Author: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments on LILYGO T-Energy-S3 ESP32-S3 board offers 18650 battery holder, two 20-pin GPIO headers

LILYGO T-Energy-S3 ESP32-S3 board offers 18650 battery holder, two 20-pin GPIO headers

ESP32-S3 board with 18650 battery holder

LILYGO T-Energy-S3 is an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth IoT board with an 18650 battery holder, a USB-C port for charging and programming, and plenty of I/Os thanks to two 20-pin GPIO headers and a Qwiic connector. We’ve already covered a large number of ESP32-S3 boards and products, including some designs for battery operation such as the Tokay Lite AI camera board, LILYGO’s T7-S3 board, and Smart Bee Designs’ Bee S3 board among others. But that usually means providing a 2-pin connector and charging circuitry to connect a LiPo battery, but the T-Energy-S3 ESP32-S3 board works directly with an off-the-shelf 18650 rechargeable Lithium battery. T-Energy-S3 specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 Espressif Systems ESP32-S3R8 – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration, 512KB RAM, 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16 MB flash Wireless – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth PCB antenna USB – 1x USB […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on NDAA-compliant NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX and Nano bundles target drones

NDAA-compliant NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX and Nano bundles target drones

ARK Jetson Orin Nano NDAA Bundle

ARK Electronics has recently introduced NDAA-complaint NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX and Nano bundles designed for drones with the company’s Jetson PAB (Pixhawk Autopilot Bus) carrier board, an ARKV6X flight controller, and an SSD preloaded with NVIDIA Jetpack and the ARK UI. I’ve come across the board following a post on X pointing to an article on Tom’s Hardware about the US passing a bill called “Countering CCP Drones Act” that would effectively ban DJI drones in the US.  DJI is supposed to have a 90% market share of the U.S. hobby market, a 70% market share of the industrial market, and an over 80% market share of the first responder market, so not everybody will be happy if the bill passes in the senate and becomes enacted by the US president. But US companies making NDAA-compliant hardware and drones may bit mind, and that’s how I discovered ARK Electronics NVIDIA […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on 2.5-inch Pico-ITX SBC features 13th gen Raptor Lake SoC up to Intel Core i7-1370PE

2.5-inch Pico-ITX SBC features 13th gen Raptor Lake SoC up to Intel Core i7-1370PE

Raptor Lake Pico-ITX SBC

AAEON PICO-RAP4 is a 2.5-inch Pico-ITX SBC powered by Intel Raptor Lake processors from the penta-core Intel Processor 300U up to a 14-core Intel Core i7-1370PE, equipped with up to 32GB DDR5 SO-DIMM memory, and supporting M.2 NVMe, SATA, and mSATA storage devices. The Pico-ITX board also features two Ethernet ports (2.5GbE + GbE) with TCC and TSN support, HDMI and eDP/LVDS display interfaces, multiple USB ports, two RS232/RS422/RS485 interfaces, and I2C and GPIO interfaces for further expansion. AAEON PICO-RAP4 specifications: SoC – 13th gen Raptor Lake SoC (one or the other) – Note frequencies shown as base frequencies Intel Core i7-1370PE 14C/20T processor @ 1.9GHz with Intel UHD Graphics; PBP: 28W Intel Core i7-1370PRE 14C/20T processor @ 1.9GHz with Intel UHD Graphics; PBP: 28W Intel Core i5-1340PE 14C/16T processor @ 1.8GHz with Intel UHD Graphics; PBP: 28W Intel Core i3-1320PE 8C/12T processor @ 1.7GHz with Intel UHD Graphics; PBP: […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on ESP32-S3 rotary encoder features 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen display and Qwiic connectors

ESP32-S3 rotary encoder features 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen display and Qwiic connectors

LILYGO T-Encoder Pro

LILYGO T-Encoder-Pro is a rotary encoder based on Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC, equipped with a 1.2-inch AMOLED with touchscreen support, and two Qwiic connectors for expansion. LILIGO T-Encoder was introduced in 2022 with ESP32 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC and a few GPIOs that enabled it to be fitted on a 2-key keypad shield. The LILYGO T-Encoder Pro has a completely different design with a more advanced ESP32-S3 SoC, an integrated touchscreen display, and GPIOs are now exposed through Qwiic connectors instead of headers. LILYGO T-Encoder-Pro specifications: Wireless SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration Memory – 512KB RAM, 8MB PSRAM Wireless – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth Storage – 16 MB flash (W25Q128) Display – 1.2-inch rounded AMOLED with ∅390mm resolution via SH8601A-W14-T06 QSPI controllers; CHSC5816 I2C touch and rotary encoder chip […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments on Radxa Fogwise Airbox AI box review – Part 2: Llama3, Stable Diffusion, imgSearch, Python SDK, YOLOv8

Radxa Fogwise Airbox AI box review – Part 2: Llama3, Stable Diffusion, imgSearch, Python SDK, YOLOv8

Radxa Airbox Fogwise review

After checking out Radxa Fogwise Airbox hardware in the first part of the review last month, I’ve now had time to test the SOPHGO SG2300x-powered AI box with an Ubuntu 20.04 Server image preloaded with CasaOS as well as Stable Diffusion and Llama3 containers. I’ll start the second part of the review by checking out the pre-installed Stable Diffusion text-to-image generator and Llama3 AI chatbot, then manually install imgSearch AI-powered image search engine in CasaOS web dashboard, test the Python SDK in the command line, and run some AI vision models, namely Resnet50 and YOLOv8. Radxa Fogwise Airbox OS installation Radxa only provided an Ubuntu Server 20.04 image last month with only the basics pre-installated. The company has now improved the documentation and also made two images available for the Radxa Fogwise Airbox: Base image (1.2GB) – Based on Ubuntu Server 20.04; contains only Sophon base SDK and backend. Full […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments on AIC8800-based WiFi 6 AX300 USB adapter sells for less than $3

AIC8800-based WiFi 6 AX300 USB adapter sells for less than $3

Cheap WiFi 6 USB dongle

Adding networking capabilities to a computer or SBC has never been cheaper, as we’ve just written about a $12 M.2 RTL8126 5GbE module, and now I’ve come across a WiFi 6 USB adapter based on AIC8800 chipset that sells for under $3 on Aliexpress. I found out about it after we published an article about the Luckfox Pico Ultra W SBC that comes with a 2.4 GHz WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module that happens to be based on an AIC8800DC module. Upon further investigation, I discovered some ultra-cheap WiFi 6 USB dongles were available, but with some caveats such as the lack of 5 GHz support and a speed limited to 300 Mbps. But it can still be interesting, so let’s find out. Specifications: Chipset – AICSemi AIC8800 WiFi – 2.4 GHz 802.11ax WiFi 6 up to 286.8 Mbps Tx power – 20dBm Features – MU-MIMO, OFDMA Operating modes […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Nuvoton NuMicro M2L31 Arm Cortex-M23 MCU embeds up to 512KB high-durability ReRAM, 168KB SRAM

Nuvoton NuMicro M2L31 Arm Cortex-M23 MCU embeds up to 512KB high-durability ReRAM, 168KB SRAM

Nuvoton NuMaker-M2L31KI development board

Nuvoton NuMicro M2L31 is a family of Arm Cortex-M23 microcontrollers clocked up to 72 MHz, equipped with 64KB to 512KB high-durability ReRAM (Resistive Random-Access Memory) with fast write speeds, 40KB to 168KB SRAM. The microcontroller supports 1.71V to 3.6V operating voltage, can operate in the -40°C to 105°C temperature range, and offers a wide range of interfaces available through packages as small as WLCSP 25 (2.5 x 2.5 mm)  and up to LQFP128 (14 x 14 mm). Arm introduced the Cortex-M23 core in 2016 together with the Arm Cortex-M33 core, but while the latter is widely integrated in a large range of designs, we’ve seen fewer Cortex-M23 microcontrollers with some examples being Microchip SAML10/L11 (2018) and more recently, the Renesas RA0 family. Nuvoton adds another option with the Numicro M2L31 that also happens to integrates ReRAM non-volatile memory. Key Features: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M23 core running up to 72 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on DFI X6-MTH-ORN fanless Edge AI Box computer combines 14th Gen Intel Core Ultra SoC with NVIDIA Jetson Orin AI module

DFI X6-MTH-ORN fanless Edge AI Box computer combines 14th Gen Intel Core Ultra SoC with NVIDIA Jetson Orin AI module

DFI X6-MTH-ORN Edge AI Box computer

DFI X6-MTH-ORN is a fanless Edge AI Box Computer that combines an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX/Nano AI module with a 14th Gen Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake-U” 15W processor for AI-driven applications leveraging GPU computing, machine learning, and image processing. It’s a fully modular computer with an Intel COM Express Type 6 or Type 10 module, an NVIDIA Jetson Orin module, and five M.2 sockets for expansion. The fanless embedded system takes up to 64GB DDR5 RAM, supports M.2 NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA storage, offers seven video outputs (3x HDMI, 3x DP+, VGA), and six Gigabit Ethernet ports. The X6-MTH-ORN is designed for industrial applications and environments with serial interfaces, wide 9V-36V DC input, and an extended -20°C to 60°C temperature range. DFI X6-MTH-ORN specifications: Meteor Lake-U SoC (one of the other) Intel Core Ultra 7 165U 12-core (2P+8E+2LPE) processor @ 1.7 / 4.9  GHz with 12MB cache, Intel 4Xe […]

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