CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Add Z-Wave LR (Long Range) to Raspberry Pi or Home Assistant Yellow with Zooz 800 Series USB stick or GPIO Module

Z-Wave Long Range Raspberry Pi Home Assistant Yellow

We wrote about the new Z-Wave Long Range (LR) standard aka “Z-Wave Plus LR” promising four times the range and 10-year battery life in September 2020 but hadn’t heard much about it since then, at least until now, as Zooz has launched the ZST39 LR USB Stick and ZAC93 LR GPIO module based on a Z-Wave 800 Series chip, with the GPIO module compatible with Home Assistant Yellow and Raspberry Pi SBCs. Zooz 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range GPIO Module ZAC93 LR ZAC93 LR specifications: Z-Wave Frequency – 908.42 MHz (US, CA, MX) / 921.4 MHz (AU, NZ) / 868.42 MHz (EU) Wireless Range – Up to 1 mile/1.6 km in open space with Long Range enabled (up to 300 meters in open space, up to 76 meters indoors in traditional mesh networks) Support for up to 200 devices in a single network Host interface – 10-pin header to Raspberry […]

April 5, 2023April 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Renesas RZ/T2L Arm Cortex-R52 microprocessor embeds EtherCAT controller

Renesas RZ/TL2 Cortex-R52 microprocessor

Renesas RZ/T2L is a cost-optimized single-core Arm Cortex-R52 microprocessor (MPU) with an EtherCAT controller based on the same architecture as the higher-end Renesas RZ/T2M dual-core Cortex-R52 processor introduced last year, but at about half the size. The new MPU enables high-speed and accurate real-time processing performance required for AC servo drives, inverters, industrial robots, collaborative robots, etc.. used in factory automation (FA), medical equipment, building automation (BA), and other sectors and applications where EtherCAT is being adopted. Renesas RZ/T2L key features and specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-R52 clocked at up to 800MHz with 16KB L1 I/D cache, 512KB ATCM, 64KB BTCM Memory – 1MB RAM with ECC Trigonometric function accelerator Ethernet EtherCAT slave controller: 3x ports 1x Ethernet MAC Motor control 2-channel encoder interface with support for A-format, EnDat2.2, BiSS-C, HIPERFACE DSL, FA-CODER Functional safety (FuSa) software up to SIL3 Motor current loop < 1µs 3-phase complementary PWM output for […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

M5Stack CM4Stack – A tiny Raspberry Pi CM4 Linux computer with an integrated 2-inch display

M5Stack CM4Stack is a tiny Arm Linux mini PC based on Raspberry Pi CM4 that measures 59 x 44 x 46mm and integrates a 2-inch touchscreen display for information and control, as well as the usual ports you’d expect from a mini PC such as HDMI, USB 3.2 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, and so on. We’ve previously written about M5Stack Core and Atom controllers based on ESP32 microcontrollers, an optional 2.0-inch display, and a few GPIOs. The company has now decided to provide a similar solution with a jump in performance and interfaces with the CM4Stack development kit. CM4Stack specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM4 (CM4104032) with SoC – Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @ 1.5 GHz System Memory – 4GB RAM Storage – 32GB eMMC flash Wireless module with 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 Integrated display – 2.0-inch LCD with ST7789V2 controller, touchscreen function Video Output – HDMI […]

April 4, 2023April 9, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Raspberry Pi RP2040 pHAT board comes with a 40-pin GPIO header

0xC0FFEE’s RP2040 PHAT is both a Raspberry Pi RP2040 development board and a pHAT for Raspberry Pi and Pi Zero Linux SBCs that exposes the I/Os through the 40-pin GPIO header traditionally found in Raspberry Pi single board computers. The board comes with all features of the Raspberry Pi Pico board including a USB port for power and programming, an SPI flash, and a BOOT button, but also adds a Reset button. That means it’s software compatible, except for the user LED connected to GPIO 26, and works with the MicroPython and C SDKs, as well as the Arduino IDE, Zephyr RTOS, and more. RP2040 pHAT specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 128Mbit SPI flash (based on the chip in the photo above) USB – 1x USB 1.1 Type-C port used for power and programming Expansion – 40-pin Raspberry […]

April 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Videostrong HC1 Home Care Hub for the elderly serves as Smart Speaker, Smart Home gateway, video phone

Videostrong HC1 Home Care Hub is a Smart Home/IoT gateway designed for the elderly that also serves as a smart speaker with 10-meter far-field voice recognition, a video phone with a video built-in camera and speaker, and a 4K Android TV box. The system is based on an Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor coupled with up to 4GB RAM and 64GB RAM, supports Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and LoRa, WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity, and offers both HDMI 2.1 video output, and HDMI 2.0 video input. HC1 specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905Y4 quad-core Arm Cortex-A35 @ 2.0GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2 support System Memory – 2GB or 4GB RAM Storage – 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash Video Output – HDMI 2.1 port up to 4Kp60 Input Built-in 1920×1080 camera with 90° wide angle, manual cover, adjustable angle HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 Audio […]

April 4, 2023August 5, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ESP32-S3 based 1.28-inch round touchscreen display supports Arduino programming

ESP32-S3 Round Display 1.28-inch touchscreen

Makerfabs “ESP32-S3 Round SPI TFT with Touch 1.28″ is a small ESP32-S3 with a 1.28-inch round color touchscreen display, a microSD card, support for USB and battery power, and two “Mabee” extension connectors. The board joins other ESP32-S3 round display boards such as the Lilygo T-RGB board or Seeed Studio’s Round Display for XIAO, but with a thinner design, and a square PCB with trimmed corners instead of a round PCB like the other two. ESP32-S3 Round SPI TFT with Touch 1.28″ (E32S3128GC) specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3R8 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ 240 MHz with vector extension, 512KB SRAM, 8MB PSRAM, Wi-Fi 4 & Bluetooth 5.0 dual-mode (Classic + BLE) connectivity Flash – 128 Mbit (16MB) W25Q128JV SPI flash, microSD card slot Display – 1.28-inch round LCD with 240×240 resolution (GC9A01 SPI driver), touchscreen controller (CST816S) USB – 1x USB Type-C port Expansion 1x 4-pin Mabee I2C […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs abd SoMs

April 3, 2023April 3, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Renesas RZ/G2L CPU module targets HMI and IoT gateway applications

MYIR MYC-YG2LX is Renesas RZ/G2L CPU module with up to 4GB DDR4, 32GB eMMC flash, and various I/Os such as gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, camera and display interfaces accessible through 222 castellated holes, and designed for advanced HMI, IoT edge gateways, and other embedded devices with video capabilities. As a reminder, the Renesas RZ/G2L microprocessor comes with up to two Arm Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.2 GHz, one 200 MHz Cortex-M33 real-time core, a Mali-G31 GPU for 3D graphics interfaces, and a VPU capable of H.264 encoding/decoding. The company also offers the MYD-YG2LX development board based on the 45x43mm MYC-YG2LX CPU module with easy access to its interfaces. MYIR MYC-YG2LX Renesas RZ/G2L CPU module MYC-YG2LX module specifications: SoC – Renesas RZ/G2L (R9A07G044L23GBG) dual-core Cortex-A55 processor with Cortex-M33 core @ 200 Mhz, Arm Mali-G31 GPU, H.264 hardware video decoding/encoding System Memory – 1 or 2GB DDR4 (option for up to 4GB) […]

April 3, 2023March 31, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - Comments Off

PiEEG shield for Raspberry Pi enables brain computer interfaces (Crowdfunding)

PiEEG is an open-source hardware Raspberry Pi shield that measures electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and electrocardiography (ECG) bio-signals and provides a brain-computer interface to applications or robots for gaming, entertainment, sports, health, etc… Ildar Rakhmatulin, a Research Associate at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, is passionate about open-source brain-computer interfaces and first created the IronBCI project based on ADS1299 and STM32 and published a research paper entitled “Low-cost brain computer interface for everyday use” about his work. But cost increases related to the semiconductors shortage of recent years meant the price for his “low-cost” project shot up to over $1,000. So he went back to the drawing board and created the PiEEG shield for Raspberry Pi now available on Crowd Supply. PiEEG shield specifications: ADC – Texas Instruments ADS1299 Analog-to-Digital Converter for biopotential measurements Supported SBCs – Raspberry Pi 3 or 4, and boards with the same 40-pin GPIO header. Host […]