You can’t beat ESP8266 Wi-Fi modules on price to add Wi-Fi to your IoT projects, but Hackaday found a new Wi-Fi module by Shanghai MXCHIP Information Technology that sells for $10 on Seeed Studio or Amazon US, that should be better suited to battery operated project thanks to a lower power consumption. EMW3162 also features a more powerful STM32F205 cortex M3 micro-controller, as well as more I/Os than ESP8266. Specifications for EMW3162 Wi-Fi module: MCU – STM32F2 Cortex M3 MCU @ 120 MHz with 128KB RAM, 1MB flashOn Wi-Fi connectivity 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n (single stream) on channel 1-14 @ 2.4GHz WEP, WPA/WPA2 PSK/Enterprise (hardware encryption) Transmit power: 18.5dBm@11b; 15.5dBm@11g; 14.5dBm@11n MIN Receiver Sensitivity: -96 dBm Max Data rate: 11Mbps@11b; 54Mbps@11g; 72Mbps@11n HT20 Wi-Fi modes: Station, Soft AP and Wi-Fi direct Advanced 1×1 802.11n features: Full/Half Guard Interval, Frame Aggregation, Space Time Block Coding (STBC), Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) Encoding […]
Cubieboard4 Benchmarks in Android
Last time I tried running benchmarks in an Allwinner A80 board (A80 OptimusBoard), it either rebooted during the benchmark, or had fairly disappointing results for example for USB storage. I documented my findings in a post entitled “Current Performance and Stability Issues on AllWinner A80 OptimusBoard Development Board” which was written in October 2014. But a few months have passed, and since Cubieboard4 is another hardware platform, so I was interested in running benchmarks including storage and networking performance testing on the new board to see if any progress was made. Cubieboard4 Android Benchmarks – Antutu, Vellamo, and 3DMarks Manufacturers can add the key ro.sys.hiritsu to build.prop in order to artificially inflate their Antutu scores with Allwinner A80 processor. So before running Antutu, I checked /system/build.prop in the firmware, and found out no trace of this variable, which can only be good for CubieTech reputation. CC-A80 board, the other name […]
Iocean M6752 Smartphone Review
Last week I provides specs, took some pictures, and run Antutu benchmark on Iocean M6752, a 64-bit ARM smartphone powered by Mediatek MT6752 octa-core Cortex A53 processor with 3GB RAM, 16 GB eMMC, and a 5.5″ FullHD display. I’ve been using the device as my main smartphone for over a week, and I’m now ready to write a full review for the phone. General Impressions At first the material and color used on the back cover feels a little strange, but I quickly got used it, and the build quality seems pretty good, and the phone is very light. I must have made one or two calls during the week, and I mainly use my smartphone to check emails, run social network apps, browse the web, play some casual games like Candy Crush Saga, watch YouTube videos, and make Skype calls, and for these tasks I could not really fault […]
Giveaway Week – SoundMate WM201 Wireless Audio Streamer
All good things must come to an end, and this is the last day of Giveaway Week on CNX Software with Uyesee SoundMate WM201 wireless audio streamer that adds Wi-Fi connectivity to your speakers or old AV receiver, so that you can stream audio via EZMusic or a DLNA app in Android, iOS or, desktop computers. If you’ve ever used an EZCast dongle, the app looks just the same except it’s limited to audio streaming. I’ve tried it with an optical audio cable connected to the S/PDIF input of the device and Onkyo TX-NR636 AV receiver. It worked pretty well, as long as your device is in the same room, but if you move to another room, the connection become unreliable, and audio may cut from time to time. You can read SoundMate WM201 review for details. imply leave a comment below to enter the draw, with other rules as […]
$35 Tessel 2 IoT Board Features Atmel SAMD21 MCU and Mediatek MT7620n WiSoC
Tessel is a Wi-Fi IoT board based on NXP LPC1830 Cortex M3 MCU and Texas Instruments CC3000 modules, that’s designed to bring embedded development to web programmers with a system that can be programmed with JavaScript and Node.js. At the time of the crowdfunding campaign in 2013, the board was available with external modules (Relays, sensors, Bluetooth LE…) for $100 and up, but now Technical Machine, the company behind the project, has announced Tessel 2 combining Atmel SAMD21 Cortex M0+ to control I/O and Mediatek MT7260n for Wi-Fi connectivity, still programmable with JavaScript ot Node.js. Tessel 2 specifications: MCU – Atmel SAMD21G14A-MU Cortex M0+ MCU @ 48MHz with 16KB SRAM and 2KB Flash SoC – Mediatek MT7260n MIPS24KEc Wi-Fi SoC @ 580 MHz System Memory – 64MB DDR2 Storage – 32MB flash for firmware (OpenWRT) Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with dual PCB antennas USB – 2x […]
Add Network Connectivity to 2.5″ SATA Drives With Wi-Fi & Ethernet Enclosures
One person asked if there were solution to add Wi-Fi or Ethernet to hard drives similar to what Zsun Wifi Card Reader does with micro SD card. Provided solution include buying a low cost router with USB such as TP-Link WR703N, and the Pogoplugs which are pretty good, especially since you can install Debian or Arch Linux ARM, but are only available at low cost if you live in North America. But I’ve now been made aware of 2.5″ SATA HDD enclosures selling for around $40 that also come with Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and provide a compact way to add networking to hard drives. Specifications for the aforelinked Wi-Fi HDD Enclosure: Connectivity 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Modes: AP + Client; AP + WAN Bridge; AP + WAN router Ethernet 3G possible via USB port HDD – Supports up to 2TB HDD USB – 1x micro USB port for charging, 1x USB […]
Zsun Wifi Card Reader Adds up to 64GB to Your Smartphone
I’ve previously covered Zsun SD11x USB flash drives with 8 to 128 GB internal flash, a battery, and Wi-Fi connectivity in order to easily add storage to devices without micro SD slots. The company has now launched a new Wi-Fi card reader to do the same, but with your own micro SD card instead allowing up to 64GB extra storage, and easy replacement. Zsun card reader specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Atheros AR9331 WiSoC System Memory – 256 Mbit RAM (32 MB) Storage – Internal flash for firmware (capacity TBD), micro SD slot up to 64GB Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi @ 150 Mbps USB – 1x USB 2.0 port for power and use as standard USB card reader Dimensions – 33 x 30 x 13 mm There’s no battery, so you’d have to connect the dongle to a power bank, PC, car charger etc.. to power it. If you connect […]
Freetronics Introduces an Arduino Shield for ESP8266 ESP-01 Wi-Fi Module
ESP8622 has drastically brought down the price of adding Wi-Fi to MCU boards such as Arduino UNO, but you need to add some cables, and take care of 3.3V to 5V conversion for the UART pins either with a divider made of 2 resistors, or a FET level shifter, and you may not be able to access all I/O of ESP8622 on the popular ESP-01 version of the module. For a neater solution, Freetronics had designed ESP-01 WiFi Module Shield that takes care of all these small issues. Key features of the shield: 3.3V regulator dedicated to the module Logic level shifters on TX/RX lines: compatible with both 3.3V and 5V Arduino models Selectable TX/RX pins: use D0/D1 for hardware serial, or D2 – D7 for software serial CH_PD pin on ESP-01 module pre-biased for correct operation mode Extra ESP-01 pins broken out for your own connections Prototyping area with […]