SparkFun launches ESP32-based “Arduino IoT Weather Station” with Arduino IoT Cloud integration

Sparkfun Arduino IoT Weather Station

SparkFun’s Arduino IoT Weather Station is a complete weather station kit leveraging the company’s MicroMod ecosystem with an ESP32 Processor Board and various sensors and developed in collaboration with Arduino for integration into their IoT Cloud service. Most people will check the weather on the Internet or watch the weather forecast on TV, but if you live in a remote area with a micro-climate or just want to have fun building your own weather station, the latest SparkFun kit will allow you to monitor temperature, air and soil humidity, wind speed and direction, lightning, and rainfall data at home and monitor the data from anywhere using a web browser. Arduino IoT Weather Station kit content: MicroMod ESP32 Processor module MicroMod Weather Carrier Board with a BME280 temperature, pressure, and humidity sensor and an AS3935 lightning detector only. The optional VEML6075 UV sensor is NOT included. The Weather Meter Kit with […]

TRACEPaw sensorized paw helps legged robots “feel the floor” with Arduino Nicla Vision

TRACEPaw

Our four-legged friends don’t walk on tarmac the same way as they do on ice or sand as they can see and feel the floor with their eyes and nerve endings and adapt accordingly. The TRACEPaw open-source project, which stands for “Terrain Recognition And Contact force Estimation through Sensorized Legged Robot Paw“, aims to bring the same capabilities to legged robots. Autonomous Robots Lab achieves this through the Arduino Nicla Vision board leveraging its camera and microphone to run machine learning models on the STM32H7 Cortex-M7 microcontroller in order to determine the type of terrain and estimate the force exercized on the leg. But the camera is apparently not used to look at the terrain, but instead, at the deformation of the silicone hemisphere – made of “Dragon Skin” – at the end of the leg to estimate 3D force vectors, while the microphone is used to recognize terrain types […]

Setting up a private LoRaWAN network with WisGate Connect gateway

RAKwireless Wisgate Connect Gateway Review with Link.ONE devit

In this guide, we’ll explain how to set up a private LoRaWAN network using the Raspberry Pi CM4-based RAKwireless’ WisGate Connect gateway and Docker or Portainer to install NodeRED, InfluxDB, Grafana, and other packages required to configure our gateway. The WisGate Connect is quite a versatile gateway with Gigabit and 2.5Gbps Ethernet plus several optional wireless connectivity options such as LoRaWAN, 4G LTE, 5G, WiFi 6, Zigbee, WiFi HaLoW, and more that can be added through Mini PCIe or M.2 sockets, expansion through WisBlock IO connectors and a 40-pin Raspberry Pi HAT connector. We’ll start by looking at the gateway features in detail, but if you already know all that, you can jump to the private LoRaWAN network configuration section. WisGate Connect unboxing, specifications, and teardown RAKwireless sent us a model with a Raspberry Pi CM4 equipped with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC memory, GPS and […]

Raspberry Pi Pico to Arduino Uno adapter relies on “FlexyPins” for castellated holes

Raspberry Pi Pico Arduino UNO adapter FlexyPins

Solder Party’s “Raspberry Pi Pico to Uno FlexyPin Adapter” transforms the Raspberry Pi Pico into an Arduino UNO without soldering the board directly or using headers, but instead relying on FlexyPins flexible pins to attach the Pico board to the adapter using its castellated holes. The end result is basically the same as for the WisdPi ArduPico board, except the Raspberry Pi Pico is soldered to the main PCB on the latter, but it can be easily removed from the Solder Party’s Uno adapter board to be replaced with another compatible model, e.g. Raspberry Pi Pico vs Pico W. The FlexyPins can be used with any board or module with castellated holes, but it’s obviously especially useful for castellated modules without through holes, for example, to easily program a bunch of ESP32 modules. You’ll first need to get a few FlexyPins as shown below. Then solder them to a compatible […]

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit review – A fun toy and Arduino learning tool

Sunfounder Zeus Car Kit Review

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit is an Arduino UNO and ESP32 Cam-based educational kit for children (and adults) that can be used to learn more about electronics, robotics, and programming. It’s a car comprised of four 6cm Mecanum wheels for omnidirectional motion and various sensors that can be controlled with an Android app enabling first-person view (FPV) thanks to the built-in camera. The company sent us a Zeus Car Kit for review and evaluation, and after assembly, we’ll use it in “Play Mode”, or in other words a toy that basically works out of the box, before checking out the “Programing Mode” and related Arduino tutorials to evaluate it’s educational potential. Zeus Car Kit Unboxing The kit comes in a nice retail package which highlights some of the capacities of the kit: FPV, Omnidrive, AI vision, compass, IR control, APP control, and RGB lights. The package itself contains four more boxes […]

eModGATE Moduino X0 – An ESP32-based industrial IoT controller with battery support

eModGate X0 ESP32 industrial IoT controller

TECHBASE eModGATE Moduino X0 is an industrial IoT control based on a choice of ESP32 modules from Espressif and Pycom, equipped with a battery slot for remote installations, and various interfaces to connect sensors or actuators via RS232, RS485, and/or digital I/Os. We first wrote about TECHBASE Moduino-X series ESP32 IoT endpoints almost six years ago with the X1 and X2 models, but since then the company has added more models such as the large X3 and X4 devices with more I/Os, and the new entry-level Moduino X0 that’s similar to the X1, but with battery support instead of a supercapacitor. eModGATE Moduino X0 specifications: ESP32 wireless module/board options ESP32-WROVER with ESP32 dual-core Tensilica LX6 processor @ 240 MHz, 8MB PSRAM, 4MB or 16MB SPI flash Pycom WiPy 3.0 with 4MB RAM, 8MB Flash Pycom SiPy with 512kB RAM, 4MB Flash, Sigfox Pycom LoPy with 4MB RAM, 8MB Flash, Wi-Fi/BT4.2, […]

12 Euros ESP32-S3-DevKit-LiPo board runs Linux 6.3

ESP32-S3 Linux 6.3

Olimex ESP32-S3-DevKit-LiPo is a new open-source hardware ESP32-S3 board with 8MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, as well as LiPo battery and JTAG support that can run Linux 6.3, or the more traditional Arduino or MicroPython firmware. The board is based on the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N8R8 module, features two USB-C ports for power, programming, and JTAG debugging, plenty of expansion with two rows of I/Os plus a pUEXT connector, Reset and Boot buttons, and a couple of LEDs. ESP32-S3-DevKit-LiPo specifications: Wireless module – Espressif ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N8R8 with SoC – ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 microprocessor @ up to 240 MHz with Vector extension for machine learning, WiFi 4 & Bluetooth 5 LE/Mesh Memory – 8MB OSPI PSRAM Storage – 8MB QSPI flash PCB antenna Dimensions – 25.5 x 18.0 x 3.1 mm USB 1x USB Type-C OTG port also used for JTAG/Serial 1x USB Type-C port for USB-serial programming and power Expansion 2x 22-pin GPIO headers pUEXT […]

RP2 Nano is a $6.6 Raspberry Pi RP2040 board with Arduino Nano form factor

RP2 Nano Board RP2040 Arduino Nano

ArtronShop RP2 Nano board features the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller in the Arduino Nano form factor in a way that’s much cheaper than the official Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board. That’s possible because Thailand-based AtronShop did not include all the bells and whistles such as WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, sensors, and used a smaller flash. So the RP2 Nano basically offers the same I/Os and features as the Arduino Nano, but the Microchip ATmega328 8-bit AVR microcontroller gives place to the more powerful Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ MCU plus 2MB flash, and the board also adds an extra Grove connector for expansion. RP2 Nano specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264 kB of embedded SRAM Storage – 2MB SPI flash USB – 1x USB Type-C OTG port for power, data, and programming Expansion Arduino Nano headers (2x 15-pin headers) Up to […]

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