thread News - Page 12 of 14 - CNX Software

February 6, 2019February 6, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Papyr is a Nordic nRF52840 based Bluetooth/802.15.4 ePaper Display

Electronut Labs has designed a Nordic Semi nRF52840 boards featuring a black, red, and white e-Paper display. Papyr board supports both Bluetooth LE (BLE5, BLE Mesh) and 802.15.4 (Thread, Zigbee) connectivity, and can be controlled via an Android app, with iOS support coming later on. Papyr hardware specifications: Wireless Module – Raytac MDBT50 module with Nordic nRF52840 BLE/802.15.4 SoC (as used in Raytac MDBT50Q-RX Bluetooth 5 LE USB adapter) Connectivity – Bluetooth 5 LE/Mesh, 802.15.4 (Thread/Zigbee), NFC (PCB antenna) Display – 1.54″ 200×200 pixel red/black/white epaper display USB – 1x micro USB device port Expansion – Extra GPIOs via 2.54mm header Debugging – SWD Programming header Misc – RGB LED, push button, USB/Battery power switch Power Supply – 5V via USB, or CR2477 coin cell Dimensions – 65 x 35 mm You can control the board using Electronut Labs app for Android. Three features are supported at this stage: Draw, […]

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

Makerdiary nRF52840 Micro Development Kit Works with OpenThread, Arm Mbed OS, Zephyr OS, Mynewt, etc…

If you want to play around with Bluetooth 5, Nordic nRF52840 is probably one of the best option, and among the development board, $9/$12 Particle Xenon is hard to beat when it comes to value. But if you need a bit more storage, I/Os and features, Makerdiary nRF52840 micro development kit looks like a good candidate to evaluate, especially it supports plenty of frameworks / operating systems such as Arm Mbed OS, Zephyr Project, OpenThread, Mynewt, and others. It’s also the first MCU class board I’ve seen with a USB type C port, although I’m not sure it brings any benefits to this type of hardware. Makerdiary nRF52840 micro development kit (nRF52840-MDK) hardware specifications: SoC – Nordic nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F WiSoC with 1 MB FLASH and 256 kB RAM, Arm TrustZone Cryptocell 310 security subsystem External Storage – 64-Mbit QSPI flash Wireless Connectivity (on-chip) Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth Mesh Thread, IEEE […]

July 5, 2018July 5, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

$10 Nordic Semi nRF52840 USB Dongle Supports Bluetooth 5, Thread, ZigBee, 802.15.4, ANT and 2.4GHz Proprietary

Several weeks ago, as I noticed the lack of Bluetooth 5 USB dongles, I found MakerSpot CC2640 Bluetooth 5 USB stick based on Texas Instrument CC2640R2F Arm Cortex-M3 WiSoC. It’s not exactly a consumer products, and instead it’s more like a development kit, but it can still be inserted into the USB port of your computer or development board. Today, I found out Nordic Semi also made their own Bluetooth 5 – or is it Bluetooth 5.0 now, I’m really confused at this point – USB dongle for evaluation & development based on nRF52840 WiSoC. It’s not only for Bluetooth 5 though, as the multi-protocol SoC also supports Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4, ANT(+), and 2.4 GHz proprietary solutions. nRF52840 USB dongle (PCA10059) key features: Wireless Connectivity – Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth Low Energy, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4, ANT/ANT+, and 2.4GHz USB – USB 2.0 ports Expansion – 15x […]

March 23, 2018March 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

RushUp KITRA Board Family is based on Samsung Artik 020, Artik 520/530, or Artik 710 Modules

Samsung first announced their Artik IoT modules almost three years ago, and until recently most Artik related products or development kits came from Samsung themselves, with no third party involved. But this has started to change recently with announcements such a Seeed Studio Eagleye 530s low cost development board based on Artik 530 module, and Resin.io Project Fin combining RPI CM3L module with an Artik 020 module for low power Bluetooth connectivity. But as I flicked through Resin.io supported hardware, I discovered they also supported Linux powered Artik 520 and Artik1020 module, as well as some new “KITRA” boards I had never heard of, and if we visit RushUp company website, we can see they have a bunch of Kutra boards and one IoT gateway based on Artik modules: KITRA 520 – Samsung ARTIK 520 product accelerator for advanced IoT KITRA 710 – Samsung ARTIK 710 product accelerator for advanced multimedia […]

March 22, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Rigado Vesta IoT Gateway Runs Linux and Zephyr OS, Supports Bluetooth 5, 802.15.4, WiFi, Ethernet and Cellular Connectivity

I’ve recently read several open source software news related to Rigado IoT gateway, starting with Canonical announcement last month, that the gateway would ship with Ubuntu Core starting in summer 2018, and a few days ago it popped up again during Linaro CEO keynote at Linaro Connect HK 2018, as one of the first commercial devices to run the Zephyr OS, specifically its fully open source Bluetooth stack on a Nordic nRF52 chip. Rigado Vesta IoT gateway is not exactly new, as it was first announced in December 2016. The hardware relies on an NXP i.MX 6UL Cortex A7 processor, up to 256MB RAM, 4GB eMMC flash, and includes built-in support for dual band WiFi, Bluetooth Smart, Bluetooth 5/4.2, 802.15.4 (Thread), Fast Ethernet with PoE, as well as optional support for a cellular LTE Cat 1 modem. Rigado gateway hardware specifications: Processor – NXP i.MX6 UltraLite (G3) Arm Cortex A7 […]

February 28, 2018March 1, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Eagleye 530s Board Features Samsung Artik 530s IoT Module, Leverages Raspberry Pi Form Factor

Samsung Artik 530 is a module designed for the Internet of Things based on a quad core Arm Cortex A9 processor, and supporting Ethernet, dual band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, and 802.15.4/Zigbee/Thread connectivity, as well as exposing display and camera interfaces, and of course various I/Os. The module was launched about one year ago with a developer kit that cost $189 and up, but Samsung has now worked with Seeed Studio to launch a cheaper developer board – called Eagleye – based on the secure version of the module (Artik 530s) and mostly following Raspberry Pi form factor in order to take advantage of its hardware ecosystem. Eagleye 530s board specifications: SoC – Unnamed quad core Arm Cortex A9 processor @ 1.2GHz with 3D graphics accelerator System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, SD card slot Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n dual band SISO (2.4G/5G) Bluetooth 4.2(BLE+Classic) Zigbee/Thread 802.15.4 Gigabit Ethernet […]

December 15, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Google Announces LoWPAN/Thread Support in Android Things DP 6.1

Not to be confused with LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network), LoWPAN (Low Power Wireless Personal Area Network) solutions are designed for peer-to-peer usage on constrained battery-powered devices using standard procotols like HTTP and CoAP. Based on 6LoWPAN and 802.15.4, Thread is one of those LoWPAN standards, and Google has just added API support for configuring and managing LoWPAN as a part of Android Things Developer Preview 6.1, including networking support for Thread. Google explains “these types of low-power connectivity solutions enable Android Things devices to perform edge computing tasks, aggregating data locally from nearby devices to make critical decisions without a constant connection to cloud services”. You can read LoWPAN API guide to learn more details on building your own apps to create and join local mesh networks, but to quickly get started OpenThread running on Nordic Semi RF52840-PDK is recommended. You’ll first need to install the firmware and […]

April 14, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

EEMBC IoT-Connect is a Family of Benchmarks Designed To Test the Power Efficiency of IoT Devices

EEMBC, the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium, has been providing benchmarks for embedded systems since 1996, including ULPBench helping to rank micro-controllers by their power efficiency. But with the Internet of Things gaining traction, it’s important to test more than just the MCU core’s power efficiency, and having a benchmark taking sensors and connectivity into account would be useful. That’s exactly what EEMC IoT-Connect benchmark family aims for with the three main characteristics: Provides flexibility to accommodate various communication protocols (e.g. Bluetooth, Thread, LoRa, WiFi) Portable to work with any vendor’s microcontroller and radio-module products Compatible with EEMBC ULPBench and EEMBC IoT-Secure benchmarks The first benchmark of the family is IoTMark-BLE connectivity profile that supports Bluetooth (LE) MCUs. The benchmark requires fixed payload size, frequency of transmission, and transmit power, and performs a complete sequence of event ranging from sensor reading, to BLE notifications, and command write and CRC. The IoT-Connect […]