open source News - Page 23 of 108 - CNX Software

December 11, 2023December 9, 2023 by Tomisin Olujinmi - No Comments

RoomSense IQ – An ESP32-S3 modular room monitor with mmWave radar presence detection (Crowdfunding)

RoomSense IQ is a modular room monitor for presence-based home automation based on the ESP32-S3 module with Bluetooth Wi-Fi connectivity. It uses physical presence detection to automate your smart home devices. It comes with multiple sensors that can be used to detect human activity and track ambient light, temperature, and humidity levels. It uses mmWave radar technology to determine when rooms are empty and when they are occupied. It also features built-in temperature, humidity, and light sensors for indoor climate monitoring and control. Rather than relying on schedules, or voice detection, RoomSense IQ triggers automations or alerts based on whether people are in a room or not. It is therefore possible to set it to automatically turn off lights or air conditioning in rooms that are empty to save on energy. In addition, the device offers distance to target measurement that can be adjusted to trigger certain actions. RoomSense IQ […]

December 8, 2023December 7, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

ESP32 may soon get an open-source WiFi MAC layer

Most, if not all, WiFi hardware relies on closed-source binary blobs including ESP32 wireless MCU, but there’s now work underway to reverse engineer a WiFi MAC layer for the ESP32 to make it a truly open-source platform. Espressif ESP32 wireless microcontrollers already have an open-source framework (ESP-IDF) and toolchain, people can customize the code to some extent, but this excludes the wireless bits (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, low-level RF functions) that are distributed as closed-source precompiled libraries integrated into the firmware. There were some efforts to provide an open-source stack for the BL602 chip but it never went anywhere, and the ESP32 may become the first target with an open-source driver without any blobs, excluding FPGA-based projects such as OpenWiFi. The early-stage implementation currently supports the following features: Sending WiFi frames Receiving WiFi frames Send an ACK packet as a reply to packets that are sent to the ESP32 Connect to an […]

December 3, 2023 by Debashis Das - No Comments

OpenMV CAM RT1062 camera for machine vision is programmable with MicroPython

Following the success of the OpenMV Cam H7 and the original OpenMV VGA Camera, OpenMV recently launched the OpenMV CAM RT1062 powered by NXP’s RT1060 processor. This new camera module integrates a range of features, including a high-speed USB-C (480Mbps) interface, an accelerometer, and a LiPo connector for portability. Similar to its predecessor, this camera module also features a removable camera system, and it is built around the OV5640 image sensor which is more powerful in terms of resolution and versatility. However, the previous Omnivision OV7725 sensor, used in the OpenMV Cam H7 has a far superior frame rate and low-light performance. OpenMV provides a Generic Python Interface Library for USB and WiFi Comms and an Arduino Interface Library for I2C, SPI, CAN, and UART Comms which can be used to interface your OpenMV Cam to other systems. To program the board, you can use MicroPython 3 with OpenMV IDE, […]

November 29, 2023November 29, 2023 by Kumpee Teeravech - 6 Comments

AirGradient ONE Kit Review – An open-source indoor air quality monitor

The product we are reviewing today is the “AirGradient ONE” air quality monitor kit which is an updated version of the earlier AirGradient air quality monitor. The device is equipped with sensors from Sensirion and Plantower, allowing it to measure many air quality parameters such as CO2, PM2.5, TVOCs, NOx, temperature, and humidity. It is an indoor air quality monitor that is both open-source software and open hardware. This means that the Arduino source code, schematic diagrams, PCB, and 3D models of the enclosure are available to developers. AirGradient ONE DIY Kit Unboxing The device was packaged within a cardboard box, with a greeting card from the manufacturer. The card features a QR code linking to a webpage with the installation guide. Since I requested the Kit version (there’s also a fully assembled model), some sensors were not pre-assembled and they were well-packaged in separate seals. The main PCB was […]

November 27, 2023November 27, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Olimex launches STMicro STM32MP157 SoM and open-source hardware EVB

Olimex has just launched the STMP157-BASE-SOM-EXT system-on-module (SoM) powered by an STMicro STM32MP157 dual-core Cortex-A7 microprocessor along with the open-source hardware STMP157-BASE-SOM-EVB evaluation board designed in KiCAD. The CPU module comes with 1GB RAM, an EEPROM for configuration, and power management circuitry, and the carrier board exposes all features of the microprocessor with HDMI video output, LCD display interfaces, a 2MP camera, gigabit Ethernet, USB ports, CAN bus terminal block, audio jacks, several GPIO headers, and more. STMP157-BASE-SOM-EXT System-on-Module specifications: Microprocessor – STMicro STM32MP157DAA1 dual-core Cortex-A7 processor @ 800 MHz with Arm Cortex-M4 real-time core @ 209 MHz, Vivante 3D GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 support System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – Linux configuration EEPROM Host interface – 6x 40-pin board-to-board connect with 1.27mm pitch for I/Os Misc – User LED, 24 MHz oscillator Power Management – AXP209 PMIC, LDO, DCDC power management Dimensions – 72 x 48 mm […]

November 22, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Theengs Bridge BLE to MQTT gateway supports Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Jeedom, NodeRed, and more

The Theengs Bridge is a new WiFi & Ethernet BLE to MQTT gateway running the open-source OpenMQTTGateway firmware, compatible with a range of sensors, and supporting Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Jeedom, NodeRed, and other MQTT-compatible systems. It follows the Theengs Plug smart socket introduced at the beginning of the board with many of the same features (minus the socket part…) but adds Ethernet and an external antenna for improved range, and improves modularity with a Grove I2C connector and mounting holes for a LoRa-E5-based Grove module and a prototyping area where you can solder your own circuitry with DIP components. Theengs Bridge specifications: Wireless module MCU – ESP32 microcontroller with WiFi and Bluetooth Storage – 8MB flash PCB antenna and u.FL antenna connector Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE with 6dBi 50Ohm external antenna Optional LoRa module via Grove I2C connector MQTT protocol Expansion – […]

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

Allwinner VPU gets open-source Linux driver for its H.264 hardware video encoder

Allwinner V3s open source Linux video encoding driver

Long-time readers of CNX Software may remember Bootlin’s crowdfunding campaign launched in 2018 to bring open-source Allwinner VPU drivers to take care of hardware video encoding and decoding in mainline Linux. They managed to raise enough funds (over 30,000 Euros) from small donors and several companies (Olimex, Pine64, Libre Computer, FriendlyELEC, and Orange Pi) to work on open-source VPU drivers for mainline Linux, but only for MPEG2, H264, and H265 decoding for in a range of Allwinner SoCs such as the A20 and H5, but not quite enough to cover the cost of H264 video encoding. Five years later, Bootlin took it upon themselves to complete the work without backing or support from Allwinner and have now released an open-source Linux-kernel based V4L2 driver to support the H.264 video encoder found in Allwinner V3, V3s, and S3 camera SoCs. The new driver builds upon earlier work by the company to […]

November 9, 2023November 9, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

Libre Computer AML-A311D-CC “Alta” SBC features Amlogic A311D AI processor

Libre Computer has launched the credit card-sized “Alta” SBC, also known as AML-A311D-CC, designed for AI applications with the Amlogic A311D hexa-core Arm Cortex-A73/A53 processor equipped with a 5 TOPS AI accelerator. The board comes with 4GB LPDDR4, a 16MB SPI flash for the bootloader as well as a microSD card slot and eMMC flash module connector for storage, and offers many of the same ports as found on the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ with Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, an AV jack, MIPI CSI and DSI connector, and a 40-pin GPIO header that should work with most Raspberry Pi HATs. AML-A311D-CC “Alta” specifications: SoC – Amlogic A311D CPU Hexa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 cores @ up to 2.2 GHz and 2x Cortex A53 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz Built-in Cortex-M4 core for “always-on” processing GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MP4 GPU VPU 4K UHD […]