Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft), Author at CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 6, 2023November 15, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 135 Comments

Giveaway Week 2023 – VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit

VOIPAC IMX8M Industrial Development Kit Review

The 10th edition of CNX Software giveaway week is on! We’ll have seven items to give away this time around: six items that I will send myself from my review samples and one from a company that will offer one of its own IoT development kits… We’ll start this year’s giveaway week with the VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit equipped with an “iMX8M Industrial Pro” system-on-module powered by an NXP i.MX 8M quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, fitted with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, and a WiFi and Bluetooth module. The VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit is quite a feature-rich development board whose main purpose is to evaluate the company’s system-on-module for integration into final products. I tested it last summer showing how to get started with the Yocto BSP by building the image from scratch, booting from the eMMC flash or a microSD card, and testing several features such as networking, […]

November 5, 2023April 30, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

Raspberry Pi 5 review – Part 2: Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, benchmarks, power consumption, and more

Raspberry Pi 5 Review Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm

A few days ago I finally went through the Raspberry Pi 5 kit I received last September going through all the items and booting it with Raspberry Pi OS bookworm. I’ve now had time to perform more tests to check out the performance with benchmarks and test various features on the Raspberry Pi 5. So I’ll report my experience in the second part of the review and compare the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC to the Raspberry Pi 4 and some other Arm Linux SBCs.

System information in Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm

Last time around, I installed the Raspberry Pi 5 in its official case, but for most of the testing, I decided to go back to the bare board fitted with its active cooler since it’s the best cooling option as we’ll see further in the review.

November 4, 2023November 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Makeblock mBot Neo robot review with Smart World Add-on Pack

MakeBlock mBot Neo, also known as mBot2, is an educational robot that builds upon the previous generation mBot1 robot, and the company has sent us a review sample, following our earlier review of the Ultimate 2.0 10-in-1 educational robot kit, along with the Smart World Add-on Pack. The mBot Neo features a new ESP32-based CyberPi control board with WiFi connectivity for IoT and AI support. The robot is also equipped with a 2nd generation Ultrasonic sensor with improved object detection accuracy and status indicator, a built-in 4-ch RGB line sensor that can detect colors, as well as a new drive motor that comes with an encoder for more precise motion control. The mBot Neo robot kit is expandable with metal parts from other Makeblock models, mBuild modules and various electronic modules can be added making it also possible to build custom robots with third-party structural parts. The mBot Neo robot […]

November 3, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0 adds support for ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2

ESP32-C6 ESP32-H2 ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0

Espressif Systems has now released an alpha version of ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0 enabling the new ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2 targets to be programmed with the Arduino IDE, and including a number of new features made possible by the ESP-IDF 5.1 SDK. Announced in 2021, the ESP32-C6 WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5 LE, and 802.15.4 wireless MCU became available in modules and devkits at the beginning of this year, but so far they could only be programmed with the latest version (5.1) of the ESP-IDF framework, and so was the new ESP32-H2 Bluetooth 5.2 and 802.15.4 (Zigbee/Thread) MCU. But fans of Arduino programming can now rejoice as an alpha version of ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0 brings support for the new microcontroller, and a stable release is planned for December 2023. But as you can probably imagine ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0 will also bring lots of other changes since the ESP32 Arduino Core […]

November 3, 2023November 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

$150 BeagleV-Fire SBC features Microchip PolarFire RISC-V SoC FPGA, supports BeagleBone capes

BeagleV-Fire is a new single board computer powered by Microchip PolarFire MPFS025T penta-core RISC-V SoC FPGA that follows the BeagleBone Black form factor for compatibility with BeagleBone capes expansion boards. Microchip PolarFire RISC-V SoC FPGA was one of the first Linux-compatible RISC-V SoCs and was found in pricey boards such as the Icicle and TySOM-M-MPFS250 development boards. I also got an Icicle board for review, and while getting started with the Yocto Linux BSP was OK, I really struggled with the FPGA part including just installing Libero SoC in Ubuntu and going through the license, and even I gave up trying to run a bitstream sample on the board due to a lack of time. The BeagleV-Fire makes it much cheaper to try out the PolarFire and hopefully makes it easier to get started with both Linux and the FPGA fabric through easier-to-understand documentation and code samples. BeagleFire-V specifications: SoC […]

November 3, 2023November 3, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Arm makes strategic investment in Raspberry Pi

Arm has just acquired a minority stake in Raspberry Pi through a strategic investment in order “to deliver critical solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) developer community.” Paul Williamson, SVP and GM, Internet of Things Line of Business, Arm explains the rationale behind the investment: Arm and Raspberry Pi share a vision to make computing accessible for all, by lowering barriers to innovation so that anyone, anywhere can learn, experience and create new IoT solutions. With the rapid growth of edge and endpoint AI applications, platforms like those from Raspberry Pi, built on Arm, are critical to driving the adoption of high-performance IoT devices globally by enabling developers to innovate faster and more easily. This strategic investment is further proof of our continued commitment to the developer community, and to our partnership with Raspberry Pi. Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi founder and CEO, also provided remarks: Arm technology has always […]

November 3, 2023June 12, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Mini PC features Intel N100 CPU, 16GB DDR5, 512GB NVMe SSD, WiFi 6 module

GEEKOM Mini Air12 is a new mini PC powered by an Intel Processor N100 CPU with 16GB DDR5 SO-DIMM memory, a 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless module from Azureware. The device also comes with a gigabit Ethernet port, support for up to three displays with HDMI 2.0, mini DP 1.4, and USB-C ports, as well as a few USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and a 3.5mm audio jack, plus a full-size SD card slot and a Kensington lock slot. GEEKOM Mini Air12 specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N quad-core/quad-thread processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – 16GB DDR5-4800 via SO-DIMM socket Storage 512GB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD, upgradeable up to 1TB; note: the socket also supports M.2 SATA drives Full-size […]

November 2, 2023November 2, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

ADATA SE920 USB4 external SSD offers up to 2TB capacity, supports up to 3,800 MB/s data transfers

ADATA SE920 is a small USB4 external SSD with 1TB or 2TB storage capacity that leverages the 40 Gbps connection enabled by USB4 and delivers up to 3,800 MB/s sequential read speed. The storage device supports Thunderbolt 3 & 4 and is backward compatible with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 standards. The USB-C port makes it suitable for mini PCs, laptops, SBCs, and even smartphones, but one potential downside of the small form factor is that it integrates a fan to cool the SSD although the user can enable/disable it by extending/retracting the telescopic case. ADATA SE920 specifications: Capacity – 1TB / 2TB Host interface – USB4 up to 40Gbps, backward compatible with USB 3.2/2.0 Performance Sequential Read – Up to 3,800 MB/s, or in other a 10GB file can be transferred in about 3 seconds Sequential Write – Up to 3,700 MB/s (USB4) or up to 3,200 MB/s (Thunderbolt […]