Getting Started with LinkIt ONE Development Kit for Wearables & IoT

After going through WRTnode Quick Start Guide, it’s now time to play with LinkIt ONE, the IoT development board from Mediatek designed by Seeed Studio. LinkIt ONE is the first Hardware Development Kit (HDK) for Mediatek LinkIt, so there may be a LinkIt TWO, and/or other hardware platforms in the future. LinkIt ONE specifications Let’s quickly go through the specifications first: Processor – Mediatek MT2502A (Aster) ARM7 EJ-STM processor @ 260 MHz System Memory – 4 MB Storage – 16MB Flash for firmware + micro SD slot shared with SIM slot for up to 32GB additional storage Connectivity: Wi-Fi – 802.11 b/g/n (MT5931) with external antenna Bluetooth – BR/EDR/BLE(Dual Mode) GPS – Mediatek MT3332 with external antenna GSM/GPRS – 850/900/1800/1900 MHz band, Class 12 GPS with external antenna Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack (including mic support) – Support for MP3, AAC, and AMR codecs. Serial – Software Serial (Serial), and […]

Infineon XMC 2Go Cortex M0 Development Kit Sells for 5 Euros

Infineon brought another tiny, portable, and cheap ARM Cortex M0 board to market with XMC 2Go development kit featuring XMC1100 ARM Cortex M0 micro-controller with 16KB RAM, 64KB Flash, and tow breadboard friendly headers to access various serial interfaces and ADC pins.   Key features listed on Infineon website: MCU – Infineon XMC1100 ARM Cortex-M0 MCU @ 32 MHz with 64KB flash, 16KB RAM. Debugger – On-board J-Link Lite Debugger using an XMC4200 Microcontroller. Headers – 2×8 pin headers suitable for Breadbord with access to 2x USIC (Universal Serial Interface Channel: UART, SPI, I2C, I2S, LIN), 6x 12-bit ADC, external interrupts (via ERU), 4x 16-bit timers Misc – 2 x user LED, RTC Power – 5V Micro via USB, or 3.3V external power. ESD and reverse current protection Dimensions – 14.0 x 38.5 mm The board is programmed via USB using the same Dave IDE I tried with XMC4500 Relax […]

Intrinsyc OPEN-Q 8084 Development Kit Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Processor

Inforce Computing IFC6540 was the first low cost development board powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor I discovered a few months ago, but is currently “for pre-approved customers only and have not yet been released to public”. Intrinsyc has now launched their own Snapdragon 805 development kit called OPEN-Q 8084 based on a mini-ITX carrier board, and a SoM with 3GB RAM, and 16GB eMMC. The board target applications include ruggedized tablets, digital signage, government/public safety, medical, robotics, wearable displays, video streaming/conferencing, gaming systems, and in-flight entertainment. Specifications of APQ8084 Open-Q System-on-Module: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (APQ8084) quad core Krait 450 @ 2.5GHz, with Adreno 420 GPU @ 500MHz, Hexagon QDSP6 V5A (600MHz), and two ISPs for up to 55-megapixel stereoscopic 3D System Memory – 3GB PoP LPDDR3 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC 5.0 flash, expandable to 64GB, micro SD signals, and SATA signals (via MXM connector) Connectivity – […]

Broadcom Introduces WICED Sense Bluetooth Low Energy Development Kit

Broadcom has recently announced a new development board for IoT applications using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) called WICED Sense. The kit consists of a “sense tag” powered by the company’s BCM20737S Bluetooth SIP Module with five micro-electromechanical sensors (MEMS), and Bluetooth 4.1 compatible WICED SMART software stack. The key features of WICED Sense devkit are as follows: Broadcom BCM20737 Bluetooth Smart system in package (SiP) module Five low-power MEMS sensors by ST Micro (part of the module): Gyroscope (L3GD20) Accelerometer (LIS3DSH) eCompass (LSM303D) Pressure sensor (LPS25H) Humidity Temperature sensor (HTS221) Bluetooth Smart connection covers distance of roughly 30 meters. USB – 1x micro USB connector to update applications Encryption, decryption, certificate signing, verification and various algorithms for increased privacy Secure Over-the-air (OTA) download capability to enable firmware updates from central device including smartphone, tablet and computers Misc – iBeacon, NFC, Wireless charging (Rezence A4WP) support. Power – Coin-cell battery The […]

MYIR ARM9 Linux Development Boards & Computer-on-Modules Powered by Freescale i.MX28 Processor

MYIR MYD-IMX28X development boards and MYC-IMX28X CPU modules had been announced in May 2014, but I’ve just found out about them via the company’s newsletter. The CoMs are powered by Freescale i.MX28 ARM9 processors (i.MX283 or i.MX287), feature 128 MB RAM, 256 MB Flash, and connect to a baseboard to make the development boards. Target applications include smart gateways, human-machine interfaces (HMIs), handheld devices, scanners, portable medical, experimental education as well as other industrial applications. MYC-IMX28X CoMs MYC-IMX28X computer-on-module specifications: Processor – Freescale i.MX283 or i.MX287 ARM926EJ-STM processor up to 454MHz with 128KB SRAM, 128KB ROM, 1280 bits of OCOTP ROM, 16KB/32KB I and D Cache System Memory – 128MB DDR2 SDRAM Storage – 256MB NAND flash, 128KB SPI flash Connectivity – On-board Ethernet PHY Connectors – 2x 1.27mm pitch 2 x 40-pin SMT male expansion connectors with access to Ethernet – Up to 2 Ethernet (two for i.MX287, one for i.MX283) USB […]

Vigekwear is a Modularized, Open source, Wearable BLE Development Kit (Crowdfunding)

[Update: Atomwear has been renamed to Vigekwear due to (Intel’s) copyrights infringement]. Giayee is a company mainly manufacturing Android tablets, thin clients, and mini PCs, but their latest product, called Atomwear, is a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) development kit based on Nordic nRF51822 chipset that comes with various modules such as battery charger, accelerometer, gyroscope, OLED display, heart rate monitor, etc… which connect together via 24-pin connector on a standard rigid baseboard or a flexible printed circuit (FPC). All modules are connected via the same 24-pin connector with power, I2C, SPI, UART, ADC, and GPIOs signals. The baseboard and FPC both contain 6 such connectors connected in parallel for up to 6 modules, and two baseboard can be connected together via a bridge circuit to accept more modules. The minimum configuration is with a BLE MCU module, and a power module. The different boards and modules are listed as follows: […]

Emtrion DIMM-AM335x SoM Supports Mainline Linux Kernel

When I cover system-on-modules (SoM), companies will usually provide some BSP (Board Support Packages) for older kernels, and did not submit their changes to mailine kernel, so I was interested in a news from Emtrion entitled “DIMM-AM335x: Linux mainline support ready“, which actually means they’ve done the work to support a recent Linux kernel (3.14) and provides instructions and code (device tree files), but did not submit patches to the linux-arm-kernel mailing list to get their changes added to kernel.org. Let’s look at the hardware specs first: SoC – Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex A8 processor @ 720Mhz to 1GHz (AM3354 or AM3359) System Memory – onboard 512 MB SDRAM/optional 256 MB Storage – 512 MB NAND Flash (managed) + 2 SD card interfaces Display – LCDs I/F with resolution up to SVGA, with 4-wire touch interface Audio – Analog Audio with SSI I/F USB – USB 2.0 Host […]

ADT-1 Google’s Android TV Developer’s Kit Details

Google announced Android TV a few days ago, and distributed ADT-1 hardware development kit to application developers during Google I/O. I could not find much details at the time, except it was powered by Nvidia Tegra processors. I’ve now noticed some developers have posted a few pictures and the device, Phandroid has posted the specifications, and I’ve found some interesting hardware limitations for Android TV decided by Google that kill some potential applications for the TV. Here are known hardware specifications for ADT-1 devkit: SoC – Nvidia Tegra 4 System Memory – 2GB RAM Storage – 16GB flash Video Output – HDMI Connectivity – Ethernet, 2×2 MIMO dual-channel WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 1x USB host port, 1x micro (custom?) USB port for power and ADB (via an Y cable provided with the kit) Dimensions – Small 🙂 This Android L Android TV box looks tiny and comes with G1 […]

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