Seeed Studio XIAO 7.5″ ePaper Panel interfaces an XIAO ESP32-C3 USB-C board and mainly targets the Smart Home market with support for ESPHome, but the monochrome ePaper display is also programmable with the Arduino IDE for a wider range of applications. The display offers a resolution of 800×400 and includes a 2,000mAh battery good for three months per charge with updates every 6 hours. Seeed Studio says the display can operate in the -40°C to 85°C temperature range, so it would be suitable for outdoor use as long as it’s not exposed to rain or dust. The USB-C port of the ESP32-C3 module and the Boot and Reset buttons are easily accessible for charging the display and programming it. XIAO 7.5″ ePaper Panel specifications: Wireless module – XIAO ESP32C3 SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 CPU – Single-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 160 MHz Memory/Storage – 400KB SRAM, 384KB ROM, 4MB flash […]
PocketCloud – Battery-powered, portable NAS takes up to 16TB of storage (Crowdfunding)
Firefly’s PocketCloud is a battery-powered, portable NAS powered by a Rockchip RK3568B2 quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 SoC with 4GB LPDDR5 of RAM and a 32GB eMMC flash for the OS, and supports up to 16TB of NVMe SSD storage. It’s comprised of the battery-powered PocketCloud itself with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and an optional dock with 2.5GbE networking and an additional M.2 NVMe socket. Since I’m unable to find a 16 TB M.2 NVMe SSD for now, I suppose the 16TB claim only works with an 8TB + 8TB configuration with one SSD in the main unit, and the other in the dock. PocketCloud specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568B2 (as found in ODROID-M1 SBC) CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52-2EE AI Accelerator – 1TOPS NPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 32GB eMMC 5.1 flash M.2 PCIe Gen3 socket for M.2 […]
LILYGO T-Deck Pro – An ESP32-S3 LoRa messenger with e-paper touch display, keyboard, and 4G LTE or audio codec option
LILYGO T-Deck Pro is a LoRa messenger based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.x SoC, and offered with a 3.1-inch e-paper display with touchscreen, a Blackberry-like QWERTY keyboard, a GPS module, speaker, microphone, and a 3.5mm audio, as well as IMU and light sensors. It builds upon the T-Deck Plus design, but replacing the 2.8-inch IPS display with a 3.1-inch e-paper display allows for a slimmer design and should offer longer battery life despite the smaller 1,400 mAh battery used in the new model. Two versions of the T-Deck Pro are available: one with a Simcom 4G LTE modem and a cheaper one with a PCM5102A audio codec. LILYGO T-Deck Pro specifications: SoC – ESP32-S3FN16R8 CPU – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ up to 240 MHz 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB SPI flash Storage – MicroSD card […]
P42 Pico2 M.2 – A Raspberry Pi RP2350 board in M.2 form factor
The P42 Pico2 M.2 may look like an M.2 module, but it’s actually a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board in M.2 2230 form factor whose edge connector exposes USB, UART, I2C, and control I/Os. The board ships with a 2MB SPI flash and complies with voltage levels defined by the M.2 specification, with some of the interfaces running on 1.8 V. The SWD interface, +3.3 V, GND, and 16 IOs are accessible on castellated pins, and there’s also a QWIIC connector for I2C modules, but it’s not populated by default. The board also comes with a microSD card slot on the bottom and the usual Reset and BOOT buttons. P42 Pico M.2 specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350A CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot OR Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used in any combination Memory – 520 […]
NV8600-Nano AI Developer Kit features NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB, quad GbE, Raspberry Pi Camera Module 2
AAEON NV8600-Nano AI Developer Kit is based on a 67 TOPS NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB and ships with a carrier board with quad GbE, a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 2, a fan kit (heatsink with fan), and a 60W power adapter. The carrier board is also equipped with a 256GB M.2 2280 M-key NVMe SSD, a SATA connector, HDMI 1.4 video output, two MIPI CSI connectors compatible with Raspberry Pi Camera Modules, six USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A ports, a few serial interfaces, a 40-pin GPIO header compliant with the Jetson Orin Nano (Super) developer kit, and two more M.2 sockets for wireless/cellular expansion. NV8600-Nano AI Developer Kit specifications: NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB Module CPU – 6-core Arm Cortex-A78AE v8.2 64-bit CPU @ 1.7 GHz with 1.5MB L2 + 4MB L3 GPU – 1,020 MHz NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 1024 CUDA cores and 32 tensor cores Video […]
10-cent WCH CH570/CH572 RISC-V MCU features 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth LE 5.0, USB 2.0
Patrick Yang, CTO at WCH, has recently unveiled the CH570 RISC-V SoC with 2.4GHz wireless and USB 2.0 (host & device) as an upgrade to the popular CH32V003 general-purpose RISC-V MCU with more features at the same low price (10 cents). CH570 also comes with 12KB SRAM and 256KB flash (vs 2KB SRAM and 16KB flash for the CH32V003), offers up to twelve GPIO, six PWM, I2C, UART, SPI, and a 20-channel key detection module. There’s also the CH572 with the same features, except it also supports Bluetooth LE 5.0. As a side note, I wrote about the CH572 RISC-V MCU with BLE in 2019, but I guess it was scrapped likely because it had OTP instead of flash…, and the new CH572 (2025) is different. WCH CH570/CH572 specifications: CPU core QingKe 32-bit RISC-V3C core @ up to 100 MHz (RV32IMBC instruction set and custom instructions) Low-power 3-stage pipeline High-speed […]
TinyBeast FPGA – A Microchip PolarFire MPF300T/MPF100T FPGA PCIe reference design (Crowdfunding)
TinyBeast FPGA is a compact module based on Microchip PolarFire MPF100T or MPF300T FPGA with up to 300K logic elements and a hard PCIe interface that is suitable for automation, measurement, and robotics applications. Two versions of the module are available: the TinyBeast FPGA P mini PCIe module designed for integration with embedded systems, and the TinyBeast FPGA S with B2B connectors designed to be connected to a carrier board. TinyBeast FPGA P TinyBeast FPGA P specifications: FPGA – Microchip PolarFire FPGA TinyBest FPGA P-300 – MPF300T-1FCVG484E FPGA with 300K LE, 10.6 Mbit embedded RAM, 924 DSP blocks TinyBest FPGA P-100 – 100K LE, 5.2 Mbit embedded RAM, 288 DSP blocks System Memory – 4 GB DDR4 memory Storage – SPI flash Host interface – PCIe x1 Gen2 as EP via mini PCIe edge connector Expansion – Samtec SS4-30-3.00-L-D-K I/O connector for GPIOs and up to 12.7 Gbps transceivers Debugging […]
ESP LowCode Matter splits system and application firmware for simpler ESP32 device development
Espressif released the ESP ZeroCode web application in the summer of 2023 to create custom Matter-certifiable firmware for ESP32 targets. However, if your application requires some more customization, but you don’t have the budget or need for a software engineering team, the company has now launched ESP LowCode Matter. It retains most of the simplicity of ESP ZeroCode, but also provides the ability to further customize the application without having to use the ESP Matter SDK, which requires more advanced coding skills to build your own firmware. The ESP LowCode Matter divides firmware into two components to simplify the development, maintenance, and certification process: System Firmware – Managed by Espressif, handling the Matter protocol, wireless stacks, OTA updates, and security management. Application Firmware – Developed by device makers, focusing on hardware interfacing, event and state indication, and user interaction. Development is done right in the web browser thanks to VS […]