CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 3, 2025April 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

PocketCloud – Battery-powered, portable NAS takes up to 16TB of storage (Crowdfunding)

Firefly’s PocketCloud is a battery-powered, portable NAS powered by a Rockchip RK3568B2 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 SoC with 4GB LPDDR5 of RAM and a 32GB eMMC flash for the OS, and supports up to 16TB of NVMe SSD storage. It’s comprised of the battery-powered PocketCloud itself with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and an optional dock with 2.5GbE networking and an additional M.2 NVMe socket. Since I’m unable to find a 16 TB M.2 NVMe SSD for now, I suppose the 16TB claim only works with an 8TB + 8TB configuration with one SSD in the main unit, and the other in the dock. PocketCloud specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568B2 (as found in ODROID-M1 SBC) CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52-2EE AI Accelerator – 1TOPS NPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 32GB eMMC 5.1 flash M.2 PCIe Gen3 socket for M.2 […]

April 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

WattWise – A command line tool for smart power plugs with energy monitoring

Smart Power plugs help users monitor their appliances’ power consumption, and they’d usually check measurements in a mobile app or a web dashboard. Naveen was not satisfied with this workflow while using a TP-link Kasa EP25 Smart Plug to monitor his LLM workstation’s power consumption. So he wrote the WattWise command-line interface (CLI) for power monitoring smart plugs to allow him to throttle his power-hungry, dual AMD Ryzen EPYC 7C13 workstation following his utility’s Time of Use (ToU) pricing in order to lower his electric bill. The Python tool pulls power usage data from smart plugs directly or through Home Assistant and presents it in a neat terminal-based UI. Key features: Real-time power monitoring with wattage and current display Color-coded power values (green < 300W, yellow 300-1200W, red > 1200W) Historical consumption charts directly in the terminal Automatic CPU/GPU throttling based on time-of-use electricity pricing Configurable power thresholds and performance […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

April 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

LILYGO T-Deck Pro – An ESP32-S3 LoRa messenger with e-paper touch display, keyboard, and 4G LTE or audio codec option

LILYGO T-Deck Pro is a LoRa messenger based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.x SoC, and offered with a 3.1-inch e-paper display with touchscreen, a Blackberry-like QWERTY keyboard, a GPS module, speaker, microphone, and a 3.5mm audio, as well as IMU and light sensors. It builds upon the T-Deck Plus design, but replacing the 2.8-inch IPS display with a 3.1-inch e-paper display allows for a slimmer design and should offer longer battery life despite the smaller 1,400 mAh battery used in the new model. Two versions of the T-Deck Pro are available: one with a Simcom 4G LTE modem and a cheaper one with a PCM5102A audio codec. LILYGO T-Deck Pro specifications: SoC – ESP32-S3FN16R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ up to 240 MHz 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB SPI flash Storage – MicroSD card […]

April 3, 2025 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

Batteryless 7.5-inch NFC-powered e-paper display V2 gets new NFC chip and “fast flashing method”

7.5inch NFC Powered e Paper V2 side view

Back in 2020, we wrote about Waveshare’s Batteryless NFC e-paper display, which can work without a battery and draws power and data from an NFC-enabled smartphone or the company’s ST25R3911B NFC board. Waveshare has now released a V2 version of this display with a new and improved NFC chip, a “fast flashing method”, and enhanced contrast. The new batteryless, 7.5-inch NFC-powered e-paper display features an 800×480 resolution and updates via an NFC-enabled smartphone or reader. It offers a 170° viewing angle and comes in a durable ABS plastic shell. The ST25R3911B NFC board allows updates via USB, SD card, or serial port, with an optional password lock. However, precise NFC positioning is required for updates. These features make it ideal for shelf labels, equipment tags, and other applications. Waveshare 7.5-inch NFC e-paper display V2 specifications: 7.5-inch e-paper display 800×480 resolution Display color black and white 170° viewing angle Refresh Time […]

April 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

P42 Pico2 M.2 – A Raspberry Pi RP2350 board in M.2 form factor

The P42 Pico2 M.2 may look like an M.2 module, but it’s actually a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board in M.2 2230 form factor whose edge connector exposes USB, UART, I2C, and control I/Os. The board ships with a 2MB SPI flash and complies with voltage levels defined by the M.2 specification, with some of the interfaces running on 1.8 V. The SWD interface, +3.3 V, GND, and 16 IOs are accessible on castellated pins, and there’s also a QWIIC connector for I2C modules, but it’s not populated by default. The board also comes with a microSD card slot on the bottom and the usual Reset and BOOT buttons. P42 Pico M.2 specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350A CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot OR Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used in any combination Memory – 520 […]

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

NV8600-Nano AI Developer Kit features NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB, quad GbE, Raspberry Pi Camera Module 2

AAEON NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit Raspberry Pi Camera Modules

AAEON NV8600-Nano AI Developer Kit is based on a 67 TOPS NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB and ships with a carrier board with quad GbE, a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 2, a fan kit (heatsink with fan), and a 60W power adapter. The carrier board is also equipped with a 256GB M.2 2280 M-key NVMe SSD, a SATA connector, HDMI 1.4 video output, two MIPI CSI connectors compatible with Raspberry Pi Camera Modules, six USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A ports, a few serial interfaces, a 40-pin GPIO header compliant with the Jetson Orin Nano (Super) developer kit, and two more M.2 sockets for wireless/cellular expansion. NV8600-Nano AI Developer Kit specifications: NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB Module CPU – 6-core Arm Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit CPU @ 1.7 GHz with 1.5MB L2 + 4MB L3 GPU – 1,020 MHz NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 1024 CUDA cores and 32 tensor cores Video […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

10-cent WCH CH570/CH572 RISC-V MCU features 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth LE 5.0, USB 2.0

Patrick Yang, CTO at WCH, has recently unveiled the CH570 RISC-V SoC with 2.4GHz wireless and USB 2.0 (host & device) as an upgrade to the popular CH32V003 general-purpose RISC-V MCU with more features at the same low price (10 cents). CH570 also comes with 12KB SRAM and 256KB flash (vs 2KB SRAM and 16KB flash for the CH32V003), offers up to twelve GPIO, six PWM, I2C, UART, SPI, and a 20-channel key detection module. There’s also the CH572 with the same features, except it also supports Bluetooth LE 5.0. As a side note, I wrote about the CH572 RISC-V MCU with BLE in 2019, but I guess it was scrapped likely because it had OTP instead of flash…, and the new CH572 (2025) is different. WCH CH570/CH572 specifications: CPU core QingKe 32-bit RISC-V3C core @ up to 100 MHz (RV32IMBC instruction set and custom instructions) Low-power 3-stage pipeline High-speed […]

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

TinyBeast FPGA – A Microchip PolarFire MPF300T/MPF100T FPGA PCIe reference design (Crowdfunding)

TinyBeast FPGA is a compact module based on Microchip PolarFire MPF100T or MPF300T FPGA with up to 300K logic elements and a hard PCIe interface that is suitable for automation, measurement, and robotics applications. Two versions of the module are available: the TinyBeast FPGA P mini PCIe module designed for integration with embedded systems, and the TinyBeast FPGA S with B2B connectors designed to be connected to a carrier board. TinyBeast FPGA P TinyBeast FPGA P specifications: FPGA – Microchip PolarFire FPGA TinyBest FPGA P-300 – MPF300T-1FCVG484E FPGA with 300K LE, 10.6 Mbit embedded RAM, 924 DSP blocks TinyBest FPGA P-100 – 100K LE, 5.2 Mbit embedded RAM, 288 DSP blocks System Memory – 4 GB DDR4 memory Storage – SPI flash Host interface – PCIe x1 Gen2 as EP via mini PCIe edge connector Expansion – Samtec SS4-30-3.00-L-D-K I/O connector for GPIOs and up to 12.7 Gbps transceivers Debugging […]