Last year, we covered Sony Spritzer, an Arduino compatible with a Sony hexa-core Arm Cortex-M4F micro-controller, a built-in GNSS receiver, and an audio codec. The product page for this product is now gone, but it appears Sony only renamed it to SPRESENSE, made some design modifications, and is ready to launch the main board for 5,500 JPY (~$50), and the extension board for an extra 3,500 JPY ($32) on July 31, 2018. Sony SPRESENSE main board (CXD5602PWBMAIN1) specifications: MCU – Sony CXD5602 ARM Cortex-M4F ×6 micro-controller clocked at up to 156 MHz with 1.5MB SRAM Storage – 8MB Flash Memory GNSS – GPS & GLONASS Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Expansion I/Os Digital I/O Pins – GPIO, SPI, I2C, UART, PWM, I2S Analog Pins – 2ch (0.7V range) Camera interface USB – 1x micro USB port for programming and power Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – […]
Orange Pi 3G-IoT SBC Launched for $24.90
We had two Arm Linux SBCs with cellular connectivity from Shenzhen Xunlong so far: Orange Pi 2G-IoT for 2G connectivity, and Orange Pi 4G-IoT with LTE support in Asia and Europe. But what if you needed 3G connectivity, and did not want to spend $45 on the 4G board? There was no option until today, but the company has just launched Orange Pi 3G-IoT with WCDMA (UMTS), TD-CDMA and CDMA2000 support. Orange Pi 3G-IoT-B board specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT6572 dual core Cortex A7 processor @ up to 1.2 GHz with Arm Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 512MB DDR2 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot Display I/F – FPC connector for FWVGA display (854×480) Camera I/F – MIPI connector Audio – 3.5mm audio jack, built-in microphone, 2x solder pads for optional speakers Connectivity Cellular Nano SIM card slot 2G GSM – 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G WCDMA -(B1/B2/B5/B8), TD-CDMA, CDMA2000 […]
IOTA Tangle is a Blockless Distributed Ledger for the Internet of Things – Running a IOTA Full Node on Rock64 Board
A lot of efforts is going into distributed ledger technologies like the blockchain, and while I keep hearing blockchain is the future, there’s a lot of hype, and so far I have not seen that many practical use cases. But recently I saw Open Source Foundries – a new company announced at Linaro Connect US 2017 – participated in the IOTA blockchain BoF at the OpenIoT Summit 2018 showing a demo publishing sensor data to the IOTA Tangle. So maybe we have a practical application here… Sadly, there’s no video recording of the IOTA blockchain BoF, so instead let’s go to the IOTA website to find out more. What is IOTA? That’s the short description of the solution: An Open-Source Distributed Ledger The first open-source distributed ledger that is being built to power the future of the Internet of Things with feeless microtransactions and data integrity for machines. The key technology […]
ESP8266 based ANAVI Light Controller can be Programmed with Home Assistant or the Arduino IDE (Crowdfunding)
ANAVI Technology previously launched a Light pHAT allowing for RGB Light strip connection to Raspberry Pi boards, and during my review of ANAVI Light pHAT with Raspberry Pi 2, it did the job, but if that’s all you want to do, the Raspberry Pi board is clearly oversized & overpowered for the job. So Leon ANAVI got back to the drawing board and designed a similar open source hardware board – called ANAVI Light Controller – with an built-in ESP8266 module that removes the need for a fully fledged Linux board. ANAVI Light Controller specifications: Wireless Module – ESP8266MOD module based on ESP8266 Tensilica L106 32-bit processor Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n Expansion Terminal block for 12 V RGB LED strip 3x I2C headers for sensors Debugging – UART header Misc – Button Power Supply – 12 V via power barrel jack Dimensions – 75 mm x 40 mm Certification […]
Sens’it Discovery is a Sigfox IoT Solution with 6 Sensors
Sigfox has just launched Sens’it Discovery, which they describe as a “end-to-end IoT solution, which aims to accelerate the adoption of the IoT (Internet of things) among business and technical professionals”. The solution is comprised for Sens’it 3 device with 6 sensors, sensit.io application, and Sigfox connectivity. Sens’it 3 hardware specifications: MCU – STM32 micro‑controller Connectivity TI CC1125 radio transceiver Sigfox Ready class 0U Frequencies – 868 to 869.7 MHz, 902 to 908 MHz, or 923.2 MHz (TX) / 922.2 MHz (RX), or 920 to 925 MHz depending on region Transmit Power emission – 14 dBm ERP (RC1), 22 dBm ERP (RC2), 10 dBm ERP (RC3), 22 dBm ERP (RC4) Sensors Thermometer (HTS221) – -40 to 120°C / Accuracy ± 0.5°C Humidity (HTS221) – 0 to 100 / Accuracy ± 3.5% rH (20 to +80% rH) Accelerometer (FXOS8700) – ±2, 4, 8 g / Accuracy 0.244, 0.488, 0.976 mg Magnetometer (FXOS8700) […]
MT3620 Development Board for Azure Sphere is Up for Pre-order for $84.90
Microsoft unveiled Azure Sphere solutions last month in order to provide a complete secure IoT solution from the hardware to the cloud with three main components: a secure MCU, Linux based Azure Sphere OS, and Azure Sphere Security (Cloud) Service. The company already stated Mediatek MT3620 would be the first Azure Sphere compliant MCU, and today Seeed Studio has announced MT3620 development board for Azure Sphere is up for pre-order for $84.90 with a $5 deposit, and shipping scheduled for the end of September. Preliminary specifications of MT3620 development board for Azure Sphere: WiSoC – Mediatek MT3620AN single core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 500 MHz, dual core Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core, Pluton security sub-system, and WiFi. System Memory – Over 5MB of embedded RAM, split among the various cores (4MB for Arm Cortex A7 core) Storage – 2x 8MB dual channel quad SPI (16MB in total) Connectivity – Dual band […]
Arduino Introduces Two New IoT Boards – MKR WiFi 1010 (ESP32) and MKR NB 1500 (NB-IoT + eMTC)
Arduino introduced its MKR family of breadboard compatible maker boards with MKR1000 featuring an Atmel SAMD21 microcontroller combined with a Microchip WINC1500 WiFi module. The board was followed by MRKZero without wireless connectivity, then MKRFOX1200 Sigfox board, and finally MKR WAN 1300 & MKR GSM 1400 boards at the end of 2017 with LoRaWAN and 3.75G cellular connectivity. The company has now launched two new boards: Espressif ESP32 based MKR WiFi 1010 with WiFi and Bluetooth, and MKR NB 1500 equipped with an NB-IoT & LTE CAT M1 module. Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 MKR WIFI 1010 is an evolution of the MKR1000 board, and is equipped with a U-Blox ESP32 module. Preliminary specifications: MCU – Microchip SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 32KB SRAM, 256 KB flash memory Wireless Connectivity – 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 LE via U-blox NINA-W10 Series module based on ESP32 processor. […]
Android Things 1.0 Released with Support for NXP i.MX 8M, Qualcomm SDA212/SDA624 and Mediatek MT8516 SoMs
Brillo Project was renamed to Android Things with the release of a developer preview back in December 2014, and the operating system enabling developers and companies to build and maintain Internet of Things devices at scale. The OS has now graduated so-to-speak with the release of Android Things 1.0 with long-term support for production devices, and this was to be expected as several Android Things devices were announced earlier this year. The new release adds supports for new system-on-modules (SoMs) based on the NXP i.MX8M, Qualcomm SDA212, Qualcomm SDA624, and MediaTek MT8516 SoCs. These modules are certified for production use with guaranteed long-term support for 3 years, and development hardware and reference designs for these SoMs will be available in the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and NXP i.MX7D boards and system-on-modules are still supported, but support for NXP i.MX6UL devices will be deprecated. Check out the […]