Back in January, Freescale announced WaRP (Wearable Reference Platform) comprised of the WaRPboard, a tiny board based on Freescale i.MX 6SoloLite running Android, and a daughter board with KL16 Cortex M0+ MCU and several sensors. The company collaborated with Revolution Robotics for the hardware design, and Kynetics for the software, and the platform is now available for pre-order for $149, and a few more details have surfaced since my first article.
The hardware specifications of WaRP are as follows:
- WaRPboard:
- SoC – Freescale i.MX 6SoloLite Cortex A9 processor @ 1GHz with 2D graphics Vivante GC355 and GC320 GPUs.
- System Memory – LPDDR2 (Micron Multi-Chip Package)
- Storage – 4Gbit eMMC (Same Micron MCP chip as for RAM)
- Connectivity – WLAN and Bluetooth 4.0 LE via Murata LBEH17YSHC
- Display I/F:
- MIPI DSI for LCD display + touchscreen
- EPCD for E-Ink Display
- Sensors – Xtrinsic FXOS8700CQ, 6-Axis Sensor with Integrated Linear Accelerometer and Magnetometer.
- Daughtercard:
- MCU – Freescale Kinertis KL16 Cortex M0+ MCU
- Sensors – Xtrinsic MMA955xL Motion-Sensing Pedometer
- Misc – 2x user buttons
- Power – Via micro USB, single cell 500 mAh LiPo battery connected to WaRPboard, or Wireless Charging via daughterboard
There are also two optional displays LCD LH154Q01 and E-ink ET017QC1 that will be available for the board.
The board can be used to develop applications for various type of wearables including activity trackers, sports/heart rate monitors, smartwatches, ECG monitoring, smart glasses, smart clothing, wearable imaging devices, augmented reality headsets, wearable computing and wearable healthcare devices.
Android 4.3 operating system will run on Freescale i.MX 6SoloLite, and a Standard Android SDK will be provided. At this time, there’s still not much other details about software, firmware, hardware design files, and documentation, except the hardware and software will be full open sourced, development can be done with open source development tools without licensing fees needed, and all will be managed via WaRPboard.org community.If you want more information or have questions, you may want to head over WaRPboard Google Group.
As mentioned on the introduction, the board can be pre-order for $149 now, and shipping is expected in September. Depending on your destination. shipping costs can be pretty expensive, as it would cost nearly $100 to ship to Thailand via UPS. The only other shipping option being to pick it up in Texas for free… I can’t find the optional displays in Boardzoo.
Thank you Nanik!
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Just what is this expensive, overpowered pair of boards meant for?