It’s always useful to monitor the electricity consumption of your house, as you can easily and quickly find out whether an appliance is suddenly consuming a large amount of electricity before finding out from your next utility bill. It can also help remotely monitoring if an appliance has stopped working and fix it as soon as possible, for example an electric pipe heater making sure your pipe do not freeze in a holiday home. In many cases, a qualified electrician needs to be involved for the installation of whole home energy meters both for safety and insurance matters. We’ve seen in the past energy meters fit easily into a circuit breaker box but they may not be suitable for all setups. I’ve previously reviewed an inexpensive digital clamp meter that you just need to clip on one of the wire connected to your home without having to mess with dangerous […]
WiPhone ESP32 VoIP Phone Targets Makers and Hackers (Crowdfunding)
WiPhone – pronounced as in Wi(reless) Phone – is a tiny VoIP phone made for makers and hardware hackers. The phone is based on ESP32 WiFi + Bluetooth SoC, is designed to be easily disassembled and modified both at the hardware and software level. It looks like an entry-level 2G/3G feature phone, except you can make only make phone calls over WiFi using a SiP account, as there’s no cellular modem. WiPhone specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32 dual core Tensilica LX6 processor @ 240 MHz System Memory – 4MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB flash, microSD card slot Display – 2.4″ screen with 320×240 resolution Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 dual mode (BT not yet supported in software) Audio – 3.5mm audio jack USB – 1x micro USB port for charging, serial communication and firmware updates Expansion – 20-pin programmable header on back of phone with UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, […]
Espressif “Chip 7” WiSoC May Support 5GHz WiFi
Espressif Systems has not released any new chips since the launch of ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC in 2016. But it looks like an new chip may be right around the corner, as John Lee from Espressif Systems teased us with a photo featuring a module equipped with “Chip 7” that should be released “soonish”. We really don’t know much about the chip except it comes in a 56-pin QFN package (4x 14 pins), and it won’t most likely be named Chip 7 once it is released. One Twitter user left a comment mentioning that it “looks like a bodged RF Filter. 5GHz mod?”. This reminded me of the potential ESP32-D0CD / ESP32-D2CD processors with dual band (2.4 + 5 GHz) WiFi. When I say “potential” it simply refer to the fact that ESP32 nomenclature has a “CD” connectivity option for WiFi ac/c/b/g/n and Bluetooth dual mode. But Espressif never […]
FOSSASIA 2019 Schedule – March 14-17
As its name implies, FOSSASIA is a Free and Open Source Software event taking place every year in Asia, more specifically in Singapore. I first discovered it last year, and published a virtual FOSSASIA 2018 schedule last year to give an idea about the subjects discussed at the event. It turns out FOSSASIA 2019 is coming really soon, as in tomorrow, so I’m a bit late, but I’ll still had a look at the schedule and made my own for the 4-day event. Thursday – March 14, 2019 10:05 – 10:25 – For Your Eyes Only: Betrusted & the Case for Trusted I/O by Bunnie Huang, CTO Chibitronics Security vulnerabilities are almost a fact of life. This is why system vendors are increasingly relying on physically separate chips to handle sensitive data. Unfortunately, private keys are not the same as your private matters. Exploits on your local device still have […]
ESP32 CoinCell is a Tiny, Coin Cell Powered ESP32 Pico D4 Board
ESP32 boards can easily be powered by batteries, either through an external USB battery shield, or direct connection to an ESP32 board fitted with battery charger circuitry. But Miek Rankin has done something a bit different, as he designed ESP32 Coincell board based on an ESP32 Pico D4 SiP (System-in-Package) powered by a rechargeable LIR2450 coin cell battery with 100mAh capacity. ESP32 CoinCell board specifications: SiP – Espressif Systems ESP32 Pico D4 Wifi/Bluetooth processor Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi up to 150 Mbps Bluetooth 4.1 LE On-board antenna Display – 0.69″ OLED display with 96×16 resolution USB – 1x micro USB port for charging and debugging (via CP2102N USB to TTL chip) Sensor – LIS3DHTR accelerometer Battery / Power Supply SE5218ALG-LF 500mA LDO power supply SL4054ST25P LiPo battery charger Socket for for LIR2450 (3.7V/100Mah battery) Consumption – 0.45mA in sleep mode Dimensions – Small If you don’t connect the battery, the board […]
Novasom SBC-U1 is a Tiny Industrial grade ESP32 Single Board Computer
Novasom Industries is an international company specializing in SBCs (Single Board Computers) with offices in Romania and the US. Most of their products are based on Arm and Intel processors, and they have two product lines their U-Line for low power IoT devices, and M-Line for applications requiring multimedia processing with various Rockchip, Qualcomm, and Intel processors. One model in the U-Line caught my attention, as beside an NXP i.MX6ULL SBC, the company is also offering an industrial temperature grade ESP32 SBC named SBC-U1 / SBC-U1A. SBC-U1/SBC-U1A board specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32 dual core Tensilica LX6 processor @ 240 MHz, 384KB RAM Storage – 4MB flash, micro SD card slot up to 32GB Connectivity – 802.11 b/n/g WiFi 4, Bluetooth 4.1 LE I/Os – 24-pin 2.54mm pitch header with up to 15 GPIO @ 3.3V, I2C, SPI, 2-ch 12-bit ADC, 2-ch 10-bit DAC, 2x protected inputs up to […]
Google & Arduino Unveils the Arduino Science Kit Physics Lab
Google and Arduino have partnered together to developer and launch the Arduino Science Kit Physics Lab, the first official Arduino kit designed for middle school curriculum (ages 11 to 14). Based on Arduino WiFi MKR1010, the science kit will allow pupils to experiment with forces, motion, and conductivity, and log data with Google’s Science Journal “digital science notebook” app for Android. Arduino Science Kit Physics Lab kit content: Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 based on Microchip SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ MCU and Espressif Systems ESP32 WiSoC (WiFi + Bluetooth) Arduino Science Carrier Board 2x Silicone standoffs 1x Flat micro USB cable 1x Grove-compatible light sensor module 1x Grove-compatible temperature sensor module 1x Grove-compatible white LED module 3x Grove Cable 20cm – universal 4-pin connector 2x Double-ended cable: crocodile clip/banana plug (50 cm), 2x Double-ended cable crocodile clip/banana plug (20 cm) 1x Magnet 1x Hook-and-loop Velcro strap, 1x Hook-and-loop Velcro dot 2x PCB sticks, 1x […]
SuperB XBee Compatible Module Features ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC (Crowdfunding)
Digi XBee is an ecosystem of standardized wireless module found in various development boards, and Espressif Systems ESP32 is by far the most popular WiFi and Bluetooth solution in the maker market. Somebody designed ESP32Bee combining ESP32 with XBee form factor a couple of years ago, but it was never commercialized, and I’m not aware of alternatives, except for SuperB module based on ESP32-WROOM-32 module that has just launched on Crowd Supply. SuperB modules specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-WROOM-32 with ESP32 dual core WiSoC clocked at up to 240 MHz 4MB flash (potentially upgraded to 16MB) Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth Classic + LE Expansion – 3.3 V levels, UART, SPI and GPIOs broken out to headers Misc – 1x user LED Power Consumption – Sleep current is less than 5 μA Dimensions – XBee form-factor compatible Certifications – Fully certified with integrated antenna and software stacks The […]