We’ve previously covered inexpensive Kimax’ Ethernet & WiFi HDD enclosures for 2.5″ SATA drives, powered by MediaTek processor and running OpenWrt. If you need something more powerful and versatile yet still affordable, the easiest way is now likely to go with SBC based solutions such as ODROID-HC1/HC2 or dual SATA NAS enclosure for RockPro64. There may be another interesting option, as I’ve just been informed about another model of those networked HDD enclosure called Blueendless X3 “HDD NAS case” with Ethernet only (no WiFi), and that is equipped with the same Marvel ARMADA 3720 dual core Cortex-A53 processor as found in Marvell ESPRESSOBin board. Blueendless X3 specifications: SoC – Marvell ARMADA 3720 (88F3720) dual core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.1 GHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR3 Storage – 16GB eMMC flash for OS, SATA 3.0 interface for 2.5″ drives based on ASMedia ASM1092R port multiplier Networking – 1x […]
ToyBrick RK3399Pro Board Shown to Outperform Jetson Nano SBC
NVIDIA created a lot of buzz when they released $99 Jetson Nano SBC featuring a 128-core Maxwell GPU, and said to deliver 472 GFLOPS of compute performance for running modern AI workloads with a power consumption of around 5 watts. But Jetson Nano is not the only low cost platform to deliver high performance at low power for AI workloads, as for example Rockchip RK3399Pro (RK1808 NPU) found in boards such as Toybrick RK3399Pro is said to deliver 3 TOPS for INT8, 300 GOPS for INT16, and 100 GOPS for FP16 inferences. Those operations per second numbers can be confusing and misleading, so it’s important to check out the performance of actual neural network models, and Rockchip did provide some RK3399Pro benchmarks last year for Inception V3, ResNet34 and VGG16 models comparing the results to Apple A11, Huawei Kirin 970, and NVIDIA Jetson TX2. However, ideally you’d want result from […]
Atomic Pi SBC is back with pre-orders on Amazon and Ameridroid
Atomic Pi single board board is probably the SBC with the best performance / value ratio on the market, so when we reported that Atomic Pi was available worldwide last month the 6,000 pieces available quickly ran out of stock. Many people suspect it was a limited product run from a previous project, and indeed Atomic Pi is most likely AAEON MF-001 board that was designed for Kuri robot designed for the now-defunct Mayfield Robotics. But we have some good news as Atomic Pi SBC does not appear to be a one-off sales getting rid of stock as it’s now back for pre-order on Amazon US and Ameridroid with shipping scheduled for the end of May. I won’t go through the whole specifications again but with an Intel Atom x5-Z8350 quad core processor, 2GB RAM, and 16GB flash, Atomic Pi board has hardware far more powerful than the similarly priced […]
Newyes SyncPen Bluetooth Pen Digitizes Your Handwriting to the Cloud (Crowdfunding)
When I first found out about SERVO K07 bluetooth pen last month, I initially hoped it would allow users to digitize their handwriting or drawing and synchronize it to their phone or cloud, but it was not to be the case and instead it was just a 6-in-1 phone/pen/audio player/audio recording/camera/flashlight. But Newyes SyncPen does exactly that: it allows you to write on paper or a writing pad while digitizing your creation on the fly, and storing the result in the cloud. It works thanks to a tiny camera embedded in the pen capturing data at 200 fps. Newyes SyncPen hardware specifications: Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.2 Memory – 32MB, enough to store 800 pages of A5 paper content Pressure levels – 1024 Tiny camera @ 200+ fps Audio – Microphone Battery – 3.4V / 260 mAh Lithium Polymer battery good for about 8 hours; 1.5 hours charging time Dimensions – […]
BB-400 Neuron Edge Dual Ethernet Industrial Controller Combines Raspberry Pi CM3+ and Arduino MCU
While the Raspberry Pi boards are mostly promoted as tools to teach STEM to kids and adults alike, they have found their way in a fair amount of industrial products, including ModBerry M500 industrial computer, Janz Tec emPC-A/RPI3 industrial embedded controller, and Kunbus RevolutionPi RevPi Core among others. There’s yet another option with Brainboxes BB-400 Neuron Edge industrial controller that was announced last year with Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3, but recently got an upgrade to Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+. The controller features two Ethernet ports and also includes an Arduino compatible microcontroller to control the system’s eight configurable digital inputs and outputs. BB-400 Neuron Edge industrial controller specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ with Broadcom BCM2837B0 quad-core , Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.2GHz, 1 GB LPDDR2, 32GB eMMC Flash storage MCU – Unnamed Microchip Atmel Arduino compatible microcontroller Connectivity Ethernet Uplink Port – 1x RJ45 jack, 10/100Mbps […]
Khadas VIM3 Amlogic S922X Board to Support M.2 NVMe SSD, WiFi 5, and Bluetooth 5 Connectivity
Ever since the Amlogic S922X powered ODROID-N2 SBC launched last March, I keep reading praise for the processor and board which both deliver great performance at a relatively low price. Hardkernel was the only company that sold such a board so far, but this is about to change with some competition coming from Shenzhen Wesion with their upcoming Khadas VIM3 board that includes 2 to 4GB RAM, 16 to 32GB eMMC flash storage, a wireless module, support for M.2 NVMe SSD, and more. Even though more are planned in the future, two Khadas VIM3 models have been announced so far – Basic and Pro – with the following preliminary specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X hexa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 and 2x Cortex A53 cores, Arm Mali-G52 MP4 GPU, built-in Cortex-M4 core for “always-on” processing MCU – STMicro STM8S003 with Programmable EEPROM for power management, customizations, and boot media configuration […]
e.Foundation to Sell Refurbished Phones Running Google-Free /e/ Android OS
Most Android phones come with Google services, which is both a boon and a curse, as those services are often convenient, but they come at the loss of your privacy. For example, most people get all upset and lost if a firmware image for an SBC is shipped without Google Play Store, but yet at the same time they worry about their privacy providing all their data to a single company like Google. There must be a better way, and that’s what the e.foundation is attempting with /e/ operating system based on Android, but without any of the Google Services, and targetting your typical end-users, as opposed to geek. /e/ operating system aims to provide privacy both inside the phone, and via cloud services unrelated to Google. It is a fork of LineageOS 14.1 itself a fork of AOSP, and replaces Google services and apps with programs such as MicroG […]
Customize Amazfit Bip Smartwatch – Thai Language and Mickey Mouse
I’ve been wearing WeLoop Hey 3S smartwatch for well over a year now, and I’m still very satisfied with it, but a small problem is that it does not support the Thai language, so when I receive messages it’s just blank, or only shows the ASCII characters part of the string. There’s also no real community for this watch, so customization options are limited, and readers recommended Amazfit Bip instead. I’ve writing about this, because one person I know looked for a smartwatch, and first wanted to get an Apple Smartwatch, but where I live it’s over one month of the minimum salary and around two to three weeks of a typical office salary. So instead I recommended the much cheaper Amazfit Bip after I was told the requirements were support for Thai language notifications, and custom watch faces in order to install a Mickey Mouse watch face, and both […]