SunFounder Zeus Car Kit review – A fun toy and Arduino learning tool

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit is an Arduino UNO and ESP32 Cam-based educational kit for children (and adults) that can be used to learn more about electronics, robotics, and programming. It’s a car comprised of four 6cm Mecanum wheels for omnidirectional motion and various sensors that can be controlled with an Android app enabling first-person view (FPV) thanks to the built-in camera. The company sent us a Zeus Car Kit for review and evaluation, and after assembly, we’ll use it in “Play Mode”, or in other words a toy that basically works out of the box, before checking out the “Programing Mode” and related Arduino tutorials to evaluate it’s educational potential. Zeus Car Kit Unboxing The kit comes in a nice retail package which highlights some of the capacities of the kit: FPV, Omnidrive, AI vision, compass, IR control, APP control, and RGB lights. The package itself contains four more boxes […]

SONOFF SNZB-01P/SNZB-02P Review – Zigbee wireless switch and temperature & humidity sensor tested with Home Assistant

SONOFF launched their 1st gen Zigbee product about a few years ago, and SONOFF have finally started to upgrade their Zigbee devices, and we received two Zigbee 3.0 devices from SONOFF for review, namely the SNZB-01P wireless switch and the SNZB-02P temperature and humidity Sensor. In a nutshell, their appearance looks more modern, with a round shape compared to the rectangular design of the previous models. Importantly, they are sturdier than before, and the battery capacity has increased almost 2x. As we anticipated, they can be used with other Zigbee Hubs from different brands as well. The main application used with both devices is still, of course, eWeLink, which many people are familiar with (a Zigbee Bridge Hub/Bridge is required). However, this review will focus more on the popular app called Home Assistant, which is widely used globally. SNZB-01P wireless switch After trying it out for a while and comparing […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

Orange Pi 3B – A Rockchip RK3566 SBC with an M.2 NVMe/SATA SSD socket, up to 8GB RAM

Orange Pi 3B is a new Rockchip RK3566 SBC that’s like a supercharged Raspberry Pi 3B board with the same form factor, but with a faster processor, up to 8GB RAM, and support for multiple storage options with a microSD card slot, an eMMC flash socket, an M.2 Key-M socket for NVMe (PCIe 2.1) or SATA III SSDs, as well as an SPI flash that should enable features like network boot. The board also features HDMI 2.0 and eDP display intefaces, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a WiFI 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module, four USB ports, MIPI DSI and CSI connector, and the 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header. It’s powered through a USB-C port taking 5V instead of the micro USB port found in the Raspberry Pi 3B. Orange Pi 3B specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 CPU – Quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 […]

Home Assistant-compatible 5-24V LED strip controller ships with Sound Reactive WLED firmware

SMLIGHT A1-SLWF-03 is a Home Assistant-compatible addressable RGB LED strip controller based on an ESP32 WiFi and Bluetooth microcontroller that supports 5V to 24V LED strips. The unit is equipped with a built-in digital microphone used by the Sound Reactive WLED firmware to make the RGB LED strip follow the rhythm and tempo of the music, an IR receiver, and a sensor button. SMLIGHT A1-SLWF-03 specifications: SoC – ESP32 dual-core microcontroller with WiFi 4, Bluetooth 4.2/5.x, and 16Mbit flash 4-pole terminal block for RGB LED strips Supported strips – WS2812B, WS2811, WS2813, WS2815, APA102, LPD8806, WS2801, SK9822. Voltage Range – 5-24V DC Up to 2,000 LEDs are supported at 35 fps with two outputs or 3,000 LEDs at 25 fps with two outputs (about 33 to 50-meter LED strips with 60x LEDs per meter) Multiple A1-SPWF-03 controllers can be synced together for controlling even more LED strips. USB – 1x […]

Hailo-8L 13 TOPS AI accelerator targets entry-level edge devices

Hailo introduced the Hailo-8 AI accelerator offering up to 26 TOPS in 2020, and we’ve found it integrated into many designs since then. The company has now launched a cost-down version with the Hailo-8L AI accelerator delivering up to 13 TOPS for more cost-sensitive entry-level edge devices, or workloads that do not require the more powerful Hailo-8. Hailo says the Hailo-8L offers low-latency, high-efficiency processing, and is capable of handling pipelines with multiple real-time streams and concurrent processing of multiple models and AI tasks. The new Hailo-8L is compatible with the Hailo-8 and relies on the same Hailo-8 software suite, so they could be integrated into existing designs for cost savings. Hailo-8L key features and specifications: 13 Tera-Operations Per Second (TOPS) Real-time, low latency & high-efficiency AI inferencing on edge devices No external memory required Scalable with simultaneous processing of multi-streams & multi-models Typical power consumption – 1.5W Commercial & […]

eModGATE Moduino X0 – An ESP32-based industrial IoT controller with battery support

TECHBASE eModGATE Moduino X0 is an industrial IoT control based on a choice of ESP32 modules from Espressif and Pycom, equipped with a battery slot for remote installations, and various interfaces to connect sensors or actuators via RS232, RS485, and/or digital I/Os. We first wrote about TECHBASE Moduino-X series ESP32 IoT endpoints almost six years ago with the X1 and X2 models, but since then the company has added more models such as the large X3 and X4 devices with more I/Os, and the new entry-level Moduino X0 that’s similar to the X1, but with battery support instead of a supercapacitor. eModGATE Moduino X0 specifications: ESP32 wireless module/board options ESP32-WROVER with ESP32 dual-core Tensilica LX6 processor @ 240 MHz, 8MB PSRAM, 4MB or 16MB SPI flash Pycom WiPy 3.0 with 4MB RAM, 8MB Flash Pycom SiPy with 512kB RAM, 4MB Flash, Sigfox Pycom LoPy with 4MB RAM, 8MB Flash, Wi-Fi/BT4.2, […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

CrowView adds a 14-inch portable monitor to your laptop for $115 and up (Crowdfunding)

Elecrow CrowView is a lightweight 14-inch portable monitor designed to be attached to your laptop adding a secondary monitor to it through a clamping structure that works with laptops having a 13-inch to 16.5-inch display. We’ve seen this type of laptop monitor extension for years, and you’ll find various models on Amazon. But the Elecrow is now offering the CrowView at a significantly lower price than competitors especially if you pledge $114.90 for the super early bird reward on Kickstarter. The regular price ($179) can still be interesting as in this price range you’d usually get an 11-inch or 12-inch display. CrowView specifications: 14-inch IPS display with 1920×1080 resolution, 60 Hz refresh rate, 400 nit brightness Compatible with 13-inch to 16.5-inch laptops with 4 to 8mm thick displays thanks to a telescopic snap 230° hinge enabling face-to-face mode. Ports Mini HDMI port for video input 2x full-featured USB Type-C port […]

GL.iNet Puli AX (GL-XE3000) WiFi 6 & 5G router integrates a 6,400 mAh battery

GL.iNet Puli AX (also known as GL-XE3000) is a WiFi 6 and 5G cellular router with an integrated 6,400 mAh battery and running a fork of OpenWrt 21.02 on a MediaTek Filogic 820 dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 router SoC. If the design looks familiar it’s because it’s based on the same platform as the GL.iNet Spitz AX 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and 5G cellular router that we reviewed last May, except the new Puli AX model comes with a 6,400 mAh which makes it even more convenient as a travel router. Puli AX (GL-XE3000) specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7981A (Filogic 820) dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.3 GHz System Memory – 512 MB DDR4 Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card slot Networking 1x 2.5GbE WAN Ethernet port 1x Gigabit Ethernet LAN port Dual-band IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax WiFi 6 up to 574Mbps (2.4GHz), 2,402Mbps (5GHz) RM520N-GL 5G cellular modem and 2x Nano SIM […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC