wifi News - Page 99 of 109 - CNX Software

December 12, 2014January 7, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 48 Comments

MINIX NEO X8-H Plus Review

I posted pictures of MINIX NEO X8-H Plus media player a few days ago, and in this post I will report my impressions and testing results for the box, the first Amlogic S812 device I’ve fully reviewed so far, which adds H.265 video decoding up to 2160p, Gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi to the original MINIX NEO X8-H. You can check my previous post for the full specifications of MINIX NEO X8-H Plus. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions The package includes both MINIX IR remote, and MINIX NEO M1 RF air mouse. I did not use the infrared remote at all, and instead I mostly used the provided air mouse, together with Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse when I needed to input text, or for comparison. NEO M1 comes with a built-in battery, and Off/On button, and can be used as a standard remote control, or as a wireless […]

November 29, 2014November 29, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 34 Comments

Review of Realtek RTD1195 Based M-195 Android Media Player

M-195 is one of the new low cost Android media players based on Realtek RTD1195 processor featuring two Cortex A7 cores, and a Mali-400MP2 GPU, but providing high speed interface like USB 3.0, and Gigabit Ethernet, as well as 4K video decoding and output, including the latest H.265 / HEVC video codec. So before testing, I was expecting the box to be mainly interesting as a media player, and even maybe NAS, as Android performance for other tasks would be similar to Allwinner A20. I’ll already taken pictures of M-195 and its “902” board, so today we’ll find out how the device performs. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I’ve used both the provided IR remote control, and Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse in this review, simply because I needed to press the Home button to come back to the Launcher from time to time, and the Home button on […]

November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Zero Devices Z5C Thinko 4K H.265 TV Stick Review

Zero Devices Z5C Think is one of the rare HDMI TV sitck powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex A12/A17 processor available on the market. I’ve already take a few pictures of the device and internals, so today I’ll focus on testing the firmware, and performance of this thin and nice looking TV stick. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions There was a time when HDMI stick were powered by much slower, but power efficient processor based on Cortex A5 cores. One of these was CX-01 mini PC, and they could be powered by the USB port of the TV without problems. Now the processor are much more powerful, so normally you can’t power the device directly from the TV, but since I’ve seen people claim it was possible to drive RK3288 stick directly from the USB port of some TVs, I gave it a try, connected the stick to […]

November 19, 2014November 19, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

DWA8 ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module Features a 10-bit ADC, Up to 8 GPIOs, 4 PWM Outputs, and More (Crowdfunding)

Espressif ESP8266 based ESP-01 module may now cost $3, but it’s limited to only two GPIOs, so a Dooao, a Chinese company based in Beijing, has decided to make a new ESP8266 module with more GPIOs, PWM signals, SPI, UART. and a 10-bit ADC. Dooao DWA8 module specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP8266 32-bit RISC processor @ 80 MHz with 120KB RAM (40KB usable), built-in 802.11 b/g/n support. Wi-Fi – 802.112 b/g/n, STA/AP/STA+AP modes, WEP/WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK security Interfaces: Up to 8x GPIOs Up to 4x PWM SPI (master & slave) up to 40MHz UART with hardware FC up to 4Mbps 1x channel 10bit ADC Power supply – Single 3.3V (2.8 to 3.6V) Power consumption – Max: 70 mA @ 3.3V (230 mW); typical: 12mA; standby < 200 uA; “soft power off” < 10uA. Dimensions – 27.13 x 17 x 2.3 mm (a bit larger than ESP-01) Temperature Range – Operating: -40 […]

November 18, 2014December 12, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

MINIX NEO X6 Media Hub Review

Last week-end, I took a few pictures of MINIX NEO X6 media hub, and had a look at the company’s firmware and forum support which indeed seems to be good. Today, I’ve completed the full review of MINIX NEO X6, and I will compare it to two of its lower priced competitors: MXQ S85 and EM6Q-MXQ. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions The IR remote control works fine, including continuous up ad down pressing, but I switched to using Mele F10 Deluxe air mouse for convenience. I’ve connected an Ethernet cable, an HDMI cable, a micro SD card, a USB hard drive, and a USB hub with two RF dongles for my air mouse and gamepad, a USB flash drive, and a UVC webcam. I’ve connected the power, pressed the power button on the side of the box, but nothing happened at first… You have to press the button one […]

November 17, 2014November 17, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Add Wi-Fi to Arduino Boards for $3 with ESP8266 Wi-Fi Serial Module

There has been some buzz around ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, mostly because of its low price, and SDK availability, meaning it could become the Wi-Fi equivalent of ENC28J60 Ethernet module, and that for $5 you could potentially add Wi-Fi to your Arduino board for example. Since then, the price has come down even further, and if you are prepared to buy 5 pieces, you can now get the module for less than $3 / piece shipped, alternatively a single module costs $4, and a complete Wi-Fi + Arduino Uno (clone) kit goes for $15. A community has also been built around the chip, and a several project have been made with Arduino boards and ESP8266 module. The best way to find information is to go to ESP8266 community forum, as well as read the Wiki on github. There’s currently a GCC toolchain for Espressif Systems ESP8266, open source tools for working […]

November 16, 2014November 16, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Zsun SD111 Is Now “Officially” an Hackable Wireless Flash Drive

Zsun SD11x are Wi-Fi flash drives for 8 to 128 GB eMMC, alternative to Sandisk or Kingston. Yesterday, I soldered the UART pins to Zsun SD111 (8GB) flash drive to access the serial console, but I did not manage to enter the terminal as it was password-protected. I posted my results anyway, as I was convinced I would get some clever ideas from my readers, some of which appeared to be a little time consuming, but Zoobab offered a simple solution that consisted in changing the boot parameters, by replacing /sbin/init by /bin/sh. The first step is to interrupt the boot by pressing space or another key, in order to access U-boot. Now we can check the U-boot environment ar7240> printenv bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 root=31:02 rootfstype=jffs2 rw init=/sbin/init mtdparts=ar7240-nor0:64k(u-boot),64k(u-boot-env),6720k(rootfs),1216k(uImage),64k(NVRAM),64k(ART) bootcmd=bootm 0x9f6B0000 bootdelay=4 baudrate=115200 ethaddr=0x00:0xaa:0xbb:0xcc:0xdd:0xee ipaddr=10.168.168.1 serverip=10.168.168.10 stdin=serial stdout=serial stderr=serial ethact=eth0 Environment size: 361/65532 bytes Let’s keep everything the same, except the init, […]

November 14, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Spark Photon is a $19 Hackable IoT Wi-Fi Board

Spark Core is a popular Wi-Fi module for the internet of things with a community of over 20,000 developers, but at $39 it may have started to feel a little expensive compared to the new IoT Wi-Fi modules such as ESP82666 or xWiFi, so the company has unveiled a new Wi-Fi board called Photon that’s smaller, better, and cheaper. Let’s compare Spark Core with the new Spark Photon. Feature Spark Core Spark Photon Wi-Fi Support 802.11 b/g 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi Setup Smart Config Soft AP Wireless Module TI CC3000 Broadcom BCM43362 MCU STM32F103 STM32F205 MCU Speed 72 MHz 120 MHz Flash Memory 128 KB 1 MB RAM 20 KB 128 KB GPIO 18 UART (Serial) Yes JTAG Yes I2C Yes SPI Yes ADC Yes DAC No Yes CAN No Yes VBAT pin exposed No Yes Wakeup pin exposed No Yes Price $39.00 $19.00 So beside slashing the price by 50%, […]