CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 1, 2024June 1, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Espressif releases Arduino ESP32 Core 3.0.0, but PlatformIO support is in doubt

We previously noted the ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0 Alpha release added support for ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2 among other changes. The good news is that Arduino ESP32 Core 3.0.0 is now considered stable, and was released a few days ago based on the ESP-IDF 5.1.4 framework. Users of the Arduino IDE can use it straight away, but as we’ll discuss in more detail below it’s unclear whether PlatformIO will be (officially) supported. There have been many changes since we wrote about the Alpha2 release in November 2023 with 327 commits from 96 contributors. Some of the most recent changes (compared to RC3) include: Updated ESPDuino with extra options (CPU freq and Partition) Add support for WeAct Studio ESP32C3 Attach ETH events at the correct place Enable the possibility to use SPI ETH with only 4 wires Fix ETH.end() Fix ETH.stop() with IDF SPI Nano ESP32: delete programmer.default entry (on main) due […]

May 31, 2024May 31, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

M5Stack CoreS3 SE cost-down ESP32-S3 IoT controller features a 2-inch touch display, a microSD card slot, a speaker, two microphones

M5Stack CoreS3 SE ESP32-S3 IoT controller

The M5Stack CoreS3 SE, also called M5CoreS3 SE, is a cost-down version of the M5Stack CoreS3 IoT controller based on the ESP32-S3 wireless microcontroller with a 2-inch capacitive touch display, a microSD card slot, a USB-C port, a speaker, two microphones, and one Grove connector for expansion. The M5Core S3 SE loses the DIN Base so the associate features are gone and DIN rail mounting is not possible by default anymore. That also means the M5Stack CoreS3 SE controller is about twice as thin, and the color is also different (medium grey vs black grey). Major internal changes include the removal of the camera and the three sensors found in the original model. M5Stack CoreS3 SE specifications with highlights in bold and strikethrough showing differences against the CoreS3 model: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3FN16R8 CPU – Dual-core 32-bit Xtensa LX7 microcontroller with AI vector instructions up to 240MHz, RISC-V […]

May 31, 2024June 23, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Radxa Fogwise Airbox edge AI box review – Part 1: Specifications, teardown, and first try

Radxa Fogwise Airbox, also known as Fogwise BM168M, is an edge AI box powered by a SOPHON BM1684X Arm SoC with a built-in 32 TOPS TPU and a VPU capable of handling the decoding of up to 32 HD video streams. The device is equipped with 16GB LPDDR4x RAM and a 64GB eMMC flash and features two gigabit Ethernet RJ45 jacks, a few USB ports, a speaker, and more. Radxa sent us a sample for evaluation. We’ll start the Radxa Fogwise Airbox review by checking out the specifications and the hardware with an unboxing and a teardown, before testing various AI workloads with Tensorflow and/or other frameworks in the second part of the review. Radxa Fogwise Airbox specifications The specifications below come from the product page as of May 30, 2024: SoC – SOPHON SG2300x CPU – Octa-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor up to 2.3 GHz VPU Decoding of up to […]

May 31, 2024May 30, 2024 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

Waveshare 2-CH CAN MiniPCIe – An isolated CAN Bus mini PCIe card for Raspberry Pi CM4 and hosts with USB

Waveshare 2-CH CAN MiniPCIe is a compact, CAN bus card featuring dual independent CAN channels with a wide baud rate range (10Kbps to 1Mbps). Unlike the esd electronics CAN-PCIeMiniHS/402, this Waveshare card is isolated, supports CAN2.0A/B protocols, and offers easy integration with laptops, industrial computers, and SBCs like Raspberry Pi via Mini PCIe or USB through an adapter. Additionally, the card supports Windows and Linux operating systems, making it ideal for applications like industrial automation and automotive diagnostics and development. Previously we have covered many unique Waveshare products including the Waveshare 1.69-inch IPS touch LCD, ESP32-C6-Pico and ESP32-C6-Pico-M development boards, the Waveshare UGV Rover, and many others feel free to check those out if you are interested in different Waveshare products. Waveshare 2-CH CAN MiniPCIe CAN bus card specifications CAN Bus CAN channel – Dual-channel: CAN1 and CAN2 (independent and isolated) Connector – CAN bus screw terminal (standard 1.25mm pitch) […]

May 31, 2024May 31, 2024 by Debashis Das - No Comments

LILYGO T-Camera-Plus-S3 – An ESP32-S3 powered dev board with night vision camera and touchscreen display

LILYGO T Camera Plus S3 ESP32 S3 Camera Development

The LILYGO T-Camera-Plus-S3 is an ESP32-S3 development board designed for building smart home devices, monitoring systems, and other connected projects. The board features a 1.3-inch TFT LCD and the option to choose from OV2640 or OV5640 camera modules. The T-Camera-Plus-S3 can be considered an upgrade from the T-Camera S3, which was introduced in 2022. The upgraded features include a 1.3″ SPI TFT LCD (240×240), a microphone with MAX98357A codec and external speaker support, support for a micro SD card, a battery connector, and many other features. Previously we have written many different types of ESP32-S3-based boards like the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Matrix, ESP32-S3-Tiny board, and Unexpected Maker NANOS3 feel free to check those out if you are looking for unique ESP32 boards. LILYGO T-Camera-Plus-S3 specification ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 wireless module SoC – ESP32-S3R8 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 […]

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Dusun DSGW-130 smart home controller fits into an 86-type junction box

DSGW 130 Zigbee Touch Screen Control Panel

The Dusun DSGW-130 smart home controller is a Rockchip PX30-powered, touch-enabled control panel designed to fit into an 86-type junction box. It runs on Android 11 and can connect to your home network using Wi-Fi and Zigbee, similar to the SONOFF NSPanel Pro. The only glaring difference I can see from the specifications is that the DSGW-130 has a few extra features like more storage, a wired network connection, RS485, and support for newer 5GHz Wi-Fi, which the SONOFF doesn’t have. We’ve also written about other similar controllers, like the SONOFF NSPanel, and reviewed the SONOFF NSPanel Pro with Zigbee and the CAM Slim WiFi camera. Check them out if you’re interested in similar products. Dusun DSGW-130 smart home controller specifications SoC – Rockchip PX30 quad-core Cortex-A35 processor with Arm Mali-G31 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB eMMC 5.1 flash Display – 4-inch capacitive touchscreen color TFT display with […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Leveraging GPT-4o and NVIDIA TAO to train TinyML models for microcontrollers using Edge Impulse

Edge Impulse using NVIDIA TAO and GPT-4o LLM to run model on Arduino Nicla Vision

We previously tested Edge Impulse machine learning platform showing how to train and deploy a model with IMU data from the XIAO BLE sense board relatively easily. Since then the company announced support for NVIDIA TAO toolkit in Edge Impulse, and now they’ve added the latest GPT-4o LLM to the ML platform to help users quickly train TinyML models that can run on boards with microcontrollers. What’s interesting is how AI tools from various companies, namely NVIDIA (TAO toolkit) and OpenAI (GPT-4o LLM), are leveraged in Edge Impulse to quickly create some low-end ML model by simply filming a video. Jan Jongboom, CTO and co-founder at Edge Impulse, demonstrated the solution by shooting a video of his kids’ toys and loading it in Edge Impulse to create an “is there a toy?” model that runs on the Arduino Nicla Vision at about 10 FPS. Another way to look at it […]

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Arm unveils Cortex-X925 and Cortex-A725 CPUs, Immortalis-G925 GPU, Kleidi AI software

Arm SoC with Cortex-X925 Cortex-A725 Cortex-A520 CPU with Immortalis-G925 GPU

Arm has just announced new Armv9 CPUs and Immortalis GPUs for mobile SoCs, as well as the Kleidi AI software optimized for Arm CPUs from Armv7 to Armv9 architectures. New Armv9.2 CPU cores include the Cortex-X925 “Blackhawk” core with significant CPU and AI performance improvements, the Cortex-A725 with improved performance efficiency, and a refreshed version of the Cortex-A520 providing 15 percent efficiency improvements. Three new GPUs have also been introduced namely the up-to-14-core Immortalis-G925 flagship GPU which delivers up to 37% 3D graphics performance improvements over last year’s 12-core Immortalis-G720, the Mali-G725 with 6 to 9 cores for premium mobile handsets, and the Mali-G625 GPU with one to five cores for smartwatches and entry-level mobile devices. Arm Cortex-X925 The Arm Cortex-X925 delivers 36 percent single-threaded peak performance improvements in Geekbench 6.2 against a Cortex-X4-based Premium Android smartphone, and about 41 percent better AI performance using the time-to-first token of tiny-LLama […]