Geniatech DB3399Pro RK3399Pro Development Board Comes with 8 USB Interfaces

DB3399Pro

Rockchip RK3399Pro is an upcoming processor based on Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor, but adding RK1808 NPU block for AI workloads. We’ve already seen a few development boards based on the processor, including Rockchip’s own evaluation board – which mortals can’t buy -, Khadas Edge 1S, Pine64 RockPro64-AI, and Toybrick RK3399Pro Board. Apart from a demo with Rockchip RK3399Pro EVB, I have not seen any of the SBCs in the wild yet. But we have even more choices now,  as Geniatech, better known for their Amlogic TV boxes, has been entering the embedded mainboard market in recent years, and added DB3399Pro development board to their offering. Geniatech DB3399Pro specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399Pro hexa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A72 @ 1.8 GHz, 4x  Cortex-A53 @ 1.4 GHz, Arm Mali-T864 GPU, RK1808 NPU System Memory – 3GB LPDDR3 (option 6GB) Storage – 8GB eMMC flash (option 16G/32GB), SD card socket, SATA (where?) Video […]

This $4 PWM Signal Generator Outputs Pulses up to 150 KHz

XY-PWM1 Signal Generator

When I think about signals generators, I usually think about equipment that costs several hundred dollars, but depending on your needs you could also use much cheaper solutions like PSLab electronics lab board ($65), or an Arduino board to generate a signal. Another option is to get an ultra-cheap signal generator such as XY-PWM1 which I found on ICStation for just $4.19.Its function is limited to PWM pulses from 1Hz to 150KHz, with a voltage range between 3.3V and 30V.  XY-PWM1 specifications: LCD display showing frequency and duty cycle Voltage Range – DC 3.3V-30V Frequency range Normal mode: 1Hz~150KHz Precise mode: 1Hz~15KHz Frequency accuracy: 2% Duty cycle accuracy 1% in Normal mode 0.1% in Precise mode Duty cycle range – 0.00%-100% Output Current – About 5-30mA Dimensions – 79x43x37mm Temperature Range – -40℃~85℃ Humidity – 0%~95% RH There’s no obvious button to select mode, but apparently, you’d just need to use […]

$200 Omega2 WiFi LIDAR Kit Comes with a 360˚ 2D LIDAR Scanner

Omega2 Wireless LiDAR kit

Onion Omega2 is a tiny WiFi board running OpenWrt that launched for as low as $5 via a crowdfunding campaign around 2 years ago, and at the time I reviewed Onion Omega2+ board – which comes with more memory and storage – together with its dock, and I found it was fairly easy to get started with the solution. You can now buy the board for a little over $10, but the company also offers kits, and their latest product is Omega2 wireless LIDAR kit with an indoor 360˚ 2D LiDAR scanner that uses rotating laser ranging to measure and map exact distances to indoor surroundings. The kit is comprised of the following items: Onion Omega2+ board with MediaTek MT7688 MIPS processor, 128MB RAM, 32MB flash Power Dock 2 with 30-pin expansion header and USB host port Delta2B 360˚ LiDAR Scanner Up to 5000 samples/second Range – 0.2 to 8 […]

Pico-ITX i.MX8M Board Enables Offline Voice Control with Snips

Estone EMB-2238

A few days ago, we covered Estone Technology’s MJ-100 RK3399 rugged tablet. I’ve just realized Estone Technology used to promote their embedded product under the Habey USA brand, which we covered a few times here, and the company has also announced another new product ahead of Embedded World 2019 with their EMB-2238 Pico-ITX i.MX8M board specifically designed for voice control applications. The company setup two voice control demos with the board: one with Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) and another with Snips that works locally without any Internet connection. We actually came across Snips previously for an article comparing microphone arrays, but I never looked into Snips into details or saw an actual demo. Let’s have a quick look at EMB-2238 board specifications first: SoC –  NXP i.MX 8MQuad  with 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.5GHz, 1x Arm Cortex-M4 realtime-core @ 266MHz, Vivante GC7000L/GC7000LVX with support for OpenGL/ES 3.1, OpenGL […]

Xiaomi Mi A2 Review with Android 9.0 Pie

Mi A2 Review Android 9.0

I had been using Xiaomi Mi A1 Android One smartphone since the end of 2017,  and was mostly satisfied with it thanks to regular (monthly) firmware update, although I was a bit disappointed by the camera overtime. Eventually I had a serious issue with Mi A1’s eMMC flash, and stopped using it at the end of last year, or roughly after one year of service, since the phone became unusable, unbearably slow. Xiaomi Mi A2 and A2 Lite where released last summer, and having seen Mi A2 was getting an Android 9.0 firmware in Q4 2018, I asked GearBest whether they could send a sample to review the latest Xiaomi Android One phone. They accepted, and I posted the first part of the review in early December. However, at this time, I did not get the update, since it was not released in Thailand, but soon enough Xiaomi Mi A2 […]

GPD MicroPC is a Windows 10 / Ubuntu MATE Portable Mini PC for Sysadmins (Crowdfunding)

GPD MicroPC

I shortly discussed GPD MicroPC, a portable computer specifically designed for for network engineers and sysadmins in a post about the company’s Pocket 2 Amber Black mini laptop, but I did not go into details at the time since it was not available. GPD has now launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for the portable Gemini Lake mini PC, where you can pick one of the 2,000 units that are available for $299 including worldwide shipping. GPD MicroPC specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N4100 quad core Gemini Lake processor with Intel UHD Graphics 600 System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – Replaceable 128GB M.2 2242 SATA SSD, micro SDXC card slot Display – 6″ display with 1280×720, Gorilla Glass 4, 178° viewing angle Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K @ 30 Hz Audio – Built-in microphone, headphone jack, digital audio via HDMI Networking Gigabit Ethernet 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WiFi […]

The Things Industries Announces $69 Indoor Multi-Channel LoRaWAN Gateway

Indoor Multi-channel LoRaWAN Gateway

If you ever see a cheap LoRaWAN gateway, chances are that it is a single channel gateway such as Dragino LoRa gateways that can be purchased for as low as $56. Those will work for your private network, but if others people try to use your gateway, some LoRa nodes will fail to connect. So what you really need is a multi-channel gateway for instance to connect it to The Things Networks. That would be $200 (and up), thank you very much. The IoT can only succeed on a large scale if costs are low enough, so Things Industries decided to design, and has now unveiled a low cost indoor multi-channel LoRaWAN gateway. Meet The Things Indoor Gateway. The Things Indoor Gateway specifications: SoC – Espressif System ESP8266 WiSoC Wireless Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 via ESP8266 + PCB antenna LoRaWAN via Semtech 1308 chipset with Support for 868 MHz […]

$89 Sheeva64 Plug Computer is Powered by Marvell ARMADA 3720 Armv8 Processor

Sheeva64 plug computer

Sheevaplug is a Linux plug computer powered by Marvell Kirkwood 6281 ARM9 processor that was launched in 2009 with Ubuntu 9.04. As the name implies, Sheevaplug looks like a power adapter that’s plug directly into your mains socket, but it’s actually a headless computer, i.e. without video output, and instead coming with a USB port, Gigabit Ethernet, and an SD card slot. The device got fairly popular at the time, so it ended up in several hardware projects, and was supported by a long list of open source software projects as you’ll find out in the Wikipedia page. Ten years have passed, and Globalscale Technologies has just introduced an upgraded version with the Sheeva64 plug computer based on the same Marvell ARMADA 3720 dual core Armv8 processor as found in ESPRESSOBin board. Sheeva64 plug computer specifications: SoC – Marvell ARMADA 3720 dual core 64bit Arm processor up to 1.2GHz System […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC