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Broadcom Introduces WICED Sense Bluetooth Low Energy Development Kit

Broadcom has recently announced a new development board for IoT applications using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) called WICED Sense. The kit consists of a “sense tag” powered by the company’s BCM20737S Bluetooth SIP Module with five micro-electromechanical sensors (MEMS), and Bluetooth 4.1 compatible WICED SMART software stack. The key features of WICED Sense devkit are as follows: Broadcom BCM20737 Bluetooth Smart system in package (SiP) module Five low-power MEMS sensors by ST Micro (part of the module): Gyroscope (L3GD20) Accelerometer (LIS3DSH) eCompass (LSM303D) Pressure sensor (LPS25H) Humidity Temperature sensor (HTS221) Bluetooth Smart connection covers distance of roughly 30 meters. USB – 1x micro USB connector to update applications Encryption, decryption, certificate signing, verification and various algorithms for increased privacy Secure Over-the-air (OTA) download capability to enable firmware updates from central device including smartphone, tablet and computers Misc – iBeacon, NFC, Wireless charging (Rezence A4WP) support. Power – Coin-cell battery The […]

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A80 OptimusBoard Development Board Pictures and Benchmarks

A80 OptimusBoard is a development board featuring the latest AllWinner A80 SoC with 8 ARM Cortex A15/A7 cores in big.LITTLE configuration, and a PowerVR GC6230 GPU. Availability was announced about 2 weeks ago for $345, but partially thanks to reader comments on CNX Software, Merrii Technology decided to lower the price to $169 (and $50+ for shipping) to stay competitive against similar boards such as Hardkernel ODROID-XU3. I’ve now received a sample for evaluation. I won’t go again through the specs, but today I’ll take a few pictures of the board, and provide benchmark results to compare them to the ones I got with Rockchip RK3288. Normally, I would also play with the SDK provided with the board, but sadly (and amazingly), there’s currently no such SDK for A80 OptimusBoard, except a leaked Linux SDK which failed to build with recent tools and operating systems. A80 OptimusBoard Pictures I’ve received […]

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Review of Probox2 EX Quad Core Android TV Box and Remote+ Air Mouse

Probox2 EX is an Android TV box powered by Amlogic S802-H processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC, an hardware very similar to MINIX NEO X8-H, and an upgrade to the Tronsmart Vega S89 Elite and Shenzhen Tomato EM8 / Enybox M8 TV boxes I’ve reviewed previously, with more storage (16GB vs 8GB), dual band Wi-Fi, and S802-H instead of S802 for hardware DTS and Dolby audio decoding. I’ve already published an unboxing post for Probox2 EX, so today I’m going to test the firmware, including overall performance and stability, video playback, gaming, and most hardware features, as well as Remote+ air mouse with audio and gaming capabilities, which comes with the device. First Boot, Settings and First Impressions I’ve found two AAA battery to insert into Remote+ air mouse, connected an HDMI cable, an Ethernet cable, the Wi-Fi antenna, the RF dongle for Remote+, and the power adapter to […]

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How to Upgrade Firmware in Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 Android TV Boxes

For some reasons, Rockchip is extremely fond of Windows based firmware tools, and instead of providing a simple SD card method, they’ve continued to use these awful tools to upgrade firmware for Rockchip RK3288, RK3328, RK3399 devices, and other Rockchip based TV boxes. I don’t mean to say these are useless, but they should not be used by end users, unless their device is bricked. Nevertheless, Rockchip has now release version 2.3 of their Android tools for Windows, and GeekBuying has published a guide showing how to do, which I’ll summarize below. Rockchip has also released an updated version for the Linux Upgrade Tool (upgrade_tool) v1.24 that allows you to do the update in Linux. [Update: The latest versions of DriverAssistant (Step 1) and AndroidTool (Step 2) can be found in Rockchip-Linux account in Github] The first thing to do is to make sure you’ve got the latest Rockchip USB […]

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More Technical Details & Benchmarks about Nvidia Tegra K1 “Denver” 64-bit ARM SoC

The 32-bit version of Nvidia Tegra K1 have generally received good reviews in terms of performance, especially GPU performance, and the company has also provided good developer’s documentation and Linux support, including open source drivers for the Kepler GPU (GK20A) found in the SoC. But as initially announced, Tegra K1 with also get a 64-bit ARM version codenamed “Denver”, and Nvidia provided more details at Hotchips conference. The 64-bit Tegra K1 will still feature a 192-core Kepler GPU, but replace the four ARM Cortex A15 cores found in the 32-bit version, by two ARMv8 “Project Denver” cores custom-designed by Nvidia. The multi-core performance of the dual core 64-bit Tegra K1 @ 2.5 GHz may end up being equivalent to the quad core 32-bit Tegra K1 @ 2.1 GHz, but the single core performance will be much better thanks to a  a 7-way superscalar microarchitecture (vs 3-way for Cortex A15), as […]

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How to Root Rockchip RK3288 Devices

As Rockchip RK3288 based tablets and TV boxes are slowly starting to reach end-users, it may be a good time to post instructions showing how to root your Android device. Geekbuying has just published a guide to root RK3288 tablets and media players. The instructions below require a PC or Virtual Machine running Windows XP/7/8, but hopefully instructions to root under Linux similar the ones for RK3066/RK3188 will surface soon. Install Rockchip USB drivers by downloading the latest DriverAssistant which adds support for Rockchip RK3288. Simply extract the files and click on DriverInstall.exe to complete the installation. Download the latest version of VRoot tools. and basically follow the same instructions as for Amlogic S802 root which I’ll summarize below. Make sure USB debugging is enabled in your device (Settings->Developer Options->USB Debug) Connect your RK3288 device to your PC via a USB cable. (OTG port) Start VRoot. It should detect your […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Some Projects on Nvidia Jetson TK1 Development Board: Nintendo Emulator, USB3 Webcam, and Robotics

Nvidia Jetson TK1 is a development board powered by the company’s Tegra K1 quado core Cortex A15 processor, and especially a Kepler GPU that allows for OpenGL 4.4. It has shipped to developers around April/May, and some of them have showcased their projects, or tested some hardware. Dolphin Emulator on Nvidia Jetson TK1 Dolphin is an emulator for Nintendo GameCube and Wii console that supports full HD (1080p) rendering, and run on Android, Linux and Mac OS,  and there’s also an Alpha version for Android. Ryan Houdek (Sonicadvance1), one of Dolphin’s developers, has leveraged Kepler’s OpenGL support via Nvidia’s GPU drivers, to port the emulator to the platform running on Ubuntu, but it should work as well on Tegra K1 hardware running Android such as XiaoMi MiiPad tablet.  You can watch Mario Kart: Double Dash demo running at full speed on the Nvidia board below. According to the developer, such […]

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Mele F10 Deluxe Air Mouse Review

Mele F10 is an air mouse using 2.4GHz RF technology, that can be used as a remote, a QWERTY keyboard, and a wireless mouse. That’s my favorite input device for Android TV Box, and I use it regularly for my product reviews. The company has now introduced an improved model called Mele F10 Deluxe with trick mode buttons, a gaming mode thanks to a gyroscope, and an IR learning function to use it as a universal remote. Mele sent me a sample for evaluation, so I’ll start with some unboxing pictures, and compare it to the original Mele F10, before testing the remote. Mele F10 Deluxe Unboxing I’ve received the air mouse in the package below that highlights the four main features: Air mouse, Game Controller, Wireless Keyboard, and IR Learning. We’ll find the air mouse, a tiny RF dongle, a USB cable for charging, and a user’s manual describing […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products