Ezurio Sona NX611 – An NXP IW611-powered Wi-Fi 6 industrial IoT module

Ezurio Sona NX611 Wi Fi 6 module

Ezurio, formerly Laird Connectivity, has announced the Sona NX611, a new Wi-Fi 6 module designed for industrial IoT applications. The module uses the NXP IW611 chipset and supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.4. It operates in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, achieving data rates up to 600 Mbps, and can withstand industrial temperatures from -40°C to +85°C. The Sona NX611 comes in several form factors, including SiP (System-in-Package), M.2 1216 SMT, and M.2 2230 E-Key pluggable options. It is compatible with NXP processors and supports Ezurio’s Linux connectivity stack software and Android OS. The module is under development and is expected to be in mass production by September 2024. It will have global certifications like FCC, ISED, UKCA, CE, and Bluetooth SIG. Previously we have seen the IW611 and IW612 modules were used in the u-blox MAYA-W2 IoT module. We have also written about Laird RM126x LoRaWAN […]

Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC low-profile Rockchip RK3576 SBC supports AI models like Gemma-2B, LlaMa2-7B, ChatGLM3-6B

Firefly ROC RK3576 PC SBC

Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC is a low-power, low-profile SBC built around the Rockchip RK3576 octa-core Cortex-A72/A53 SoC which we also find in the Forlinx FET3576-C, the Banana Pi BPI-M5, and Mekotronics R57 Mini PC. In terms of power and performance, this SoC falls in between the Rockchip RK3588 and RK3399 SoCs and can be used for AIoT applications thanks to its 6 TOPS NPU. Termed “mini computer” by Firefly this SBC supports up to 8GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4X memory and 256GB of eMMC storage. Additionally, it offers Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, and Bluetooth 5.0 for connectivity. An M.2 2242 PCIe/SATA socket and microSD card can be used for storage, and the board also offers HDMI and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header. Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC specifications SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.2GHz, four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.8GHz Arm Cortex-M0 MCU at 400MHz GPU […]

Upgraded Radxa ROCK 5B+ SBC gets LPDDR5 memory, eMMC flash, WiFi 6, two M.2 M-Key sockets, 4G LTE/5G support, and more

Radxa ROCK 5B+

The Radxa ROCK 5B+ (“ROCK 5B Plus”) is an upgrade to the Rockchip RK3588-powered ROCK 5B Pico-ITX SBC with the same form factor but various changes including a switch from LPDDR4x to LPDDR5, optional built-in eMMC flash, and an onboard WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module instead of one connected through an M.2 Key-E connector. Other changes include replacing the M.2 Key-M PCIe Gen 3 x4 socket with two M.2 Key-M PCIe Gen3 x2 sockets, adding a SIM card slot and M.2 Key-B socket for 4G LTE or 5G cellular connectivity, adding an extra USB-C port for power only (was multiplexed with USB-C Display Port connected in ROCK 5B), and the HDMI input relies on a full-size HDMI port instead of a micro HDMI port. Other small changes can be found in the specifications below with differences highlighted in bold and strikethrough. Radxa ROCK 5B+ specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 […]

AAEON ACP-1078 – A Rockchip RK3568-powered 7-inch touchscreen panel PC for manufacturing and logistics

AAEON ACP-1078 Rockchip RK3568 7-inch Panel PC

AAEON ACP-1078 is a 7-inch touchscreen panel PC powered by a Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 AI SoC with 12V to 24V DC input, and an IP65-compliant aluminum front bezel suitable for manufacturing and logistics use cases. The fanless panel PC ships with up to 4GB RAM and 16GB eMMC flash and offers dual GbE networking, HDMI output, five USB ports, two COM ports, a microSD card slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack. AAEON ACP-1078 panel PC specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 CPU – Quad-core Cortex A55 processor at up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Mali G52 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan 1.1 VPU 4Kp60 H.264, H.265, VP9, 1080p60 MPEG-4/-2/-1, VP8, and VC1 video decoder 1080p60 H.264/H.265 video encoder AI accelerator – 0.8 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage 16GB eMMC flash MicroSD card socket mSATA socket Display 7-inch WSVGA (1024 x […]

IP68-rated Rockchip RK3588 embedded mini PC works underwater

Mekotronics R58X-IP68

Mekotronics R58X-IP68 is a Rockchip RK3588-powered embedded mini PC with an IP68 ingress protection rating that makes it waterproof and even allows it to run submerged underwater. We’ve previously covered IP68 or IP67-rated hardware platforms like IoT gateways, thermal cameras, telemetry modules, and more. Those often rely on M12 or M8 connectors for waterproofness, but the Mekotronics R58X-IP68 relies on regular connectors housed in a waterproof socket and cable. Mekotronics R58X-IP68 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with four Cortex-A76 cores @ 2.4 GHz, four Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU VPU Video Decoder 8Kp60 H.265 VP9, AVS2 8Kp30 H.264 AVC/MVC 4Kp60 AV1 1080p60 MPEG-2, MPEG-1, VC-1, VP8 Video Encoder – Real-time H.265/H.264 video encoding up to 8Kp30, also usable as a multi-channel encoder in parallel (at lower resolution) AI Accelerator – 6 TOPS NPU System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB […]

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 […]

SagireEdge AI 600 SMARC SoM and devkit feature Qualcomm QCS6490 AIoT processor for Edge AI applications

Qualcomm QCS6490 SMARC SoM

Sagire AI’s SagireEdge AI 600 is a SMARC-compliant system-on-module (SoM) and a development kit based on Qualcomm QCS6490 octa-core Cortex-A78/A55 IoT processor and designed for Edge AI applications. The module comes with 8GB LPDDR5 and 128GB UFS storage, a WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.5 wireless module, a CAN Bus controller, and on-module camera and audio input connectors. Its MXM 3.0 edge connector exposes additional camera interfaces, a MIPI DSI display interface, PCIe Gen3 x2, gigabit Ethernet, a few USB interfaces, and a range of low-speed I/Os. SagireEdge AI 600 SoM specifications: SoC – Qualcomm QCS6490 CPU – Octa-core Kryo 670 with 1x Gold Plus core (Cortex-A78) @ 2.7 GHz, 3x Gold cores (Cortex-A78) @ 2.4 GHz, 4x Silver cores (Cortex-A55) @ up to 1.9 GHz GPU – Adreno 643L GPU @ 812 MHz with support for Open GL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0, Vulkan 1.x, DX FL 12 DSP – […]

The Blette Stick relies on Bluetooth 5.0 LE for off-grid messaging with up to 1.1km range

Blette Stick Bluetooth LE offgrid communication

The Blette Stick is a Bluetooth 5.0 LE USB-C dongle designed to be attached to an Android smartphone in order to provide off-grid messaging and GPS coordinates sharing capabilities with a range of up to 1.1km in case WiFi and cellular networks are down. CNX Software readers may also be familiar with Meshtastic devices relying on WiFi to connect to the smartphone with Bluetooth and to other nodes using LoRaWAN to enable off-grid messaging while trekking or during emergencies. The Blettle Stick does something similar to the Meshtastic project but with Bluetooth LE long-range communication instead of Bluetooth+LoRaWAN. While the range will be shorter and limited to around 1km (line-of-sight), the plug-and-play design will make it easier to use for typical users who are not technically savvy. Blettle Stick specifications: SoC – Nordic Semi nRF52 Bluetooth 5.0 LE microcontroller (exact part number not specified, possibly nRF52840) Wireless – Bluetooth 5.0 […]