Posted on

Lollybot is a $10 Robot Made with a USB Gamepad and Chupa Chups

I attended Barcamp Chiang Mai 6 yesterday, and sessions dealt with a wide range of subjects ranging from SEO and web development to things like nuclear energy, VMAT2 God gene, or Edward Snowden. There were just four talks somewhat related to the subjects I usually write about in this blog: Project Manhattan – An interactive TV infrastructure project for TV operators based on open source libraries (but not open source itself). They provide both back-end software and a mobile app (Android or iOS) for smartphones and set-top boxes. They had an Android set-top box, but unfortunately there was no time for demo. There’s no project website, but the solution is said to be used by horizon-tv.tv (in Russian). A Raspberry Pi session which I could not attend Firefox OS – Keng is the owner of a mobile and web development company called opendream, but he’s also one of the 4 […]

Posted on

Linor Technology Fargo are Ethernet Boards with 4 to 8 Relays

There are more and more “IoT” solutions for home or industrial automation which allow you to control your lights or other equipments remotely with your smartphone or tablet. Many of them are DIY with boards such Arduino or Raspberry Pi combined with an expansion board featuring one or more relays, and some of them can be used out of the box such as Linor Technology Fargo boards. The company designed 4 boards that are powered by a Microchip PIC32 MCU with a small NOR flash, provide Ethernet connectivity, and run a small webserver that allows you to monitor and control the relays with any connected device that can run a web browser. Here are the hardware specifications for the boards (Fargo R8, R4, R4ADI and R4DI): MCU – Microchip PIC32 32-bit MCU Storage – 8MB flash on Fargo R8 for firmware and log storage (up to 10,000 items log) Sensors: […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
Posted on

$25 Texas Instruments SensorTag is a Bluetooth LE Devkit with 6 Sensors

Yesterday, I wrote about Wimoto Motes, tiny Bluetooth LE devices with several sensors that can be controlled and monitored via an iOS app, and soon by an Android app, as well as Linux devices. Each mote costs $39 plus shipping, and one commenter mentioned the price may be a bit too high. A Google search for “bluetooth sensor” immediately brings TI SensorTag, which looks somewhat similar, except it is a Bluetooth LE development kit, includes 6 sensors (but no light sensor), and only costs $25 including shipping. SensorTag Specifications: Bluetooth 4.0 low energy (CC2541) SoC 6 sensors connected via I2C: IR Temperature sensor (TI TMP006) Humidity sensor (Sensirion SHT21) Pressure sensor (Epcos T5400) Accelerometer (Kionix KXTJ9) Gyroscope (InvenSense IMU-3000) Magnetometer (Freescale MAG3110) Power – Single cell coin cell battery (CR2032), quiescent current consumption of 8uA, allowing years of battery life. FCC, IC and ETSI certified solution Dimension – 71.2x36x15.5 mm, […]

Posted on

Wimoto Motes are Tiny Bluetooth Sensors for iOS, Android, and Linux Devices

Wimoto Motes are small (30x30x8mm) wireless sensors that communicate temperature, humidity, soil moisture… values to your iPhone, iPad, Android, and Linux (yes, including the Raspberry Pi) devices via Bluetooth. They are said to last for about a year on a single CR2032 battery and don’t require an Internet connection to work, but you can still upload your data to Wimoto cloud service via the app, or use an optional mote.cloud bridge to do it for you in realtime via Wifi. There are currently 4 Motes: Climote – Measures light (0 to 60,000 lux), temperature (-25 to 85 C) and humidity. Used to monitor a room environment (bedroom, cellar, greenhouse,…), and tell you if you need to make adjustment Growmote – Measures sunlight (0 to 60,000 lux), soil moisture (5 levels) and temperature (-25 to 85 C), to make sure your lawn or flowers are not  thirsty. Thermote – Measures an object temperature […]

Posted on

Digia Brings Qt to Embedded Android Devices with Boot to Qt

Digia has recently announced Boot to Qt Technology Preview, a commercial offering that provides a solution for the creation of user interfaces on embedded systems. For the first version, they stripped out Android of Java, or other unnecessary parts (Zygote, SurfaceFlinger), added Qt/QML, and tested it on on ARM and x86 hardware. Boot to Qt includes the following main features: A light-weight UI stack for embedded Linux, based on the Qt Framework – Boot to Qt is built on an Android kernel/baselayer and offers an elegant means of developing beautiful and performant embedded devices. Ready-made images – We have images for several different devices which include the Boot to Qt software stack, making it possible to get up and running with minimal effort from day one. Full Qt Creator Integration – One-click deploy and run on hardware and a fully featured development environment. Simulator – A VirtualBox based simulator which allows device development […]

Posted on

UDOO Single Board Computer Features Freescale i.MX6 Dual/Quad and Atmel SAM3 MCU

Have you ever dreamed of a single board with the power of 4 Raspberry Pi and Arduino Due functionality? This dream should soon become reality thanks to UDOO single board computer. This open source hardware board is powered by Freescale i.MX6 Dual or Quad with 1GB RAM, as well as Atmel SAM3 Cortex M3 MCU that provides access to Arduino compatible headers. Here are the specifications of the board: SoC – Freescale i.MX6 ARM Cortex-A9 CPU Dual/Quad Core @ 1GHz + Vivante GPU MCU – Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 (same as Arduino Due) System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – micro SD (boot device) + SATA (i.MX6 Quad only) Video Output – HDMI and LVDS + Touch (I2C signals) Audio I/O – Analog Audio and Mic Expansion Headers – 54 Digital I/O + Analog Input (Arduino-compatible R3 1.0 pinout) Connectivity Ethernet RJ45 (10/100/1000 MBit) WiFi Module USB – mini USB […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on

Design West Summit – 23-25 April 2013

Design West 2013, previously known as the Embedded Systems Confertence, will take place later this month, on 23-25 April to be exact, at San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, US. The event will be divided into 22 tracks dealing with software development, hardware design, operating systems, security and more: Android Certificate Program – Two-day hands-on embedded android workshop. Black Hat Summit – The Black Hat Embedded Security Summit will provide electronics professionals with essential information and tools, as well as a forum for the discussion and evaluation of the latest solutions for securing their embedded systems. Training courses will focus on topics such as Network Security, Incident Response, Web Application Security, and Exploit Development. Connectivity and Networking – The Connectivity and Networking track educates design engineers on wired and wireless communications, spanning need-to-know topics from essentials of USB device development to antenna and RF system design. Debugging […]

Posted on

$59 pcDuino – AllWinner A10 Board with Arduino Compatible Headers

pcDuino is a new development board based on AllWinner A10 Cortex A8 SoC that comes with 1GB RAM and 2GB NAND Flash, HDMI output, as well as USB and Ethernet RJ45 ports, and is said to feature 2.54mm pin headers compatible with Arduino boards. Here are the pcDuino specifications: SoC – AllWinner A10 ARM Cortex A8 CPU @ 1GHz + Mali-400 GPU System Memory – 1GB DRAM Storage – 2GB Flash + SD card slot for up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI USB – 2x USB 2.0 Host Connectivity: Ethernet – 10/100 Mbps (RJ45) Wi-Fi – Via USB Wi-Fi dongle (not included with the board) Headers – 2.54mm pin headers: 1x UART, 6x ADCs, 2x PWMs up to 24MHz, 14x GPIOs, 1x I2C and 1x SPI. Power Supply – 5V/2A Dimensions – 125mm x 52mm The board comes preloaded with Ubuntu 12.10, but it also supports Android 4.0 ICS. […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC