SiFive Learn Inventor is a Wireless RISC-V Development Kit Inspired by BBC Micro:bit

SiFive Learn Inventor is a RISC-V educational board partially inspired by BBC Micro:bit board with the same crocodile clip-friendly edge connector, and an LED matrix. The board is also fully qualified to work with the Amazon FreeRTOS real-time operating system. Shaped in the form of a hand, the board features SiFive FE310 RISC-V processor found in the SiFive HiFive1 board, as well as ESP-WROOM-32 WiFi + Bluetooth module. SiFive Learn Inventor specifications: SoC – SiFive FE310-G003 32-bit RISC-V (RV32IMAFC) processor @ 150 MHz with 64KB of internal SRAM Storage – 512 KB flash “Display” – 6×8 “widescreen” array of RGB LEDs with 262,000 colors each; LEDs can expand off-board onto external arrays via the edge connector Wireless Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 (2.4GHz) and Bluetooth 4.2 LE via an ESP32 module (ESP-WROOM-32) USB – 1x Micro USB port for power and programming/debugging Expansion A/D Converters (four) accessed via on-board coprocessor […]

$7 Sonoff D1 Smart Dimmer Switch Supports Mobile App, RF433 Remote, and Voice Assistants

Sonoff D1 Smart Dimmer Switch & RF433 Remote

ITEAD Studio Sonoff is a family of WiFi or/and 433 MHz RF connected smart home switches, sockets, light bulbs or other products for home automation. They are usually based on ESP8266 WiSoC and while the pre-loaded firmware works with eWelink Android/iOS app and popular voice assistant, it’s also possible to load open-source firmware such as Sonoff-Tasmota or ESPurna to add MQTT and other protocols in order to integrate those with home automation solution such as Domoticz, or something control those from your web browser. The company has now launched another Sonoff device, namely Sonoff D1 smart dimmer switch which – as its name implies – will allow you to dim incandescent and dimmable LED lights. Sonoff D1 smart dimmer switch specifications: Connectivity – RF433 and 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 Max Current – 1A Max Power – 400W for Incandescent lamp, and 150W for LED light Power Supply – 110V-230V AC input […]

Marlin 2.0 Open Source 3D Printer Firmware Finally Released

Marlin 2.0 Firmware Release

Back in June, we wrote about Marlin 2.0 firmware supporting ESP32 3D printer board, but at the time the firmware was still in RC1 (Release Candidate) phase. I was informed Marlin 2.0 firmware had been in beta for several years now, but the good news is that Marlin 2.0.0 open-source 3D printer firmware has now been officially released. Some of Marlin 2.0.0 new features include: 32-bit support with several boards including Arduino DUE (SAM3X8E), Adafruit Grand Central (SAM5D), Smoothie / SBASE / EZBoard based on NXP LPC176x, SKR Mini powered by STM32, as well as ESP32 boards Some improvements were made to some AVR boards including Melzi (ATmega 1280), RAMPS (ATmega 2560), and RAMBo / miniRAMBo / Einsy RAMBo boards PlatformIO build environments for supported boards VSCode “Auto Build Marlin” extension for one-click build Power-Loss Recovery for SD print jobs Magnetic Parking Extruder support Magnetic Switching Toolhead and Toolchanger support […]

esp32MX-E ESP32 Board Comes with Ethernet and USB-C Ports (Crowdfunding)

ESP32 Ethernet & USB-C Board

We’ve already covered several ESP32 boards with Ethernet including Olimex ESP32-GATEWAY and Silicognition wESP32, and I’ve just noticed Espressif also made its own with ESP32-Ethernet-Kit. Modtronix Engineering has another take with esp32MX-E board that beside Ethernet also exposes a USB-C port, a MicroSD card slot, and also adds an STM32F0 microcontroller acting as an I2C I/O expander. esp32MX-E specifications: Wireless Module ESP32 dual-core LX6 microprocessor at 160 or 240 MHz, 4 MB Flash, 520 KB SRAM Wi-Fi 4 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth 4.2 BR/EDR & BLE Storage – MicroSD card slot USB – USB Type-C connector for programming, power, and Virtual COM port Expansion via 14-pin and 20-pin female headers 22x I/O pins of which 4 are inputs only. 4x 5 V tolerant I/O pins Not all I/Os are available when the SD Card is used Programmable pull-up and pull-down resistors on most inputs Secondary MCU – I²C I/O expander implemented […]

Giveaway Week Winners – November 2019

giveaway week 2019

We just had another of our yearly “Giveaway week” on CNX Software with 7 prizes including Arm and RISC-V development boards, NB-IoT tracker, USB-C hub, as well as development kits based on ESP32 or ESP8266 WiSoCs. People just had to comment within a 48 hours period, and we would randomly select a winner each day. We now have all confirmed winners with a strong start from Europe, Asia catching up mid-week, before with Poland and Brazil taking the week-end prizes: Balena Fin Developer Kit – Laurent H, FRANCE WisCellular NB-IoT & eMTC GPS Tracker – Jimmy, SWEDEN MINIX NEO S1 USB-C Hub with 120GB built-in SSD – Jeroen, BELGIUM Maixduino Sipeed M1 RISC-V AI Kit – Nguyen Tung, VIETNAM ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit – Bumsik Kim, SOUTH KOREA Particle Mesh IoT Development Kit – Wojciech Lubicz-Lapinski, POLAND NanoPi M4V2 SBC & Metal Case Kit – Thiago Tavares, BRAZIL I […]

Tuya helps you easily Design & Manufacture your own Smart Home Solutions

I was recently informed about LSC Smart Connect 3 door sensor selling on Action discounter with over 600 stores across the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, and Poland. The door sensor is based on ESP8266, and people have bought a few and flashed their own open source firmware converting the device into a multi-purpose sensor device with ESPNOW protocol that enables direct and low-power control of Espressif devices without the need of a router. The module inside the door sensor is called TYWE3S, which one document on the FCC website refers to as “Tuya WiFi module” and further mentions “TYWE3S is a low-power consumption module with built-in Wi-Fi solution designed by Hangzhou Tuya Technology Corporation” that is based on ESP8266 WiSoC with 1MB flash, 50 kB RAM. One person in the LetsControlIt forum thread linked above explains the stock firmware can be updated over-the-air via a Raspberry Pi 3/3+ […]

Giveaway Week – ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit

ANAVI ESP8266 Gas Detector Display

Leon ANAVI makes from fun little boards for home automation, either ESP8266 based, or pHAT for Raspberry Pi boards. Earlier this year, I wrote about my experience getting ANAVI Gas Detector with Home Assistant. Now that’s I’m done, I’m giving away the starter kit that includes the ESP8266 board, an acrylic case, an OLED display, a USB to serial adapter, and MQ135 air quality sensor. The board is open-source hardware, meaning everything is open source from the KiCAD files to the Android sketch running on the board. It’s very easy to get started, as you can just connect a USB cable for power, and after configuring WiFi you can see the air quality  – either Poor, Moderate or Good – displayed on the OLED display, and you can easily see the data in a web dashboard after setting up Home Assistant. Everything shown in the top photo will be given […]

Wio Lite RISC-V WiFi Board with ESP8266 Module Launches for $6.9

Wio Lite RISC-V

Released this summer, GigaDevice GD32V generated a lot of buzz, as a cheap general-purpose 32-bit RISC-V MCU, and soon after the $5 Longan Nano development board with LCD display and enclosure was launched to the market. However, many applications benefit or require some network connectivity with WiFi. Espressif Systems is a founding member of the RISC-V Foundation, so RISC-V WiSoCs (Wireless SoCs) are coming, but AFAIK none of those are available yet. In the meantime, Seeed Studio has launched Wio Lite RISC-V board which brings WiFi connectivity to GD32V MCU through an ESP8266 WiFi module. Wio Lite specifications: MCU – Gigadevice GD32VF103CBT6 RISC-V (rv32imac) microcontroller @ 108 MHz with 128KB Flash, 32KB SRAM Wireless Module – ESP8266 WiFi Wio Core with 802.11b/g/n/ WiFi 4 connectivity Storage – MicroSD card slot USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – I/O headers for GD32 MCU, I/O header for […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC