ESP RainMaker Eases Cloud Integration & Mobile App Development for ESP32-S2 SoC

ESP RainMaker Android App

Espressif Systems is well-known for its low-cost, well-supported WiFI and Bluetooth SoC for IoT products and projects. But in recent years, the company has also come up with application-specific development boards and corresponding software frameworks to help customer develop their own. Those boards include ESP32-LyraTD-MSC for smart audio applications, or for ESP32-S2-Kaluga-1 multimedia applications using display and camera. The company is now offering another solution to help makers integrate ESP32-S2 secure WiSoC with the cloud and create a mobile app. Meet ESP RainMaker. Specifically, ESP RainMaker provides four main components:: Device Agent SDK to perform network provisioning, OTA updates and facilitate communication with the cloud. Based on the ESP-IDF SDK. Amazon’s AWS powered Transparent Cloud Middleware makes the device’s attributes accessible to the user’s phone applications or other third-party services via RESTful APIs. iOS/Android phone apps to configure and manage the connected device. The apps are “self-adapting”, meaning they can […]

X96Q Android 10 TV Box Shows Up with Allwinner H313 Quad-core Cortex-A53 Processor

X96Q Android 10 TV Box

It looks like Allwinner has come up with a new confusing processor. Allwinner H3 is a popular quad-core Cortex-A7 processor that’s been around for years, but the company has now launched an Allwinner H313 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor that’s found in some TV boxes running Android 10, namely X96Q with 1 to 2 GB RAM, and 8 to 16GB storage. X96Q TV box specifications: SoC – Allwinner H313 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.35 GHz with Arm Mali G31 MP2 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2 and Vulkan System Memory – 1GB/2GB SDRAM Storage – 8GB/16GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Video & Audio Output – HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz, AV port for video composite + stereo audio Video Codecs VP9 Profile-2 up to 4K 30fps  H.265 Main10 @ L5.1 up to 4K 60fps  AVS2 JiZhun 10-bit Profile up to 4K 60fps  H.264 BP/MP/HP @ L4.2 […]

HeimVision HM241 NVR Review – Part 2: Installation Tips, Video Interface, Android App

HeimVision HM241 4-ch Camera NVR

A coupled of weeks ago, I received HeimVision HM241 HD NVR kit, and in the first part of the review, I showed the content of the kit, installed an internal 3.5″ hard drive, and did a teardown of both the NVR and one camera. I’ve now had time to test the device for about two weeks. I have plans to install it permanently in another location, but for testing, I temporarily installed the camera for testing in several strategic locations: 3 outdoors, one indoors. Back inside, I connected the NVR device (black box below) to an Ethernet switch for Internet connectivity, a 4K TV to access the user interface, a USB mouse, and the power supply. First Boot and Configuration I was quite surprised during the first boot as I did not have to set up anything and the cameras were automatically detected. The first screen shows QR code for […]

MediaTek Caught Cheating but Says Benchmarks Just Represent Peak Performance

MediaTek Cheating

Silicon vendors have been cheating in benchmarks for years, mostly by detecting when popular benchmarks run and boost the performance of their processors without regard to battery life during the duration of the test in order to deliver the best possible score. There was a lot of naming and shaming a few years back, and we did not hear much about benchmarks cheating in the last couple of years, but Anandtech discovered MediaTek was at it again while comparing results between Oppo Reno3 Europe (MediaTek Helio P95) and China (MediaTek Dimensity 1000L) with the older P95 model delivering much higher performance contrary to expectations. Cheating was suspected, so they contact UL to provide an anonymized version of PCMark so that the firmware could not detect the benchmark was run. Here are the before and after results. As noted by Anandtech, the differences are really stunning: a 30% difference in the […]

NXP i.MX 8M Mini Pico-ITX SBC Comes with Audio DSP, Optional PoE and Google Coral M.2 Module

EMB-2237-AI SBC PoE

We’ve covered several NXP i.MX 8M Mini SBC‘s since the announcement of the processor in 2018 as the first i.MX SoC manufactured with a 14nm process allowing for a higher CPU clock of 2.0 GHz compared to the 1.5 GHz frequency used with the original i.MX 8M processor.  i.MX 8M Mini also removes some features (4K video playback, some video interfaces, …) in order to lower the cost of the processor. Companies are still releasing new i.MX 8M SBCs regularly, but we don’t always cover them all since many often do not offer much compared to the competition. But Estone Technology EMB-2237-AI Pico-ITX SBC has some unusual features and options including a Cirrus Logic audio DSP, as well as support for a PoE module and Google Coral M.2 AI accelerator module.   EMB-2237-AI SBC is comprised of a system-on-module and baseboard with the following specifications: Estone SOM-2237 module SoC – […]

Amlogic S922X Digital Signage Board Comes with HDMI, LVDS, V-by-One, and eDP Video Interfaces

Amlogic S922X Digital Signage Board

Thanks to its 4K video playback and output capability and high-speed interfaces such as PCIe, USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet, Amlogic S922X is a suitable processor for 4K digital signage players. One way is to get a TV box optimized for signage applications such as Rikomagic MK25, but if you want to integrate a board into your own display, XYT-6689 SBC may be an interesting option with LVDS, V-by-One and eDP (embedded DisplayPort) display interfaces, as well as many other features. XYT-6689 S922X digital signage board specifications: SoC – Amlogic S922X hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 4x Arm Cortex A73 cores @ up to 2.0 GHz, 2x Arm Cortex A53 cores, Arm Mali-G52MP6 (6EE) GPU; 12nm manufacturing process System Memory – 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 16GB to 64GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot up to 128 GB; maybe SATA (unsoldered “laptop” SATA interface on the backside of the board) […]

DragonBoard 845c Android (AOSP) Reference Board Supports Open Source Graphics, Mainline Kernel

Robotics DragonBoard 845c AOSP

Besides the obvious Google Pixel and Nexus devices supported by AOSP (Android Open Source Project), we previously covered some single board computers that were also officially supported by the project with Hikey and Hikey 960 Android reference boards. Linaro Consumer Group (LCG) has just written about Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 based Dragonboard 845c board. It has been now an official Android reference board for a few months now, and it is the first such board with an open-source graphics stack thanks to Freedreno graphics driver and mesa framework. Since no proprietary blobs are required, the board’s full functionality can also be upstreamed into the mainline kernel, and Linaro currently uses the board as a test target for validating the mainline kernel and stable updates. Here’s a reminder of the board’s hardware specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with 8x custom 64-bit ARMv8 CPUs up to 2.8 GHz, Adreno 630 GPU with […]

Select a Geiger Counter for your Phone to Survive the next Nuclear Catastrophe

geiger counter smartphone

It’s time to prepare! No, not for that COVID-19 thingie, it’s too late, but since 2020 has not started the best way we should prepare for all eventualities. It all started badly as I fell off my bicycle on New Year’s eve, and it went south from there, from talks of world war three in January, to the thread of a virus pandemic that could kill millions worldwide, to the start of the first global great depression. 2020 will be the “year of doom“, and we should expect massive earthquakes,  once in a hundred-year megatsunami what will wipe entire cities, gigantic locust swarms in southern Europe, climate change induces, and leading famine, a couple of large asteroids hitting the hearth, and so on. But we should not forget the nuclear threat either via nuclear war or damaged nuclear reactors following natural disasters or terrorist attacks. One way to protect yourself […]

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