Raspberry Pi News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

March 14, 2025March 13, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

PicoCalc Kit is a Raspberry Pi Pico handheld terminal with a backlit STM32 QWERTY keyboard

ClockworkPi has made several Linux handheld terminals over the years such as the GameShell or DevTerm, but the PicoCalc Kit is quite different since it relies on the Raspberry Pi Pico board plus an STM32 microcontroller to handle its built-in keyboard. The PicoCalc Kit is based on the ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard that takes an RP2040-based Pi Pico H board, connects to a 4-inch IPS display with 320×320 resolution and stereo speakers, integrates a backlit QWERTY keyboard, and ships with a 32GB SD card with an optimized BASIC firmware. PicoCalc Kit specifications: ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard Compatible boards – Headers for Raspberry Pi Pico H/WH, and Raspberry Pi Pico 2 / 2W MCU – STM32 for keyboard and backlight programmable with the Arduino IDE or STM32 official development tools Storage – SD card slot Display – Screen connector (SPI) Audio 2x speaker connectors 3.5mm audio jack 67-key QWERTY keyboard (I2C) Expansion Connector […]

March 12, 2025March 11, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Tips to use a touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi OS in 2025

I’ve just reviewed the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi 5 running Raspberry Pi OS, and the experience was not quite as smooth as I had expected, so I’ll report some tips to save people time. The first is the software keyboard. Matchbox keyboard used to be the go-to solution, but two years ago, my preferred keyboard became the Onboard keyboard. Sadly, it’s not working so well with the latest Raspberry Pi OS using labwc Wayland window-stacking compositor, so now Raspberry Pi recommends squeekboard. It was not installed by default, but installation is fairly easy:

sudo apt install squeekboard

1	sudo apt install squeekboard

It did not show up automatically when trying to type in a text field, maybe because I’m using a third-party touchscreen keyboard, but going to Raspberry Pi Configuration and setting On-screen Keyboard to Enabled always in the Display tab fixed that. I was able to type a URL/web search terms in the URL […]

March 11, 2025March 12, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Review of SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display for SBCs using Raspberry Pi 5 and Radxa ROCK 5B

SunFounder 10.1-inch RPI Touchscreen Display Review

SunFounder has just sent us one of their 10.1-inch touchscreen display designed for single board computers (SBCs) for review. It supports the Raspberry Pi family, but not only, thanks to a flexible design that allows mounting all sorts of boards with mounting holes that fit within an 85x70mm area. All you need is a board with HDMI output, a spare USB port for the touchscreen, and 5V USB-C input (up to 5A). So I’ll first test the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with a Raspberry Pi 5 (85x56mm), then a larger Radxa ROCK 5 Model B Pico-ITX SBC (100 x 72mm). Since the display can also be used as an external touchscreen monitor, I’ll also try it with my laptop in Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows 11. SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display specifications Key features and specifications: Display Type – IPS LCD Resolution – 1280×800 (16:10 aspect ratio) Touchscreen – 10-point capacitive Viewing […]

March 10, 2025March 9, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Adafruit Metro RP2350 development board follows Arduino UNO form factor, features HSTX DVI output

The Adafruit Metro RP2350 is a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board that closely follows the Arduino UNO form factor for compatibility with existing Arduino shields. Key features include 37 GPIOs, a microSD card slot, a 5V buck converter (6–17V input), an onboard RGB NeoPixel, a Stemma QT port for I2C peripherals, a 22-pin HSTX port for DVI video output, and a USB Type-C port for power and data. It also provides a Pico Probe debug port, an RX/TX switch for UART flexibility, and a UF2 bootloader for easy firmware updates. Target applications include IoT projects, embedded system development, hardware prototyping, and educational purposes. Adafruit Metro RP2350 specifications SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trust zone, Secure boot Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used at any given time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Security 8KB of […]

March 7, 2025March 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Seeed Studio launches Wi-Fi HaLow mini PCIe module for Raspberry Pi, add-on board for XIAO boards

Seeed Studio has launched two 900 MHz WiFi HaLow modules for long-range, low-power communication based on Quectel FGH100M-H: the Wio-WM6180 Wi-Fi HaLow mini-PCIe module designed to be installed in hardware such as OpenWrt routers or even Raspberry Pi SBCs, and the Wi-Fi HaLow module for Seeed Studio XIAO designed to take XIAO boards with Espressif, Raspberry Pi, or Nordic Semi microcontrollers. These solutions can be useful for Smart Home devices, industrial automation, Smart City infrastructure, Smart Agriculture, and environmental monitoring systems. The most typical use cases are WiFi HaLow cameras with up to one kilometer range. Wio-WM6180 Wi-Fi HaLow mini-PCIe Module Specifications: Quectel FGH100M-H Wi-Fi HaLow module compliant with IEEE 802.11ah standard. Chipset – Morse Micro MM6108 Wi-Fi Frequency Band – 902–928 MHz Operating mode – Access Point (AP) or Station (STA) Modulation – OFDM, BPSK, QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM Data Rate – Up to 32.5Mbps link rate Range – Up […]

March 7, 2025March 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Home Assistant 2025.3 released with dashboard view headers, tile card improvements, better SmartThings integration

The popular Home Assistant has gotten an update with version 2025.3 that brings dashboard view headers, several tile card improvements, better map clustering, streamed responses from LLMs, and improved SmartThings integrations. Let’s have a look at some of the improvements starting with dashboard view headers which allow users to add a title and welcoming text to dashboards using Markdown and templates. You can also add badges next to the headers. Home Assistant 2025.3 also brings plenty of improvements to tile cards: Adding a circular background around tiles that perform actions, and leaving the ones that just show extra information without a circle Features of a tile card can now be positioned inline in the tile card (e.g. on/off button) New features: switch toggle, counter toggle (to increase, decrease, or reset a counter entity), animations when hovering over atile card Editor improvements for ease of use The new version of Home […]

March 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Zant – An open-source Zig SDK for neural network deployment on microcontrollers

Zant neural network deployment microcontrollers

Zant is an open-source, cross-platform SDK written in Zig and designed to simplify deploying Neural Networks (NN) on microcontrollers. It comprises a suite of tools to import, optimize, and deploy NNs to low-end hardware. The developers behind the project developed Zant (formerly known as Zig-ant) after noticing many microcontrollers lacked robust deep learning libraries, and made sure it would be on various platforms such as ARM Cortex-M or RISC-V microcontrollers, or even x86 targets. Contrary to platforms like Edge Impulse that focus on network creation, Zant is about deployment and outputs a static, highly optimized library ready to be integrated into any existing work stack. Zant highlights: Optimized Performance – Supports quantization, pruning, and hardware acceleration techniques such as SIMD and GPU offloading. Low memory footprint – Zant employs memory pooling, static allocation, and buffer optimization to work on resources-constrained targets. Ease of Integration: With a modular design, clear APIs, […]

March 4, 2025March 4, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 adds industrial/extended temperature range from -40°C to +85°C

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 industrial temperature range

Some Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 are now available in the industrial/extended temperature operating from -40°C to +85°C, suitable for outdoor applications in cold climates and (some) cold storage solutions that require sub -20°C temperature. When the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 was launched in 2020, Raspberry Pi did not provide an operating temperature range. Since then, the Raspberry CM4 has been qualified to operate in the -20°C to +85°C range, which is suitable for most applications but not all. Eben Upton has now announced the availability of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 variants with extended temperature range. Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 specifications (as of March 2025): SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @ 1.5 GHz with VideoCore VI GPU System Memory – 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM Storage – CM4: 4, 8, 16, or 32GB eMMC flash up to 100MB/s; CM4 Lite: No storage device […]