GPS/GSM Yon Bike Lamp Let You Track Your Bicycle

Everything is getting smart these days. We’ve got smart phones, smart watches, smart homes, etc…, and now we’ve got smart bicycles thanks to products such as Yon Bike Lamp by Nastek Tecnologia, a Brazilian company, that can track and report your bicycle location for riding statistics and/or in case of theft. There are not that many technical details, but we do know the bicycle taillight features Telit GL865-QUAD GSM/GPRS module supporting 4 GSM bands: 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz, compliant with eCall European directive, and that’s control using Python scripts. The chip most probably helps with location tracking thanks to m2mLOCATE service which accesses a database of over 40 million cell-IDs. The light gets its location via GPS, and connects to the outside via GSM/GPRS and SMS. You can either login to a website or via an Android or iOS app in order to access the light […]

Lantronix XPort Pro Lx6 is a Tiny Embedded Linux Server Fitted into an RJ45 Connector

Lantronix has recently launched XPort(R) Pro Lx6, a secure embedded device server supporting IPv6, that barely larger than an RJ45 connector. The device runs Linux or the company’s Evolution OS, and is destined to be used in wired industrial IoT / M2M applications. Lantronix XPort Pro Lx6 Specifications: Processor – Freescale ColdFire MCF5208 up to 166.67 MHz (TBC) 32-bit processor System memory – 16MB SDRAM Storage – 16MB Flash Serial Interface –  Software selectable data rates from 300 to 921kbps Programmable IO – 3 PIO pins (software selectable) Network Interface – 10Base-T and 100Base-TX Link with support for IPv4 and IPv6, and the following protocols: TCP/IP, UDP/IP, ARP, ICMP, SNMPv2, TFTP, FTP, Telnet, DHCP, BOOTP, HTTP, SMTP, PPP, AutoIP, RSS, and SYSLOG Security – TCP/AES and UDP/AES Temperature Range – Operating and storage: -40° to +85° C Relative Humidity – 0% to 90% non-condensing Regulatory Approvals – FCC Part 15, Subpart […]

Weightless Roadmap – Silicon, Modules, SDKs, Base Stations and Networks

The Weightless Standard aims at using the “white space” spectrum, previously used by analog TV broadcasts, for free M2M / IoT communication coupled with low power and cost-efficient hardware offering a range of over 10 km. Longer term the target is to reach $2 hardware cost, and $2 yearly servicing costs. Companies involved with Weightless include Neul, ARM, CSR and Freescale among others. You can read my previous post about Weightless for a longer overview. The Weightless Special Interest Group (SIG) has recently revealed the hardware roadmap for the new standard, which I’ll summarize below. Weightless Chip Neul Iceni, the first weightless silicon, was officially announced in February 2013. The latest version of the chip taped in May 2013 integrates UHF radio operating between 410 and 790 MHz supporting both TV white space and narrowband operation. It is suitable for low volume production applications. A third generation will be taped […]

Sierra Wireless Airprime WP & AR Series Modules Feature Tricore M2M SoC

Sierra Wireless, a company providing machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions, has recently introduced a new (nameless) architecture for embedded wireless communications comprised of a multicore (again, nameless) “high speed application processor” + Cortex M0 MCU + Radio SoC, secure cloud services (AirVantage) to store the data, and an open application framework with M2M libraries and development tools. This new architecture will be available in the company’s AirPrime WP & AR Series wireless modules to provide 2G to 4G technologies for the Internet of things. WP Series are industrial grade modules to be embedded into applications such as smart metering, remote monitoring, transportation, security systems, networking, and healthcare, whereas AR series will be used for automotive applications. The 2G versions will feature an M2M system-on-a-chip with a advanced tri-core architecture that includes a 2G EDGE modem, a Cortex A5 ARM application processor, and an ARM Cortex-M0 processor to enable ultra-low power operation. The […]

Weightless Overview and Neul Iceni, The First Weightless Chip

The Weightless Special Interest Group (SIG) has recently announced the world’s first transceiver chip using the Weightless Specification and operating over white space spectrum. Neul Iceni chipset makes use of the entire TV white space spectrum to provide low power connectivity for M2M and IoT applications using the Weightless Standard. Weightless Standard Overview Since this is the first time I write about the Weightless standard, let’s see what it is and what will be used for. There has been a lot of talk about the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine communication (M2M), but one of the limiting factor is currently the cost of technology (and networks?) to provide communication. That is where “white space” spectrum comes into play. A large spectrum was used by analog TV channels, and since many countries have now switched to digital TV, part of this spectrum is unallocated (hence the name “white […]

VIA Technologies Announces VIA AMOS-3002 System For Embedded Applications

VIA Technologies has just unveiled the VIA AMOS-3002, a fanless system based on VIA EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX board, targeting embedded applications such as telematics, in-vehicle control, machine to machine controller (M2M), digital signage and kiosks. The VIA EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX board is powered by VIA Eden X2 dual core processor (1GHz) together with VIA VX900H media system processor (MSP) and VIA Chrome 9 video processor which render VIA AMOS-3002 systems capable of handling hardware video decoding for MPEG-2, WMV9 and H.264 codecs at 1080p resolution. Two models are available: AMOS-3002-2D10A1 and AMOS-3002-2D10A1. The latter features a 2.5” SATA hard disk drive bay which is not available in AMOS-3002-2D101A1. Here are the specifications for both VIA AMOS-3002 Models: CPU – VIA Eden X2 @ 1.0GHz Chipset – VIA VX900H Media System Processor Memory – 1x DDR3 1066 204-pin SODIMM socket (Up to 4GB) Storage: 1x CFast Flash disk socket 1 x 2.5” SATA hard […]