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April 18, 2016April 18, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

LoRaONE is a Small LoRa IoT Development Board Based on Atmel SAMD21 MCU, Microchip LoRaWAN Module (Crowdfunding)

While there are many long range LPWAN standards, LoRa appears to be one of the most popular with boards such as LoPy, and now SODAQ LoRaONE module hitting crowdfunding campaigns. LoRaONE is powered by an Atmel Cortex M0+ micro-controller, features Microchip RN2483 or RN2903 LoRaWAN module, GPS, and various sensors. LoRaONE board specifications: MCU- Atmel ATSAMD21G18 ARM Cortex M0+ micro-controller @ 48 MHz with 256 KB flash memory, 32KB SRAM, and up to 16 KB EEPROM (by emulation) Connectivity LoRa via Microchip RN2483 (433/868 MHz) or RN2903 (915 MHz) module depending on your region GPS via u-blox EVA 7M USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming Expansion headers (unpopulated) 14x digital pin, 12x for analog and 8x for PWM, plus UART, SPI and TWI (I2C) Analog output pin – 10-bit DAC External Interrupts: Available on all pins DC Current per I/O pin: 7 mA Operating Voltage – […]

December 4, 2015October 13, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Cypress Unveils a $49 Solar Powered IoT Development Kit with Bluetooth LE Connectivity

Cypress Semiconductors has recently launched a Solar powered IoT device kit, with the easy-to-remember codename S6SAE101A00SA1002, featuring the company’s CYBLE-022001-00 Bluetooth Smart module, and S6AE101A energy harvesting power management IC (PMIC) on the main board, as well as all accessories such as a small solar panel, a BLE-USB bridge, and all necessary components and cables. Target applications include battery-less wireless sensor node (WSN), IoT device that monitors various sensors, BLE Beacon, wearable device, building energy management system (BEMS), Home EMS, Factory EMSystem, wireless lighting control,wireless HVAC sensor and security system. The main features of the Energy harvesting motherboard include: Cypress CYBLE-022001-00 Bluetooth Smart module with ARM Cortex-M0 @ 48MHz, 128 KB flash, 16KB SRAM Cypress S6AE101A energy harvesting PMIC Sensor – Temperature & humidity sensor USB – 1x USB port for programming and debugging Debugging – SWD (serial Wire Debug) connector, JTAG header for USB-BLE Expansion – Sensor expansion connector […]

March 27, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

PiJuice Battery HAT Module for the Raspberry Pi Boards Comes with an Optional Solar Panel (Crowdfunding)

The Raspberry Pi is a low power board that can be powered a few hours or a few days with batteries, and the easiest solution is probably to use a USB power bank connected to the micro USB port of the board, but the solution is not really integrated. That’s where PiJuice comes into play. It’s a HAT compatible module that connects nicely to the latest Raspberry Pi boards with 40-pin header (A+, B+ and B2), and include a 1,400 mAh battery that can be used as UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), an RTC, and more. Key features of PiJuice HAT: 1400 mAh Lipo battery, good enough to last up to 24 hrs in constant use. 5,000 mAh batteries are also said to be supported. Full UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) solution Integrated RTC (Real Time Clock) On board intelligent on/off switch Low power deep-sleep state with wake on interrupt/calendar event On […]

February 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

USB Solar Power Bank Review

A few months ago, I won a $5 coupon for DealExtreme, and decided to buy a “Portable 5V (30,000mAh) Li-ion Battery Solar Power Bank w/ Dual USB + LED – Black + White” for just over $20. For the price, solar charging was a nice bonus, and the 30,000 mAh was probably a “mistake” but it did not really matter. The SKU is gone, but 1BA-2 Solar power bank ($23.97) appears to be a very similar product. I did not plan to write about this gadget, but a few things happened that made me change my mind. First. it took over two months to reach me, instead of the usual 2 to 4 weeks. I ordered on the 9th of November 2013, and received the package on the 25th of January 2014. The reason being that the package got declined by Thai immigration (I live in Thailand). DealExtreme could not […]

August 6, 2013August 6, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

WeWi SOL Ubuntu Laptop is Powered by an Intel Atom Processor and Solar Energy

WeWi Telecommunications has designed a solaptop (Solar-powered laptop) with 4 foldable solar panels in order to recharge the battery. WeWi SOL is powered by Intel Atom D2500, with 4GB RAM, features a 13.3″ display, and runs Ubuntu. It will be sold for only $300 to $400. WeWi SOL specifications: CPU – Intel Atom D2500 @ 1.86 GHz Dual Core, Intel 945GSE + ICH7M GPU – Built-In Intel GMA3600 Graphics, 1080p HD Video System Memory – 2 to 4GB DDRIII SDRAM (Kingston) Storage – 2.5” SATA HDD 320GB (Seagate) + Card reader (SD/MS/MMC) Display – 13.3″ LCD, WXGA, 1366 x 768 Video Output – HDMI Audio – Realtek ALC661 HD Audio, built-in stereo speakers, internal mic + 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity: 10/100M Ethernet 3G/4G World/multimode LTE Modem GPS (gpsOne Gen8A) WiFi – MIMO 802.11b/gn (2.4/5GHz) Bluetooth – Integrated Digital Core BT4.0 USB – 3x USB 2.0 Camera – 3MP Battery Operating Time […]

November 2, 2012November 2, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

199 Euros “Energy Harvesting Solution To Go” Kit with Energy Micro Cortex M3 Starter Kit

If you’re interesting in battery less ultra low power applications, Energy Micro, Linear Technology and Würth Elektronik have announced an energy harvesting development platform early last month. The “Energy Harvesting Solution To Go” Kit is composed of an Energy Micro Giant Gecko (Cortex M3) Starter Kit and an energy harvesting board that is capable of getting enough solar, thermal, piezoelectric or electromagnetic energy to power the MCU board. The power connector shown above connects directly to the Giant Gecko Starter Kit board to provide power. Although there are 4 energy harvesters on the board, only one power source can be selected at a time via jumpers. Several power sources can be selected by using diodes. The board The energy harvesting board offers two integrated energy sources: A solar cell (32mm x 50mm) A thermo-generator (40mm x 40mm). And 2 other external energy sources can be added to the board via […]

February 17, 2012February 17, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Cymbet EnerChip Solid State Batteries and Energy Harvesting Evaluation Kits

Cymbet has developed rechargeable solid state batteries called EnerChip for Embedded Energy, Power Backup and Energy Harvesting. Applications include backing up Real Time Clocks (RTC), Micro-controllers (MCU) and SRAM devices. The company says “EnerChips are ideal for energy harvesting powered devices such as wireless sensors, medical devices, data loggers and remote location tracking equipment.” Those chipsets aim at replacing batteries such as CR2032 batteries that you can find in watches, calculators and other low power devices. The company emphasized three key benefits of such “batteries”: EnerChips are more than 10x smaller than non-rechargeable coin cell batteries EnerChips last 3x longer than conventional coin cell batteries EnerChips are less expensive to use than conventional coin cell batteries or super caps. The price starts at 20 US cents in volume quantities. You can watch the promotion video below for an overview of those chips. Cymbet shows a lot of mobile phones in their video, […]

January 9, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

OLPC XO-3 Sugar Linux Tablet

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation has unveiled the OLPC XO-3 Tablet at CES 2012. This Tablet features a 8″ 1024×768 capacitive LCD touch screen running a version of Sugar Linux for Touchscreen. This must be the only tablet ot running Android at CES 2012… This current sample only have a front camera, but the final device will have both a front and rear camera. They also have an optional solar panel cover (4W panel), that can be used to charge the tablet (2W), so in ideal conditions if you charge it for 2 hours, the tablet can be used for 4 hours. Alternatively, you can also charge it for the hand cracker. A Pixel Qi tablet (not shown in the video below) is also available for extra costs (I’ve heard 100 USD extra) for better readability. OLCP did not specify availability. The way OLPC works is that they […]