure Communication  – AWS Greengrass authenticates and encrypts device data […]

OpenH PULSAR and QUASAR Boards Add 4G LTE Cat M1, or Cat 4/1 to Raspberry Pi Boards

We’ve seen a bunch of IoT boards with 2G connectivity recently including Orange Pi 2G-IoT, Wio GPS, and Nadhat, but while in some countries 2G will still work for many years, those boards are already obsolete – or soon will be – in many other countries. However, finding low cost 3G / 4G  boards is more difficult, and while one solution is to use 3G or 4G USB dongles,  “OpenH – Open Hardware” – part of KLiP Industries – has designed two boards with 4G connectivity provided by Quectel modules. OpenH PULSAR Board PULSAR board is compatible with Arduino Zero and features the following specifications: MCU – Atmel/Microchip SAMD21 ARM Cortex M0+ MCU (the as the one used in Arduino Zero) Connectivity 4G LTE  Cat M1 modem with GPS (Quectel BG96-NA); No external antennas required Bluetooth and NFC Security – Dedicated management CPU with crypto engine Power Supply 10W digital power supply and battery charger with direct solar input FCC […]

$97 MXQ HF10 Android Bluetooth Speaker & TV Box Works with Amazon Alexa

Last fall, I wrote about Eny Technology HF10, a 2-in-1 Android 6.0 TV box & Bluetooth speaker powered by Amlogic S905X processor, but at the time it was still under development, and we did not know all the features. The device has now been launched under the MXQ brand with support for Amazon Alexa voice service, and is up for pre-order for $96.55 on GearBest. MXQ HF10 specifications: SoC –  Amlogic S905X quad core ARM Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5 GHz with Mali-450MP GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot up to 128 GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz Audio HDMI output 2.5″ 10W mono bass speaker with class-D amplifier Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, dual band 802.11 b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port Misc – Power & Play/Pause combo button, […]

Samsung & Amazon Introduce HDR10+ Standard with Dynamic Metadata & Tone Mapping

Most recent 4K Ultra HD televisions support high dynamic range (HDR) through standards such as HDR10, Dolby Vision, or Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG). Samsung and Amazon have jointly introduced an update to HDR10 with HDR10+ that adds dynamic tone mapping & metadata. The companies describe the issues for HDR10′ static metadata as follows: The current HDR10 standard utilizes static metadata that does not change during playback despite scene specific brightness levels. As a result, image quality may not be optimal in some scenes. For example, when a movie’s overall color scheme is very bright but has a few scenes filmed in relatively dim lighting, those scenes will appear significantly darker than what was originally envisioned by the director. HDR10+ will be able to adjust metadata for each scene, and even for each frame, hence solving the issue of darker scenes. If you already own a Samsung TV with HDR10,  it’s not […]

Secure IoT Connectivity with NodeMCU ESP8266 Board, ATECC508A Crypto Chip, Mongoose OS, and AWS IoT

There are many examples of Internet of Things projects, but more often than not the implementation is not secure, either because the device is exposed to the Internet with minimum or no security (worst case), or a gateway (hopefully) provides secure connection to the Internet, but the communication between sensor nodes and the gateway in the local network is not secure, due to memory limitation of the nodes, for example it might be challenging to implement security on ESP8266. Mongoose OS is an open source operating system for the Internet of Things developed by Cesanta working on ESP32, ESP8266, STM32, and TI CC3200, and the developers have demonstrated a secure solution with Mongoose OS running on ESP8266 connecting over a TLS connection to AWS IoT (Amazon Web Service IoT) and using TLS credentials stored in Microchip ATECC508A CryptoAuthentication Device. The addition of ATECC508 chip either using “XplainedPro extension board for […]

EDATEC Raspberry Pi 5 fanless case