CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Arducam Pi Hawk-eye is a 64MP camera for Raspberry Pi 4/CM4

Arducam Pi Hawk-eye is a 64MP “ultra-high resolution” camera for Raspberry Pi 4 or CM4 with built-in autofocus following the company’s 16MP autofocus camera introduced at the end of last year. The new camera module will allow you to take still images at up to 9152 x 6944 resolution, but videos will still be limited to 1080p30 on the Raspberry Pi 4. The Pi Hawk-eye is also compatible with the official Raspberry Pi v1/v2 cameras, meaning you can reuse your enclosures/mounts, and keep on using the same software, for instance, libcamera. Arducam Pi Hawk-eye specifications: Sensor – Sensor with 9152 x 6944 pixels resolution Still resolution – 64MP Video modes On Raspberry Pi – 1080p30, 720p60, and 640×480 @ 60/90fps Camera module – 1280×720 @ 120 fps, 1080p60, 2312×1736 @ 30 fps, 3840×2160 @ 20 fps, 4624×3472 @ 10 fps, 9152×6944 @ 2.7 fps Optical size – 9.25mm diagonal (7.4×5.5mm) […]

April 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

RoenDi is a rotary encoder with a color display (Crowdfunding)

RoenDi is a rotary encoder with an integrated round color display. Based on an STM32L4 MCU, it can be programmed with the STM32CubeIDE or the Arduino IDE, and be used as an information display, an IoT controller, a locking mechanism, as well as in audio applications. RoenDi specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32L433 Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller @ 80 MHz with 256 KB flash memory Storage – 128 Mbit SPI NOR flash Display – Round 1.28-inch TFT LCD display with 240 x 240 resolution, up to 262K colors Rotary Encoder – 15 pulses / 30 detents USB – Micro USB connector I/Os – Breakout pads for peripherals: I2C, GPIO, PWM, CAN; 5V tolerant Debugging – Adaptor board and cable for ST-LINK Misc – BOOT boot, RTC (built-in into STM32 MCU) Power Supply – 3V to 5V DC input, 3 V, 400 mA LDO Dimensions – 40 x 40 mm (PCB) Enclosure – […]

April 5, 2022May 9, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Bee Motion Mini board combines ESP32-C3 with PIR sensor

Designed by Smart Bee Designs, the tiny Bee Motion Mini combines an ESP32-C3 wireless RISC-V SoC with a PIR sensor for motion detection reporting over WiFi, Bluetooth LE, or Bluetooh Mesh. The board was designed to be as small as possible to fit into a 3D printed case with a LiPo battery and placed/hidden anywhere you want. Motion detection range is up to 5 meters, and the Bee Motion Mini can connect to services like MQTT, ITTT, or NodeRed to trigger other devices upon motion. Bee Motion Mini specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3-MINI-1 module with ESP32-C3 WiFi and Bluetooth LE 5.0 RISC-V SoC up to 160 MHz, 4 MB embedded flash PIR sensor – Passive infrared motion sensor with dome lens, 5-meter range I/O- UART Tx/Rx for flashing firmware, 3.3V, and GND Misc – BOOT and RESET buttons Power Supply JST PH.20 connector for LiPo battery 3.3V via […]

April 5, 2022April 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4S SO-DIMM module is powered by Broadcom BCM2711 SoC

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4S is an upcoming system-on-module based on the same Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor found in Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, but using the same SO-DIMM connector as found in earlier Raspberry Pi Compute Module boards, instead of the new board-to-board connectors. The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4S is not launched yet, but we discovered it will be used on Revolution Pi S and SE series DIN-rail industrial computers via a tweet from Jeff Geerling and his post on Raspberry Pi forums. Apart from the faster processor and support for 4K video output, The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4S is quite similar to the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+. Memory bandwidth might be a little better with the LPDDR4 memory too (TBC), but all the rest looks the same. The main advantage of the new Raspberry Pi CM4S module is compatibility with older SO-DIMM carrier […]

April 5, 2022April 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

How to get your domain suspended in five easy steps!

Regular readers may have noticed CNX Software was inaccessible for several days, and the reason was that my domain was suspended. I’m a bit late for April Fools’ day, but I’ll show how you can get your domain suspended too in five easy steps! I’ll also provide some background to what happened, and several errors of judgment made along the way What happened? On March 28, as I woke up I noticed I could not access the website and I had also received several emails and mentions on social networks that the website was down. I first tried to restart the LEMP stack of the server nginx, mysql, php, but it did not help. I quickly figured out there was a problem with DNS, so I went to the Cloudflare dashboard which is where I manage the DNS records, but I did not see any problems there. Eventually, I saw […]

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 60 Comments

Eben Upton expands on Raspberry Pi shortage

As you may have noticed, Raspberry Pi boards may get hard to get and/or be sold at excessive prices by some resellers. Eben Upton explains the reasons behind the Raspberry Pi Shortage and provides some recommendations to work around the shortage and high prices. Raspberry Pi Trading is still manufacturing around 500,000 Raspberry Pi boards or modules per month despite the global semiconductors shortage, and the issue they face is more of a demand shock than a supply shock with demand for Raspberry Pi products having increased sharply from the start of 2021 and remains unabated as the supply chain can not handle that extra demand at this time. That means distributors have backlogs in almost all products, and it takes time for customers to get their orders. Bots are also involved in making automatic purchases as soon as stock becomes available often in order to resell those boards at […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

April 4, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 1 Comment

Beelink SER4 Review – Windows 11, Ubuntu 20.04, and “overclocking” AMD Ryzen 7 4800U SoC

Beelink has released the SER4 which is the latest in their ‘SER’ mini PC series and it features a Zen 2 AMD mobile processor. Beelink kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu and dabbled with ‘overclocking’. Beelink SER4 Hardware Overview The Beelink SER4 physically consists of a 126 x 113 x 40mm (4.96 x 4.45 x 1.57 inches) square metal case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses AMD’s 7 nm Zen 2 Ryzen 7 4800U Renoir processor which is an eight-core 16-thread 1.8 GHz mobile processor boosting to 4.2 GHz with Radeon Graphics. The front panel has an illuminated power button, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a Type-C USB 3.1 port with Alternate Mode, dual USB 3.1 ports, and a reset pin-hole ‘CLR CMOS’. The rear panel includes a gigabit Ethernet port, a USB 3.1 port and a USB 2.0 port, […]

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Morse Micro MM6104, MM6108 Wi-Fi HaLow SoCs support up to 32.5 Mbps data rate

Australian company Morse Micro MM6104 and MM6108 Wi-Fi HaLow SoCs should offer some competition to the Newracom NRC chips found in all 802.11ah WiFi HaLow boards and devices released so far. Both MM610x chips have similar features, but the MM6104 SoC supports 1/2/4 MHz channel bandwidth for up to 15 Mbps data rate – just like the Newracom NRC7292 chip – while the more powerful MM6108 can handle a data rate of up to 32.5 Mbps thanks to 1/2/4/8 MHz channel bandwidth. MM6104/MM6108 specifications: Optional 32-bit RISC-V Host Applications Processor (HAP) Single-Chip IEEE802.11ah Wi-Fi HaLow transceiver for low-power, long-reach IoT applications Worldwide Sub-1 GHz frequency bands (850MHz to 950MHz) On-chip power amplifier with support for external PA option MM6104 – 1/2/4 MHz channel bandwidth for up to 15 Mbps data rate (Note: the datasheet reads “single-stream max data rate up to 40 Mbps”, but it appears to be a mistake […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products