Testing Category - Page 7 of 168 - CNX Software

August 11, 2024August 13, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

MILK-V Jupiter review – A RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard and PC tested with Ubuntu-based Bianbu OS

In this review or preview of the the Shenzhen Milk-V Jupiter RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard, I’ll assemble the motherboard into a mini-ITX chassis, before installing the Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic-based Bianbu OS optimized for RISC-V platforms, and testing the device to see how much progress has been done on RISC-V since I tested the StarFive VisionFive 2 SBC with Debian 12 about 18 months ago. In the first part of the review, we checked out the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX (Rockchip RK3588 Arm) and Jupiter (SpacemIT K1 RISC-V) mini-ITX motherboards with specifications and unboxing, and the Auriga 6-Bay NAS mini-ITX chassis used in this review. I planned to start with the Radxa ROCK 5 ITX, but due to logistics and technical issues, I went ahead testing the RISC-V motherboard first. Installing Bianbu OS to the Jupiter RISC-V motherboard The board does not come with storage, so no operating system is installed. So […]

August 9, 2024August 19, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro – A Raspberry Pi RP2350 board for robotics and motor control

As mentioned in the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 article, third-party RP2350 boards are already available, and one of them is the MOTION 2350 Pro board from Cytron designed for robotics and motor control. The board features a DC motor driver capable of controlling up to 4 brushed DC motors with voltage ratings from 3.6V to 16V. It also features eight 5V servo ports, eight GPIO ports, and three Maker ports for sensor or actuator modules. Each I/O is matched with its own LED which makes the board ideal for the education market and also simplifies debugging. Finally, a USB 1.1 host port is present to connect peripherals such as the RF dongle for a joystick or a keyboard. Cytron MOTION 2350 Pro specifications: Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2350 CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 processor @ 150MHz (RISC-V cores are not mentioned, so they are likely not used at all) Memory […]

July 30, 2024July 30, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

LattePanda Mu Intel N100 SoM and carrier board review – Part 2: Ubuntu 24.04

We’ve already checked out the hardware for LattePanda Mu and tested it on Windows 11 using both the Lite Carrier Board and Full-Function Evaluation in the first part of the review. We’ve now had time to test the LattePanda Mu Intel N100 board with Ubuntu 24.04 to see how it performs in Linux with the following tests:

Initial system information
Benchmarks for CPU, disks, peripherals, and networking (GbE and WiFi)
Web and multimedia usage
Power consumption

Since LattePanda Mu is an x86 machine, we can create a boot disk from the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO as we would on a PC.

July 28, 2024August 3, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Review of Pironman 5 mini PC case for the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC

Pironman 5 review Raspberry Pi 5 tower case

SunFounder has sent me a review sample of the Pironman 5 tower PC case for the Raspberry Pi 5. I had already reviewed the Pironman case for Raspberry Pi 4 last year, so I’ll do something similar this time around with the new Pironman 5 case adding support for NVMe SSD using the PCIe interface from the Pi 5 SBC. The Pironman 5 review will include unboxing and an assembly guide, followed by software installation and features testing (e.g. OLED display, RGB LED control, remote control. soft power off, etc…), before testing the cooling efficiency of the device with some benchmarks. Pironman 5 unboxing The Pironman 5 comes in a package that will be smaller than most people expect. The main features are listed on the side with 5V/5A power input, a 0.96-inch OLED, a tower cooler, M.2 NVMe SSD support, an IR receiver, a CR1220 battery (included), four RGB […]

July 25, 2024August 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 42 Comments

Building a workstation with Radxa ROCK 5 ITX (Arm) or Milk-V Jupiter (RISC-V) mini-ITX motherboard – Part 1: The hardware

Milk-V Jupiter ROCK 5 ITX mini ITX NAS enclosure

Radxa ROCK 5 ITX is a mini-ITX motherboard powered by a Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor, and the Shenzhen Milk-V Jupiter is another mini-ITX motherboard, but based on SpacemIT K1 octa-core 64-bit RISC-V processor instead. When Radxa contacted me about reviewing those, I thought it would be interesting to review a complete kit with a mini-ITX case since I had never built this type of system myself. Yesterday, I was surprised to receive two large packages and thought maybe a company sent me a 3D printer or laser engraver kit, but instead, I got one package with the two Arm and RISC-V mini-ITX motherboards and another with a mini-ITX NAS enclosure with 6x SATA bays. Radxa ROCK 5 ITX unboxing Let’s look at the ROCK 5 ITX motherboard and accessories first. The motherboard ships with a rear panel and two screws for the M.2 module. The motherboard features the Rorkchip […]

July 22, 2024July 29, 2024 by Kumpee Teeravech - No Comments

Review of AgroSense LoRaWAN Smart Agriculture sensors with the SenseCAP M2 LoRaWAN gateway

Today, I will be reviewing the AgroSense LoRaWAN sensors from Makerfabs designed for high-precision agriculture. This time, I received four sets of sensors designed for measuring environmental data and a Seeed Studio SenseCAP M2 LoRaWAN gateway. Below is the list of items I received. AgroSense LoRaWAN Barometric Pressure Sensor – Measures the barometric pressure in a 300 to 1100 hPa range with ±0.12 hPa accuracy and 0.01 hPa resolution. AgroSense LoRaWAN Light Intensity Sensor – Measures the light intensity in a 1 to 65535 lx range with ±1 lx accuracy and ±20% resolution. AgroSense LoRaWAN Temperature & Humidity Sensor – Measures temperature and humidity in the atmosphere in the ranges of -40°C to 85°C and 0 to 100 %RH with accuracy of ±0.2°C and ±0.2% RH respectively. AgroSense LoRaWAN Industrial Temperature Sensor – Measures temperature in the industrial high-temperature environments in the -60°C to 200°C range with ±0.1°C accuracy and […]

July 17, 2024July 16, 2024 by Paisit Wongsongsarn - 4 Comments

SONOFF SWV Review – A Zigbee Smart Water Valve tested with eWelink and Home Assistant

Today, we are going to test and review another new Zigbee product from SONOFF, the SONOFF Zigbee Smart Water Valve (SWV). This is the first water valve built by SONOFF. When it comes to devices related to water control, whether watering plants or opening and closing valves in tanks or pools, many people might be familiar with the SONOFF 4CHPro model, which is a WiFi smart switch that controls solenoid valves with DC or AC power (valve sold separately). The SONOFF SWV is an all-in-one device that integrates both valve control and IoT functionality in one. It is ideal for plant watering around the house or controlling water filling into pools or tanks. Besides being able to set schedules for opening and closing valves, it also has other interesting features. Let’s look at the details. Unboxing the SONOFF Zigbee Smart Water Valve Inside the box, you will find the valve […]

July 13, 2024July 19, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

GEEKOM AE7 Review – An AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS mini PC tested with Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04

Today we’ll review the GEEKOM AE7 mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS octa-core processor with up to 32GB DDR5, a 1TB NVMe SSD, four 4K capable video outputs through HDMI and USB-C ports, 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E connectivity, and six USB ports for expansion. As its name implies the GEEKOM AE7 is an evolution of the earlier GEEKOM A7 with almost identical specifications that we reviewed with Windows 11 Pro and Ubuntu 22.04 earlier this year. So we won’t do our usual three-part review and instead focus on differences between the two Ryzen 9 7840HS mini PCs in terms of features, performance, and cooling ability in a shorter review that covers hardware, Windows 11 Pro, and Ubuntu 24.04 testing. GEEKOM AE7 specifications SoC – AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS 8-core/16-thread processor up to 4.0GHz with 16MB cache, AMD Radeon 780M Graphics; TDP: 35 to 54W System Memory – […]