52Pi CM4 Router Board also features HDMI, 40-pin Raspberry Pi HAT header, and OLED display

52Pi CM4 Router Board

We’ve already seen compact Raspberry Pi CM4 based router boards with two Ethernet ports from DFRobots, Seeed Studio, and MCUZone. 52Pi CM4 Router Board expands on the same principle but also offers HDMI output, a 40-pin GPIO header for Raspberry Pi HAT expansion boards, and a small OLED information display. The board also includes two Gigabit Ethernet, plus the WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity from the Raspberry Pi CM4, and the extra features make the board larger (146x50mm) than competitors. But that makes the platform that much more flexibly, and can be used as a gateways for all sorts of projects thanks to the wide range of Raspberry Pi HAT available in the market. 52Pi CM4 Router Board (EP-0146) specifications: Compatible with Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 series Storage – MicroSD card slot (only used with Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite) Video Output – HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 Display – […]

NanoPi R4SE dual Gigabit Ethernet router adds 32GB eMMC flash

NanoPi R4SE router

NanoPi R4SE is a variant of the Rockchip RK3399-powered NanoPi R4S dual Gigabit Ethernet router that adds a 32GB eMMC flash instead of only relying on a microSD card for the operating system. Most of the specifications remain the same with dual GbE, two USB 3.0 ports, but the router is now only offered with 4GB LPDDR4 and there’s no option for only 1GB RAM, and the GPIO and USB 2.0 headers are gone. The listed temperature range also changed from -20°C to 70°C to 0°C to 80°C. NanoPi R4SE specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core processor with dual-Core Cortex-A72 up to 2.0 GHz,  quad-core Cortex-A53 up to 1.5 GHz, Mali-T864 GPU with OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC support, 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 60fps video decoder System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Networking – 2x GbE, including one native Gigabit […]

Banana Pi BPI-W3 – An RK3588 SBC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, PCIe x4 slot

Banana Pi BPI-W3

Banana Pi BPI-W3 is yet another upcoming Rockchip RK3588 SBC but with a different set of features, notably the presence of two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a PCIe x4 slot, and a SATA port, besides to more common dual HDMI output, HDMI input, USB 2.0/3.0 ports, etc… The board layout is somewhat similar to the company’s BPI-RK3588 SBC but with a system-on-module, and instead, the Rockchip RK3588 processor is soldered directly onto the board together with 8GB LPDDR4, and 32GB eMMC flash. Banana Pi BPI-W3 specifications (preliminary): SoC- Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz (YMMV), 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali G610MC4 GPU, a 6 TOPS NPU, 8K 10-bit decoder, 8K encoder System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, SATA III port Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.1 ports up to 8Kp60 Input – 1x HDMI 2.0 input […]

Arduino “launches” WisGate Edge LoRaWAN gateways in collaboration with RAKwireless

Arduino LoRaWAN Gateways

Arduino was already involved in LoRaWAN with its MKR WAN 1300 board, but now the company has started offering Arduino-branded Wisgate Edge Pro and Wisgate Edge Lite 2 LoRaWAN gateways for respectively outdoor and indoor environments as part of the Arduino Pro family. If the names of the gateways seem familiar, it’s because Arduino collaborated with Rakwireless, and is simply using their existing LoRaWAN gateways. As I understand it RAKwireless will provide the hardware and technical support, while Arduino will sell the gateways and other LoRaWAN hardware through its existing customer base, more acting as a distributor. Arduino WisGate Edge Lite 2 indoor gateway specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7628 MIPS processor @ 580 MHz System Memory – 128MB DDR2 Storage OS on flash SD card for setup and diagnostics, backup, and data logging Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port 2.4 WiFi (802.11b/g/n) with -95 dBm RX sensitivity, 20dBm Tx power; internal […]

Sipeed Lichee RV Dock Pro RISC-V SBC adds MIPI/RGB LCD connector, dual MIC, and BL702 JTAG+UART debugger

Sipeed Lichee RV Dock Pro Allwinner D1 RISC-V Development Board

Sipeed has launched the Lichee RV Dock Pro kit for the company’s Lichee RV Allwinner D1 RISC-V module that builds on the earlier Lichee RV Dock carrier board and adds a MIPI/RGB LCD connector, two built-in microphones, as well as an on-board JTAG+UART debugger based on Bouffalo Lab BL702 microcontroller. Lichee RV Dock Pro specifications (preliminary) which changes in bold or strikethrough: Supported system-on-module (SoM) – Lichee RV module with Allwinner D1 RISC-V processor @ 1 GHz, 512MB DDR3, MicroSD card slot, and USB Type-C OTG port Storage – Optional SPI flash Display interfaces HDMI port up to 4Kp30 MIPI LCD/RGB interface for up to 720p30 display Audio – 3W power amplifier, 2x analog microphone, support for 6-mic array via expansion Connectivity – WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 via Realtek RTL8723 wireless module with ceramic antenna, IPEX antenna connector USB – 1x USB Type-A port adding to the USB-C OTG […]

NanoPi R5S preview – Part 2: Ubuntu 20.04 (FriendlyCore)

NanoPi R5S M.2 NVMe SSD

I started the NanoPi R5S review with an unboxing, a teardown, a quick try of the pre-installed OpenWrt-based FriendlyWrt, and some iperf3 benchmarks on the 2.5GbE interfaces that were rather disappointing. I test further I switched to the Ubuntu 20.04-based FriendlyCore image since I’m more familiar with Debian-based operating systems, and some tools will not run on OpenWrt. Note the performance is still not quite optimal, and that’s why I call this a preview since numbers should improve in the next few months as more people tweak the software. OpenWrt optimizations? But before jumping to Ubuntu, I gave an updated version of FriendlyWrt a try as FriendElec told me they had added some optimizations: We have made some optimizations on the new image, such as NIC interrupt settings, and offload support… So I downloaded “rk3568-eflasher-friendlywrt-20220526.img.gz” found on Google Drive, flashed it to a microSD card with USBImager, and booted it […]

NanoPi R5S router review – Part 1: Unboxing, OpenWrt, and iperf3 benchmarking

NanoPi R5S router review

FriendlyElec has just launched the NanoPi R5S mini router powered by a Rockchip RK3568 processor, and the company kindly sent me two samples for review. In the first part of the review, I’ll check out the device itself, the internal design, the preinstalled OpenWrt, and run some networking benchmarks with iperf3. NanoPi R5S unboxing   The router comes fully assembled together with a 3M sheet with 6 rubber feet, which, as we’ll see below, are not really necessary. A microSD card socket can be found on one of the sides, while the rear panel comes with a USB-C port for power, a WiFi antenna hole (which can also be used to run cables for GPIO. UART console, etc…), two 2.5GbE RJ45 LAN ports, a Gigabit Ethernet WAN port, and HDMI video output. We’ll find a Mask button for firmware flashing on the other side, and the front panel features four […]

FastRhino R68s router offers 4GB RAM, dual 2.5GbE, dual Gigabit Ethernet for $80 (in China)

FastRhino R68s router

Rockchip RK3568-powered NanoPi R5S router has gotten a direct competitor courtesy of FastRhino R68s with the same processor, but more memory up to 4GB RAM, two 2.5GbE ports, and two Gigabit Ethernet ports (or one extra compared to R5S), and two USB 3.0 ports. FastRhino R68s is purely a router in the traditional sense, and you don’t get an HDMI port acting as a display interface or an M.2 NVMe socket to add extra storage as found in NanoPi R5S. The plastic enclosure used with R68s will not be able to cool the Rockchip RK3568 as well as the metal enclosure of the FriendlyElec device, but there are plenty of ventilation holes so that may be sufficient. FastRhino R68s specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3568 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G52 MP2 GPU, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4Kp60 H.265/H.264/VP9 video decoder, 1080p60 H.264/H.265 video encoder System […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC