PyGo Wearable Devices Create LoRa Mesh Networks (Crowdfunding)

Pygo Lora Mesh Network

Pycom has made some interesting IoT boards running MicroPython in the past starting with WiFi capable WiPy in 2015, and followed by various others supporting various wireless standard including Bluetooth, LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT with LoPy and Fipy. The company launched all their boards via crowdfunding campaigns, and they are now back on Kickstarter for their PyGo plug-n-play wearable devices creating PyMesh networks with up to 12km range between nodes, and managed using Pylife mobile app. Typical use cases include basic connectivity (e.g. messaging) in remote areas without cellular access,  and assets / pets / kids location tracking, There are two version of PyGo: PyGo1 with mesh networking only, and PyGo2 that adds cellular network access. Pygo hardware specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32 dual core WiFi 4 + BLE SoC System Memory – 64 Mbit (8MB) RAM Storage – 8MB flash Display – 128×36 OLED display Connectivity PyMesh up […]

$69 Orange Pi AI Stick 2801 Features Lightspeeur 2801S Neural Processor

Orange Pi AI Stick 2801

Intel is not the only company selling neural compute sticks to accelerate artificial intelligence workloads at low power, as Gyrfalcon introduced their Laceli AI Compute Stick based on their own Lightspeeur 2801S matrix processor earlier this year, but it was not exactly easy to buy. Even the company’s latest PLAI Plug USB3.0 dongle (new name for Laceli AI Compute Stick?) and PLAI WiFi AI wireless accessory announced just  a few days ago are not that easy to purchase, as they require you to fill a form with your project details before being able to buy anything. But thanks to Shenzhen Xunlong Software, the Orange Pi boards maker, it’s now much easier to experiment with the technology since they launched Orange Pi AI Stick 2801, based on the same Lightspeeur 2801S ASIC found in PLAI Plug, but sold directly on Aliexpress for $69 plus shipping ($73.97 in total here). Orange Pi […]

Allwize K2 IoT Board Supports 169MHz Wize LPWAN Protocol (LoRa alternative)

Allwize K2

LoRa, Sigfox, and NB-IoT are probably the most popular low power long range wireless protocols for the Internet of Things, but there are several others, including one I had never heard of: Wize. The Wize Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) protocol has been created in late 2017, leverages the “old and refurbished” 169 MHz frequency, support up to 20 km range, 20-year battery life, and is managed by the Wize Alliance with members including STMicroelectronics, Suez, Sagecom, Renesas, Analog Devices, Silicon Labs and many others. Despite being a recent protocol, the table below claims 3 millions of deployment for Wize, and showcases some of differences against LoRa, NB-IoT, and Sigfox. You may be confused as how the standard was created in at the end of 2017, but there are so many deployments, and 13 years experience.  It appears Wize is derived from the older EN 13757 standard for gas […]

Black Friday 2018 – International Deals

Black Friday 2018 GearBest

November 11.11 is now behind us, but that means Black Friday and Cyber Monday are soon approaching and as usual I’ve gathered some deals or events geared towards an International audience, mostly through various China based online shopping websites. GearBest Black Friday activity has already started with the run-up stage on November 14-21 with deposit expansion and lucky draw, followed by the main event taking place on November 21-26 with $100-$200 coupons and 24-hour flash sale, and finally Cyber Monday event from November 26-31 with activity details to be determined. There’s also a Black Friday coupon that works sitewide: BlackFriday-GB. The coupon provides 10% discount on order of $10 or more on items located in the Chinese (CN-099) warehouse, and not yet discounted. The coupon is valid until November 26, 0:00 UTC+8 Beijing Time (unless more than 20,000 units are sold with the coupon) GeekBuying’s promise of up to 80% […]

Intrinsyc Open-Q 605 SBC is Powered by Qualcomm QCS605 IoT Processor

Qualcomm QCS605 Development Board

Qualcomm QCS603 / QCS605 “Internet of Things” processors were announced last spring as the first “Qualcomm Vision Intelligence Platforms” from the company and designed for artificial intelligence and computer vision applications. Both SoCs are octa-core processor with two performance Kryo 300 Gold cores, and six efficiency Kryo 300 Silver cores, but QCS605’s big cores are clocked at a higher 2.5 GHz frequency, and the processor comes with better 802.11ac Wave2 WiFi, support for up to 32MB camera, and 4K video capture. However so far, there was no development platform publicly available, and this has just changed with Intrinsyc announcing Open-Q 605 single board computer (SBC) and development kit featuring Qualcomm QCS605 vision intelligence platform. Open-Q™ 605 SBC Specifications SoC – Qualcomm QCS605 octa-core processor with 2x high-performance Kryo 300 Gold cores up to 2.5 GHz, 6x low-power Kryo 300 Silver cores up to 1.7 GHz, Hexagon 685 DSP with Hexagon vector […]

Gateworks Newport GW6100 Miniature Networking SBC Comes with one GbE Port, one mPCIe Socket

Gateworks Newport GW6100

Nearly exactly one year ago, Gateworks announced Newport family of networking SBCs powered by Cavium Octeon TX 64-bit Arm SoC, and earlier this year launched the higher-end GW6400/GW6404 boards with multiple network interfaces and mPCIe sockets. The company has now introduced the entry-level GW6100 mini Network SBC with just one Gigabit Ethernet port, one mPCIe socket, and a USB 2.0 type-C port. Gateworks Newport GW6100 specifications: SoC – Cavium OcteonTX CN8120 dual core ARMv8 processor @ 800MHz System Memory – 1GB DDR4 SDRAM Storage – 8GB eMMC Flash, mSATA via mini PCIe socket,  serial configuration EEPROM Networking –  Gigabit Ethernet Port Compliant with 802.3 10BaseT/100BaseTX/1000BASE-T USB – USB Type-C DFP featuring USB 2.0 up to 480Mbps and 1.5A Power Delivery Expansion High power (up to 8W) mini PCIe socket supporting PCIe or mSATA with USB 2.0 and Nano-SIM socket Application Connector with serial I/O, Digital I/O, I2C, and SPI Misc […]

Toradex Colibri iMX8X SoM Features NXP i.MX 8X Dual / Quad Arm Cortex-A35 Processor

Toradex Colibri imx-8x som

Designed for infotainment and dashboard in automotive applications, industrial control, robotics, healthcare, mobile payments, handheld devices, and more, NXP i.MX 8X Arm Cortex-A35 processor was first spotted in 2016, before being formally announced in March 2017. But it took quite longer to see actual products launched, and several vendors announced i.MX 8X modules in the last week while NXP also released documentation. One of them is Toradex with their Colibri iMX8X system-on-module with up to 2GB LPDDR4 memory, 8GB flash, a built-in 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO WiFi + Bluetooth 5 module, dual channel LVDS, MIPI DSI display interface, a quad-lane MIPI CSI-2 camera interface, etc… Toradex Colibri iMX8X specifications: SoC (one of the following options) NXP i.MX 8QuadXPlus quad core Cortex-A35 processor @ up to 1.2GHz, Arm Cortex-M4 MCU @ up to 266MHz, HiFi4 DSP, Vivante GC7000Lite performance optimized GPU, 4K video support NXP i.MX 8DualXPlus dual core Cortex-A35 processor @ […]

Compact Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ Launched for $25

Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+

The Raspberry Pi 3 B+ is likely the most popular maker board available today at $35, but it just got a little brother – Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ – that should also enjoy good popularity with a $25 price tag. The new model features the same BCM2837B0 quad core processor @ 1.4 GHz, and dual band WIFI connectivity, just in a smaller form factor. Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ specifications: SoC – Broadcom BCM2837B0 64-bit ARMv8 quad core Cortex A53 processor @ 1.4GHz with dual core VideoCore IV GPU System Memory – 512MB LPDDR2 Storage – micro SD slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 1.4 and 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.2 LE (via Cypress CYW43455 based module) USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 1x micro USB port for power Expansion 40-pin GPIO header MIPI DSI for Raspberry […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC