Newyes SyncPen Bluetooth Pen Digitizes Your Handwriting to the Cloud (Crowdfunding)

Neweyes SyncPen

When I first found out about SERVO K07 bluetooth pen last month, I initially hoped it would allow users to digitize their handwriting or drawing and synchronize it to their phone or cloud, but it was not to be the case and instead it was just a 6-in-1 phone/pen/audio player/audio recording/camera/flashlight. But Newyes SyncPen does exactly that: it allows you to write on paper or a writing pad while digitizing your creation on the fly, and storing the result in the cloud. It works thanks to a tiny camera embedded in the pen capturing data at 200 fps. Newyes SyncPen hardware specifications: Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.2 Memory – 32MB, enough to store 800 pages of A5 paper content Pressure levels – 1024 Tiny camera @ 200+ fps Audio – Microphone Battery – 3.4V / 260 mAh Lithium Polymer battery good for about 8 hours; 1.5 hours charging time Dimensions – […]

$100 Reolink Argus 2 is a Wire-Free IP Camera with Optional Solar Panel

Reolink Argus 2 Security IP Cam

This morning I had a look at battery-powered IP cameras since they avoid the hassle of wiring power and/or Ethernet around the house. I could remember I covered Immedia Blink IP camera with up to 2-year battery life back in 2014, and the company did very well since it got acquired by Amazon, and Blink IP security camera is now sold on Amazon US for $99.99 and up. It’s probably one of the best, if not the best options, for low-cost battery-powered cameras but the problem is that they only ship to a limited number of countries. Last year, there was a new entrant with Eufy Evercam outdoor IP camera with up to one year of battery life, but again it’s not easy to purchase from overseas, and the price starts at $279.99 for a single camera system. I also covered a solar and battery powered IP camera made by […]

MUJA Touch Sensitive Gamepad Sticks to the back of Smartphones (Crowdfunding)

Gaming on smartphones has given rise to various accessories including smartphone gamepads, and smartphone docks to connect USB keyboard and mouse. MUJA is yet another Bluetooth gaming accessories that sticks to the back of your phone and offers four touch sensitive zones enabled 6 fingers operation once you include your two thumbs taking care of handling the control on the touch screen display of the phone itself. MUJA smart touchpad specifications: Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.2 up to 10 meters range Buttons – Four touch sensitive areas 17 suction cups to stick on back of smartphone (compatible with 4.7″ smartphone or larger) Battery – 450 mAh good for about 36 hours of playtime, 56 hours in standby Dimensions – 133 x 68 x 5.4mm Weight – 59 grams Certifications – PSE, telecom, FCC ,CE, RoHS You’ll just need to install MUJA app for Android or iOS on your smartphone with supports […]

Mictrack MT825 is a Waterproof LTE Cat M1 & NB-IoT GPS Tracker

MT825 waterproof nb-iot gps tracker

We’ve previously covered Mictrack MT600 4G LTE GPS tracker with support for various GPS software such as the open source OpenGTS and Traccar programs, as well as Android & iOS mobile apps. Since then the company released MT550 model with NB-IoT and LTE Cat M1 (eMTC) connectivity, as well as an OBD-II model that are currently sold for respectively $99 and $69 on Aliexpress. More recently a waterproof LTE IoT module called Mictrack MT825, which we’ll look into more details in this post. Mictrack MT825 key features and specifications: Cellular Connectivity LTE Cat M1 (eMTC) LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 LTE TDD: B39 LTE Cat NB1 (NB-IoT) – LTE FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B26/B28 2G – GSM: 850/900/1800/1900Mhz SIM Card interface – Nano SIM Internal LTE CAT M1 & NB-IoT antenna Location U-blox MAX-7 GPS chip GPS sensitivity – -162dBm Channel – 56 Positioning Accuracy – 10m Cold Start – 30s. Warm start – 15s […]

ioLight High Resolution Portable Microscope Works with Tablets and Smartphones

Portable Microscope Android iPhone

We’ve all read about those cheap USB microscopes that can be used to checkout PCB issues or read IC part numbers, but ioLight is a different beast. The device is a proper microscope offering up to 1 μm resolution that could be used by a biologist in the field coupled with an Android mobile device,  an iPhone, or iPad. ioLight portable microscope specifications: Magnification Field of view (FoV) –  1mm fixed width, giving ~ x200 on a 9.7″ screen. Larger screens give greater magnifications Digital zoom on captured image to x500 on 9.7″ screen Resolution – 1µm (0.001 mm) Working distance – 1mm from lens to sample Illumination – Adjustable top and bottom illumination Sample stage – Glass Image / Video format 5MP (2592 x 1944 pixels); JPEG; color MPEG-4; color; up to 1296 x 972; 10 fps Images and videos are stored in the tablet’s camera roll ready for […]

Geekbes BR30 WiFi RGB Light Bulb Delivers 900 Lumens

We’ve previously covered two smart RGB light bulbs with AI Light and Sonoff B1 models, and they are especially interesting since they can work with open source firmware like ESPurna or Sonoff-Tasmota. However, their brightness is limited, and in the case of Sonoff B1 it’s especially true when using colors other than white. A brighter WiFi RGB LED light bulb might be Geekbes BR30 which is said to be rated 9W and delivers 900 lumens against the 6W / 600 lumens for Sonoff B1, and does not cost more much at $19.99 on GeekBuying. Geekbes BR30 specifications: Color – White: 2700K-6500K + RGB (16 million colors) Brightness – 900 lm Light emitting angle – 120 degrees E26 plug Connectivity – WiFi Supply Voltage – AC100-240v 50-60HZ Rated Power – 9W Standby Power – <= 0.3 W Service life –  20000 hours Temperature Range – -20 to +40°C Ingress Protection Rating […]

Tail it is a Family of WiFi & Cellular GPS Trackers for Things, Pets, and Bicycles (Crowdfunding)

Tail It Cellular GPS Tracker

We’ve previously written about Ping, a tiny Cellular GPS tracker that promised to last 3 months on  a charge. The raising money part of the crowdfunding campaign itself was successfully with over one million dollars raised, but as with many such campaigns there have been delays, and some people still have to receive theirs, not to mention people complaining about poor battery life and other issues. But there seems to be another option now with Tail It Technologies now offering four different “Tail it” cellular GPS trackers (with WiFi too) for things, pets, and even one designed specifically for bicycles. The company has already sold their devices to thousands of customers in Norway, so they should be working, and on-time delivery should hopefully not be an issue. All four GPS trackers come with 2G, 3G, 4G, and WiFi connectivity,  a 5-meter accuracy, and share the same electronics and firmware. Here’s […]

Firewalla is a Tiny Firewall Appliance Based on NanoPi NEO Board

Firewalla NanoPi NEO Firewall

FriendlyELEC Nanopi NEO and NEO2 boards are really cool and inexpensive little Arm Linux boards suitable for all sort of headless application. I’ve reviewed one with their NAS Kit, and run one around the clock as a Domoticz/MQTT server. So it should come as no surprise that some people want to leverage the hardware in their own products, and Firewalla most likely relies on a NanoPi NEO board for their cute firewall/parental control/VPN appliance.Firewalla specifications: SoC – Unnamed quad-core Arm processor @ 1.0 GHz System Memory – 512 Megabyte DDR RAM Storage – 16GB MicroSD Storage Connectivity – 100 Mbit Software Packet Processing Power – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – 2.8 cm thick The device ships with a flat Ethernet cable, a USB power cable and US type power adapter, and a one year limited manufacturer warranty. The company does not actually mention NanoPi NEO board anywhere, but the specifications […]