CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 22, 2022July 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

DROPLET irrigation system works with ESPhome and Home assistant

When PricelessToolkit failed to find an affordable (indoor) irrigation system that works with Home Assistant and ESPHome, he built the DROPLET board based on ESP32 wireless SoC and supporting up to five micro-pumps and soil moisture sensors. The board also comes with switches to manually control the pump, a built-in DS18B20 temperature sensor, a buzzer, and a I/O header to connect an expansion header for relay control, I2C, GPIOs, and an external DS18B20 temperature sensor. DROPLET specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S with ESP32 dual-core 32-bit microcontroller @ 240 MHz with 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, 4MB SPI flash Display – I2C header for 5V/3.3V OLED display Pump interfaces – 5x 2-pin connectors for micropumps Sensors and sensor interfaces DS18B20 temperature sensor 5x 3-pin connectors for soil moisture sensors; pulled low with a 1 MΩ resistor. Expansion – 2x 16-pin right-angle female header with GPIOs, UART, 5V, and GND Debugging […]

December 22, 2022December 21, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Banana BPI-Bit-S2 BBC Micro:bit compatible board supports WiFi

Banana BPI-Bit-S2 is a board for the education market that’s compatible with the BBC Micro:bit V2, but offers WiFi connectivity instead of Bluetooth LE through an Espressif Systems ESP32-S2 wireless microcontroller. The BPI-Bit-S2 succeeds the earlier Banana Pi BPI-Bit with ESP32 WiFi & BLE microcontroller that was a closer match to the original BBC Micro:bit than the new ESP32-S2 board for which I see little benefit, except for the slightly lower price tag. Banana BPI-Bit-S2 specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S2FN4R2 single core LX7 microcontroller with 320 kB SRAM, 2MB PSRAM, 4MB flash, 2.4 GHz WiFi connectivity LEDs – 25x RGB LED matrix USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Sensors – 2x light sensors, 1x thermistor sensor Expansion – 3x I/O rings, 3V/GND rings, 20-pin edge connector (compatible with BBC Micro:bit V2 design) with up to 16x GPIO, I2C, SPI, 3.3V, and GND Misc – […]

December 21, 2022January 9, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Qualcomm QCX216 LTE Cat1 bis IoT-optimized modem integrates WiFi-based terrestrial positioning

Qualcomm QCX216 is a new IoT-optimized LTE Cat1 bis modem with a data rate of up to 10 Mbps at ultra-low power and support for WiFi-based terrestrial positioning thanks to the company’s database of billions of geolocated beacons. LTE Cat1 bis is an update to LTE Cat1 that does not require software and hardware upgrades to the base stations, enables smaller, simpler, and cheaper designs with a single antenna, and delivers higher speeds than LTE Cat M1 typically used in IoT applications. Qualcomm QCX216 LTE IoT modem will be used in smart utility meters, trackers, e-mobility solutions, parking meters, home automation and security equipment, and other location-based solutions. Qualcomm QCX216 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm 216 LTE IoT modem with dual-core Cortex-M3 @ 204 MHz, cellular modem-RF Wireless Cellular Peak Download Speed: 10 Mbps Peak Upload Speed: 5 Mbps Cellular Technology: Rel.14 LTE, Global LTE Cat 1bis Multi SIM: Dual SIM/eSIM […]

December 21, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

EdgeBox-ESP-100 – An ESP32-S3 industrial controller with RS485, CAN Bus, DIO, 4G LTE, and more

We’ve previously covered the EdgeBox-RPi4 industrial controller powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and plenty of I/Os such as RS485, RS232, digital inputs and outputs, and connectivity options such as Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5, and 4G LTE. But if you don’t quite need the power of a Linux controller, the EdgeBox-ESP-100 industrial edge controller based on an ESP32-S3 dual-core WiFi and Bluetooth microcontroller and offering a similar set of features, albeit with twists, may be an interesting option. EdgeBox-ESP-100 specifications: Microcontroller – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ 240 MHz with AI vector instructions, 512KB RAM Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB Flash Network connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE via ESP32-S3 4G LTE cellular via SIMCom A7670G LTE Cat 1 module Optional support for LoRa (replaces the A7670G module) Serial & I/Os via terminal blocks […]

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

ArduCam Mega – A 3MP or 5MP SPI camera for microcontrollers (Crowdfunding)

ArduCam Mega is a 3MP or 5MP camera specifically designed for microcontrollers with an SPI interface, and the SDK currently supports Arduino UNO and Mega2560 boards, ESP32/ESP8266 boards, Raspberry Pi Pico and other boards based on RP2040 MCU, BBC Micro:bit V2, as well as STM32 and MSP430 platform. Both cameras share many of the same specifications including their size, but the 3MP model is a fixed-focus camera, while the 5MP variant supports autofocus. Potential applications include assets monitoring, wildfire monitoring, remote meter reading, TinyML applications, and so on. ArduCam Mega specifications: Camera Type 3MP with fixed focus 5MP with auto-focus from 8cm to infinity Optical size – 1/4-inch Shutter type – Rolling Focal ratio 3MP – F2.8 5MP – F2.0 Still Resolutions 320×240, 640×480, 1280×720 x 1600 x1200x 1920 x 1080 3MP – 2048 x 1536 5MP – 2592×1944 Output formats – RGB, YUV, or JPEG Wake-up time 3MP – […]

December 20, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

T-Camera S3 – An ESP32-S3 board with camera, display, PIR motion sensor, and microphone

LilyGO has launched a new ESP32-S3 WiFi & BLE camera board with the T-Camera S3 also featuring a small display, a PIR motion sensor, and a microphone, as well as an optional plastic shell. The T-Camera S3 is an evolution of the TTGO T-Camera ESP32 board introduced in 2019 with many of the same features, but the ESP32 microcontroller has been replaced with an ESP32-S3 microcontroller with vector extensions that makes it suitable for machine learning and computer vision applications. The new board also comes with a larger 16 MB SPI flash, more I/Os, and a few other small changes. T-Camera S3 specifications: ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 wireless module SoC – ESP32-S3FN16R8 dual-core Tensilica LX7 microcontroller @ 240 MHz (Note: this SKU is not listed in the official ESP32-S3 datasheet) with 2.4 GHz 802.11n WiFI 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB SPI flash Camera – 2MP […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

December 20, 2022December 21, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

$96+ Banana Pi BPI-M2S Amlogic A311D/S922X SBC offers dual GbE, optional PoE and WiFi 5

The Banana Pi PPI-M2S is a single board computer (SBC) powered by either Amlogic A311D or S922X processor with 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, HDMI 2.1 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, one MIPI CSI camera connector, two Gigabit Ethernet ports with one PoE capable, as well as optional WiFi 5 & Bluetooth support. When we first covered the Banana Pi BPI-M2S over a year ago, all we had were some 3D renders of the board and some preliminary specifications. The company has now manufactured the board, provided some documentation, and started to take orders for the board on Aliexpress for $95.79 or $100 depending on whether Amlogic S922X or A311D is selected. Banana Pi BPI-M2S specifications: SoC – Amlogic A311D or S922X hexa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 cores @ 2.21 GHz, 2x Arm Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.8 GHz, Arm Mali-G52 MP4 (6EE) GPU with OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0 […]

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Linux 6.2 exFAT update to improve performance when creating files and directories

The exFAT file system is about to get faster in Linux 6.2, at least when creating files and directories, with the performance boost especially noticeable on low-end processors. Microsoft released the exFAT specification and announced Linux support in August 2019, which was followed by a new exFAT implementation in Linux 5.7 (June 2020) from Samsung. But people are still working on improving exFAT Linux support, and Yuezhang Mo, an engineer at Sony, committed a patchset for Linux 6.2 that reduces repeated traversal of directory entries to boost the performance of exFAT: After traversing all directory entries, hint the empty directory entry no matter whether or not there are enough empty directory entries. After this commit, hint the empty directory entries like this: 1. Hint the deleted directory entries if enough; 2. Hint the deleted and unused directory entries which at the end of the cluster chain no matter whether enough […]

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