sensor

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Getting Started with RabbitMax Flex IoT and Automation Hat for Raspberry Pi

Getting Started with RabbitMax Flex IoT and Automation Hat for Raspberry Pi

At the beginning of the month I showed how to assemble RabbitMax Flex, a Raspberry Pi HAT compliant add-on board for Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin header, that targets IoT and home automation project with its relay, IR transmitter and receiver, I2C headers for sensors, buzzer, RGB LED, and more.  Since I’ve already described the hardware, I’ve spend some time this week-end following the user’s guide to play around with the board using a Raspberry Pi 2 board, and try various features. The user’s manual explains that you need the latest version of Raspbian, but I’d not played with my Raspberry Pi 2 board for a while, so the kernel and firmware were quite old:

So the first thing I had to do was to upgrade Raspbian. There are basically two options to upgrade, either downloading and dumping the latest Raspbian firmware image to your micro SD card, and […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Exilong RF & WiFi Irrigation System Automatically Takes Care of Your Garden Watering (Crowdfunding)

Exilong RF & WiFi Irrigation System Automatically Takes Care of Your Garden Watering (Crowdfunding)

I find it fun to spend time watering the flowers and grass in my garden, but if you’d rather do it automatically then Tevatronic Exilong might be for you as the irrigation system controls up to 4 valves, triggers watering based on RF water sensing sensors via a gateway connected to the cloud through your wireless router. The kit gateway takes care of RF communication with sensors, WiFi connectivity to the cloud server, and turn on and off up to four 24V DC water valve part of your existing installation. It can be configured by iOS or Android mobile app, or your web browser. The other part of the kit are the water pressure sensors that you need to insert into the soil of your garden in order to monitor trees, bushes, and/or flowers. The sensors are using RF (433/915 MHz) communication, send data back to the gateway every minute, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on RabbitMax Flex IoT & Home Automation Board and Kit for Raspberry Pi

RabbitMax Flex IoT & Home Automation Board and Kit for Raspberry Pi

RabbitMax Flex is an add-on board for the Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin headers, namely Raspberry Pi Model A+ and B+, Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi 0, destined to be used for Internet of Things (IoT) and home automation applications thanks to 5x I2C headers, a relay, an LCD interface and more. I’ve received a small kit with RabbitMax Flex boards, a BMP180 temperature & barometric pressure I2C sensor, and a 16×2 LCD display. RabbitMax Flex specifications: Relay – Songle SRD-05VDC-SL-C supporting 125V/250VAC up to 10A, 30VDC up to 10A Storage – EEPROM with some system information for identification IR – IR LED, IR receiver Misc – Buzzer, Button, RGB LED Expansion Header for LCD character display + potentiometer for backlight adjustment 5x 4-pin headers for I2C sensors Dimensions – Raspberry Pi HAT compliant The assembly of the kit is child’s play as you don’t even need […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Sonoff TH10/16 WiFi Relays Support Temperature and Humidity Probes

Sonoff TH10/16 WiFi Relays Support Temperature and Humidity Probes

Sonoff are dirt cheap WiFi AC/DC relay systems based on ESP8266 selling for about $5 with board and case. They are made by ITEAD Studio, and the company has now new versions supporting up to 16A @ 250V, and with a 2.5mm connector to connect external temperature and humidity probes. Two models are available Sonoff-TH10 (10A max) and Sonoff-TH16 (16A max) with the following specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP8266 Tensila L106 32-bit MCU up to 80/160 MHz with WiFi Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with WPA/WPA2 support Relay Sonoff-TH10 – HK3FF-DC5V-SHG supporting 90 to 250 VAC input, up to 10A (2200 Watts) Sonoff-TH16 – Hongfa HF152F-T supporting 90 to 250 VAC input, up to 16A (3500 Watts) Terminals – 6 terminal for mains and load’s ground, live and neutral signals. Misc – 4-pin 2.5mm jack for external probes, LEDs for power and WiFi status Dimensions – PCB: 89.1 x 45.0 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on ZTE CSX Crowd-sourced Project Gets to Concept Phase with Eye-tracking Phone, Robotic Glove, Submersible VR Headset

ZTE CSX Crowd-sourced Project Gets to Concept Phase with Eye-tracking Phone, Robotic Glove, Submersible VR Headset

ZTE launched CSX Project last month in order to design a smartphone or other consumer product based on input from the community. People submitted ideas last month, and voted for the best ideas at the beginning of September, and the results are now in. There used to be a popular proposal to make a ZTE Ubuntu phone, but for some reasons since they may make one anyway, this has not been selected by the jury, and instead the three winning ideas are: Self-Adhesive Smartphone with Optimized User Interface via Eye Tracking System and Split Screen Technology Powerglove (Android application control of hands) VR – Interactive diving mask The first solution had by far the most votes, and the main purpose is to use the phone without touching it. Two laser-focused front cameras would track the eye movement to let the user scroll the screen with eye, while it’s been stuck […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Sensors Predicting The Future – Elderly Persons Fall Prediction and Detection with Kinect, Webcams and Microphones

Sensors Predicting The Future – Elderly Persons Fall Prediction and Detection with Kinect, Webcams and Microphones

Wearables can be used your young children or elderly persons to monitoring their locations or health, and one use case, especially for old age persons, is to detect falls. However, it’s quite possible they don’t like it and/or not always wear it, so the Center for Eldercare and Technology of the University of Missouri designed a system based on Microsoft Kinect, two webcams, and microphones in order to detect falls, and even predict falls by analyzing gait, i.e. the pattern of movement of the limbs. The picture above shows at least part of the hardware setup with the Kinect, a webcam, and a PC  tower doing the processing stored in a cupboard. Fall detection algorithms are relying on the microphone array, Microsoft Kinect depth camera, and a two-webcam system used to extract silhouettes from orthogonal views and construct a 3D voxel model for analysis. Passive gait analysis algorithms are for […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on vESPrino ESP8266 USB WiFi Dongle Supports Add-on Boards (Crowdfunding)

vESPrino ESP8266 USB WiFi Dongle Supports Add-on Boards (Crowdfunding)

Last month, I wrote about WiThumb a USB WiFi adapter based on ESP8266 processor which can conveniently be plugged into any USB port for power and programming. However, the hardware design was questionable with the WiFi PCB antenna placed close to other components, and a temperature sensor likely to get pretty hot inside the case. There’s now another device based on a similar concept with vESPrino USB stick that also expose a few I/Os through its enclosure. ESPrino specifications: WiFi module – ESP-12 FCC & CE Certified module based on Espressif ESP8266 USB – 1x micro USB port, 1x USB port Expansion – 6-pin female header with 4 GPIOs, 5V and 3.3V Programming & debugging – Via USB through CH340G USB 2 Serial adapter Misc – Push button (GPIO0), WS2812b RGB LED (GPIO2), temperature sensor connected to ADC? (not visible on schematics) Power Supply – 5V through micro USB or […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments on FTLAB FSG-001 is a $30 Geiger Counter / Radiation Detector for Android & iOS Smartphones

FTLAB FSG-001 is a $30 Geiger Counter / Radiation Detector for Android & iOS Smartphones

I’ve just read an article on Tizen.org about Samsung and Intersoft Eurasia collaboration about a “personal radiation monitoring device DO-RA” sending data over Bluetooth 4.0 LE. But a visit to their website showed other models such as DO-RA-Q using a 3.5mm audio jack, and compatible with smartphone, and Windows & Linux computer. I could not find any of their devices for sale, so I searched for some alternatives, and I found FTLAB FSG-001 radiation counter on Aliexpress, Amazon and eBay selling between $30 and $40. FTLAB FSG-001 Geiger counter specifications: Radiation measurement of: gamma, X-rays Measurement range – 0.1 to 200 μSv/h Measurement error –  <30% within a given deviation between Dimensions – Φ10 x 30 mm (total length: 47mm with 3.5mm audio jack) Weight – 6 grams Operating temperature – 10 to 40 ℃ You’ll need to plug the dongle into your smartphone audio jack, and download FTLAB “SmartGeiger” […]