IoT News - Page 121 of 190 - CNX Software

February 16, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Wibeee Power Monitoring Device Plugs right into Your Home’s Circuit Breaker Box

We’ve covered several smart plugs or switches capable of monitoring electricity consumption and displaying results right in a smarphone app, or computer’s web browser with products such as Sonoff S31 or Broadlink SP2 WiFi smart sockets, or Sonoff POW switch. Those work for individual plugs, but if you want to cover your full house, you’d need several of those, and in some case it may not be so convenient as no plugs may be available for example for lights or air conditioner. Smilics Technologies has come up with an easier method, although less granular, thanks to their WIBEEE device that clips to your fuse / circuit breaker box using DINZERO “clip-on” technology, and available in single and three phase models. Main features: Voltage Range – 85 to 265 V AC @ 50 ~ 60 Hz with 2% accuracy + variation in range of use depending on temperature, humidity, etc… Current […]

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Particle Unveils Three nRF52840 Bluetooth 5 Boards: Argon (WiFi), Boron (LTE), and Xenon, as well as Particle Mesh Technology

In the last year or so, Bluetooth has gotten an upgrade with the release of Bluetooth 5. The new protocol works on several existing platforms, but if you want support for the full set of Bluetooth 5 features such as longer range and higher bandwidth, we’ve seen you need a recent chip such as Nordic Semi nRF52840. However so far, AFAIK you had to buy Nordic Semi own development kit for play with nRF52840, and now Particle has announced not one, but three low cost development boards powered by nRF52840 chip starting at just $9, and supporting their newly announced Particle Mesh technology. So for some reasons, it appears they did not go with Bluetooth Mesh. Particle Xenon – Bluetooth 5 + Mesh Xenon is the cheapest model with the following specifications: SoC – Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F 32-bit processor @ 64MHz with 1MB flash, 256KB RAM Storage – […]

February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Conference & IoT Summit 2018 Schedule

The Embedded Linux Conference 2018 and the OpenIoT Summit 2018 will jointly take place next month, on March 12 – 14, 2018 in Portland, Oregon, USA. The former is a “vendor-neutral technical conference for companies and developers using Linux in embedded products”, while the latter is a “technical conference for the developers and architects working on industrial IoT”. The Linux Foundation has already published the schedule, and it’s always useful to learn what will be discussed about even for people who won’t attend. With that in mind, here’s my own virtual schedule with some of the talks I find interesting / relevant to this blog. Monday, March 12 10:50 – 11:40 – Progress in the Embedded GPU Ecosystem by Robert Foss, Collabora Ltd. Ten years ago no one would have expected the embedded GPU ecosystem in Linux to be what it is now. Today, a large number of GPUs have […]

February 11, 2018October 22, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

How to Use 3G and GPS on Raspberry Pi with ThaiEasyElec 3G HAT Expansion Board

Venus Supply is an embedded systems company based in Bangkok, Thailand that sells products through their ThaiEasyElec website/brand, as well as a act as a local distributor for popular DIY electronics items. I previously tested their ESPino32 ESP32 board, and the company has now send me another of their new product called “3G HAT Expansion for Raspberry Pi” and based on Quectel UC20-G that support 3G and GPS/GLONASS connectivity globally, meaning it should work in any country with 2G or 3G coverage. After listing the specifications, going through unboxing and assembly with a Raspberry Pi 2/3 board, I’ll write some quick start guide to show what I had to do to use GPS and connect to 3G with a Hologram SIM card. 3G HAT Expansion for Raspberry Pi Specifications Quectel UC20-G wireless module supporting Cellular 3G – UMTS @ 800/850/900/1900/2100 MHz 2G – GSM @ 850/900/1800/1900 MHz Data – HSPA+ […]

February 9, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

SocioNext MN87900 is a Really Tiny 24 GHz Radio Wave Radar Module for the Internet of Things

In the past, we covered tiny microwave radar modules operating at 5.8 GHz and measuring just 32 x 23 mm. Those modules are normally used to detect motion, distance, and/or direction of movement. Socionext has now introduced MN87900, a single low-power single-chip 24 GHz radio wave IoT sensor solution that even smaller at just 12x7mm with the chip, Tx and Rx antennas, crystal, and 40-pin to solder the module to your board. The solution targets IoT equipments, security systems, smart home appliances, autonomous vehicles and drones, medical devices, and more. SocioNext MN87900 key specifications: Sensor Type – CW, FSKCW, FMCW (moving or stationary) Detection Motion direction – approaching or leaving Motion speed – up to 200 km/h Range – 0.15 to 8 meters 80°@-3dB, expandable to 30 meters with a radome horn, a metal shield that narrows the field of view. Variable frequency width – 24.15±0.1 GHz Transmission Power – […]

February 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

TECHBASE ModBerry M300 IoT Gateway Adds Support for NanoPi and Orange Pi Allwinner H5 Boards

Announced at the end of last year TECHBASE launched the ModBerry M300, a Linux IoT gateway powered by FriendlyELEC NanoPi NEO board equipped with Allwinner H3 Cortex A7 processor. The company has now made four extra variants of the gateway with Allwinner H5 quad core Cortex A53 based development boards from FriendlyELEC and Shenzhen Xunlong: Modberry M300 N2 – Based on NanoPi NEO2 Modberry M300 N2+ – Based on NanoPi NEO Plus2 adding 8GB eMMC flash, WiFi & Bluetooth 4.0, and an extra USB port over the N2 model Modberry M300 O1 – Based on Orange Pi Zero Plus Modberry M300 O2 – Based on Orange Pi Zero Plus2 adding 8GB eMMC flash, HDMI, one extra USB port, and Bluetooth 4.0 over the O1 model, but falling back to 10/100 Ethernet, while all three models above come with Gigabit Ethernet To avoid confusion, the original NanoPi NEO model has changed […]

February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Sixfab Launches Arduino and Raspberry Pi NB-IoT Shields with Four Sensors

SixFab previously introduced a 3G/4G base shield for the Raspberry Pi boards that would take Quectel based mini PCIe card in order to add cellular connectivity to the popular development boards. The company is now back with NB-IoT shields that should better suited to IoT projects with lower hardware and data costs, and support either 40-pin Raspberry Pi boards or Arduino. SixFab Raspberry Pi NB-IoT Shield Specifications & features: Module – Quectel BC95-B20 NB-IoT Module supporting 800MHz frequency (suitable for the European market) Micro SIM card socket, PCB Antenna and u.FL socket for external antenna I/O expansions 4x Channel 12-bit ADC via ADS1015 Relay with optocoupler protection (24V DC, 120-220V AC Switching) 3-pin 1-Wire interface for DS18B20, DHT21, etc… 4-pin I2C interface 3.3V reference voltage Sensors MMA8452Q 3-axis accelerometer HDC1080 temperature sensor (-40 to +125 °C) HDC1080 humidity sensor (0 to 100%) ALS-PT19 ambient light sensor Misc – User button […]

February 7, 2018February 7, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Mozilla Project Things Framework for the IoT Works with Raspberry Pi 3 and Other Boards / Computers

The Internet of Things today relies on many standards, and for example Google Cloud relies on Weave, Amazon AWS IoT and Samsung SmartThings on MQTT, Apple iCloud and so on. The web also relies on many different markup or programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, etc.. but as a user you don’t need to care, and in most cases, you can access any website with the same web browser. Last year, Mozilla started working on Project Things to bring the same ease of of use to the IoT, by implementing the proposed Web of Things standard by W3C that aims to reduce IoT fragmentation by allowing different vendors’ IoT offerings to work together. Mozilla has now announced the release of Project Things “open framework for connecting your devices to the web” suitable not only for hackers and developers, but easy enough to use for end users. The release includes […]