Texas Instruments SimpleLink Category - Page 4 of 4 - CNX Software

May 30, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

MakerSpot CC2640 is a $20 Bluetooth 5 LE USB Dongle

Bluetooth 5 was announced in May 2016 with four times the range, twice the speed of Bluetooth 4.0. Since then SoCs, development boards, and smartphones have been announced with Bluetooth 5, but so far I had not seen any Bluetooth 5 USB dongle to add the new Bluetooth version to existing computer or boards. While I’ve not been able to find a consumer grade Bluetooth 5 USB dongle yet, today I found out something close it to with MakerSport CC2640 USB dongle / board based on TI CC2640 chip. GT-Tronics CC264BPA-UDOG (actual name) USB dongle specifications: MCU – Texas Instrument CC2640R2F Arm Cortex-M3 SimpleLink Wireless SoC with Bluetooth 5.0 Connectivity – Bluetooth 5 Low Energy BLE including built-in antenna; backward compatible with BLE 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 Silabs CP2110 HID to UART bridging device Debugging – 10-pins JTAG connector for CC2640 debugging and firmware flashing The dongle is enumerated as generic HID […]

April 18, 2018July 24, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

hIoTron Modular & Enterprise IoT Development Kit is Designed for Fast Prototyping

hIoTron modular & enterprise IoT development kit is described by the company has a “fully pre-programmed prototyping kit for quickly building and testing your IoT concept” with plug-n-play module allowing for flexible prototyping. Beside the hardware comprises of a gateway and nodes, the kit also integrates with the company’s enterprise IoT Platform enabling easy design of custom mobile application & GUI dashboard. The company offers standard, advanced, and custom kits, but to keep things simple, let’s focus on the content of their standard kit first: Hi-Gate IoT gateway: WiSoC – Texas Instruments CC3200 Arm Cortex-M4 @ 80 MHz with 1MB flash, 256KB RAM Storage – 1MB serial flash, 512KB EEPROM Connectivity 802.11 n/g/n Wi-Fi, 2G GSM/GPRS (optional 3G/4G), ZigBee, BLE 4.0, sub-1GHz RF/NON RF to REST/MQTT gateway Expansion – 2x GPIO port pins, 2x analog port pins Power Supply – 9-12V DC 3x modular Hi-Nodes (up to 25 supported per […]

December 2, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Amazon FreeRTOS Released for NXP, Texas Instruments, STMicro, and (soon) Microchip Microcontrollers

FreeRTOS is an open source real-time operating system for microcontrollers released under an MIT license, and when it comes to adoption in embedded systems it’s right there near the top with embedded Linux according to Aspencore 2017 embedded markets study. For example, some Espressif SDKs for ESP8266 or ESP32 are based on FreeRTOS, and so is Mediatek LinkIt Development Platform for RTOS. The recently announced Amazon FreeRTOS (a:FreeRTOS) leverages the open source operating systems, and extends it with with libraries that enable local and AWS cloud connectivity, security, and soon over-the-air updates. a:FreeRTOS is free of charge, open source, and available today. In order to get started, you’ll have a choice of 4 hardware platforms: STMicro STM32L4 Discovery Kit IoT Node (B-L475E-IOT01A) powered by STM32L475 ARM Cortex-M4 MCU with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, RF (868 / 915 MHz), and NFC connectivity, plenty of sensors NXP LPC54018 IoT module (OM40007) […]

April 6, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE IoT Modules Integrate Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and 6LOWPAN Connectivity

UDOO is known for their Linux boards based on NXP and Intel processors for makers and the education market such as UDOO NEO or UDOO x86, but the company has now developed UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE battery powered modules based on Texas Instruments CC2650 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, both with Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and 6LOWPAN connectivity, and the SENSE model adds some extra sensors. UDOO BLU and BLU SENSE specifications: Wireless MCU – Texas Instruments CC2650 ARM Cortex M3 MCU @ 48 MHz with 128KB flash, 8KB SRAM with 2.4 GHz radio Connectivity – Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), ZigBee, 6LoWPAN Sensors (BLU SENSE only) – NXP FX0S8700CQ accelerometer & magnetometer sensor, NXP FXAS21002C gyroscope & temperature sensor Expansion 1x 5-pin sensors Snap-In I2C connector for UDOO Bricks 2x 10-pin headers with 8x Digital GPIOs, 6x ADCs, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 1x UART Misc – 3x User Configurable LEDs (Red, […]

March 15, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Texas Instruments CC3200 WiFi SensorTag is Now Available for $40

Texas Instruments launched SensorTag in 2013, and at the time there was just a Bluetooth 4.0 LE version with 6 different sensors. I bought one for $25 at the time, and tried it with a Raspberry Pi board and a BLE USB dongle. Since then, the company has launched a new multi standard model (CC2650STK) supporting Buetooth low energy, 6LoWPAN, and ZigBee, and has just started to take orders for CC3200 WiFi SensorTag for $39.99, which seems expensive in a world of $2 ESP8266 modules. But let’s see what the kit has to offer: Wireless MCU – Texas Instruments CC3200 SimpleLink ARM Cortex-M4 MCU @ up to 80 MHz, with up to 256KB RAM, Hardware Crypto Engine, DMA engine Storage – 1 MB serial flash memory Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with on-board inverted-F antenna with RF connector for conducted testing Sensors – Gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, light sensor (OPT3001), humidity […]

June 17, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Energympro EP-SH09 Fitness Tracker Review

Energympro EP-SH09 is a strapless fitness tracker with an heart rate monitor and Bluetooth 4.0 LE for synchronization with your smartphone, in the first part of the review, I took some picture of the device, and expressed my opinion about the build quality. I’ve now played close to two weeks with the tracker, so I can share my experience with the device. Bear in mind that this was still considered an engineering sample, so the company will likely on some of the issues I encountered before it ships to the general public or resellers. A capacitive touch area just under the display is used to cycle through 7 watch faces: Time, Date, Bluetooth (Icon will change to a chain when connected), step count, distance, calorie count, and heart rate monitor. It works well enough, but there are a couple of point that you may want to be aware. The display […]

March 25, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

M2.COM is a Standard for IoT Sensors Based on M.2 Form Factor

The IoT ecosystem really feels like a jungle now, not because of a lack of standards, but because everybody thinks about doing their own, so we’ve ended up with a wide range of communication protocols, initiatives, and consortia, and it will take some time until the winners and losers are sorted out. One the of the latest standard is M2.COM platform form factor for sensors that “adopts the standardized M.2 form factor and is defined as an evolutionary module that combines general wireless connectivity with additional built-in computing ability powered by MCU”. M2.COM architecture diagram above describes both software and hardware requirements, but the specifications themselves only define the form factor, as well as mechanical and electrical characteristics: Consistent with M.2 standard Module size: 22 mm x 30 mm PCB thickness: 0.8 mm ± 10% Pin count: 75 pins Module input voltage: 3.3V DC-in Connector mating force: 30N Maximum Connector […]

February 10, 2016March 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

LoPy Tiny IoT Developer Board Runs MicroPython, Supports LoRa, WiFi and Bluetooth (Crowdfunding)

Pycom launched WiPy last year, a WiFi IoT board based on Texas Instruments CC3200 ARM Cortex M4 SoC, and a few months after sending rewards to their Kickstarter backers, they are back on the crowdfunding platform to launch LoPy, another IoT development board that runs MicroPython and offers LoRa, WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity. LoPy board hardware specifications: SoC – Dual processor @ 160 MHz with WiFi & BLE radio with 400 kB RAM, 1MB flash External Storage – 4MB flash Connectivity 802. 11b/g/n @ 16Mbps with WEP, WPA/WPA2 WiFi security; SSL/TLS support; AES encryption engine. Bluetooth Classic and Low Energy LoRaWAN Semtech LoRa transceiver SX1272 @ 868 MHz (Europe) or 915 MHz (North America). Range – Node: Up to 40km; Nano-Gateway: Up to 5 km Nano Gateway Capacity – Up to 100 nodes. Internal chip antenna and u.fl connectors for external antennas Headers – 2x 14-pin headers for: Up […]