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SparkFun Thing Plus – NORA-W306 – A dual-band Wi-Fi 4 and BLE 5.3 IoT board

SparkFun Thing Plus – NORA-W306, is a dual-core, dual-band WiFi 4 and BLE 5.3 microcontroller board in the AdaFruit Feather form factor based on the u-box NORA-W306 module and targeted at low-power wireless applications. The u-blox module integrates the Realtek RTL8720DF chip, a dual-core ARM Cortex-M33 and Cortex-M23 microcontroller with dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy. It offers up to 4MB of encrypted flash and has an onboard PCB antenna. It’s very similar to the RealTek RTL8720DN we covered a few times in the past, but comes with embedded flash. The SparkFun Thing Plus – NORA-W306 board features a USB-C connector for programming, data, and power. The USB data lines are protected against electrostatic discharge and are connected to a CP2102N USB-to-serial converter for uploading code or serial. This board includes a 2-pin JST-style connector for a LiPo battery, a single-cell charger, and a LiPo fuel […]

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Arduino and LVGL-compatible ESP32-C3 board features a 1.28-inch round touchscreen display fully housed in a case

The ESP32-2424S012 is an ESP32-C3 WiFi and BLE development board with a 1.28-inch round touchscreen color display that is fully housed in a black or white plastic enclosure and suitable for Arduino and LVGL library. As we’ll see further below some have also used it with Tasmota and ESPHome firmware. We previously covered several tiny ESP32-S3/ESP32-C3 boards with a round display such as the LILYGO T-RGB ESP32-S3 board, Makerfabs “ESP32-S3 Round SPI TFT with Touch 1.28″, SB Components’ Dual Roundy, but they either don’t come with a case at all, or only the front is covered, but the bottom is laid bare. The ESP32-2424S012 is quite similar, but it can be purchased with a case that covers both the front and back with some openings for expansion connectors. ESP32-2424S012 board specifications: Wireless module – Espressif Systems ESP32-C3-MINI-1U module SoC – ESP32-C3 RISC-V microcontroller @ 160 MHz with 400 KB SRAM, 2.4 […]

ArmSoM CM5 Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC
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Waveshare UPS HAT (E) for Raspberry Pi 5/4/3B+ takes four 21700 Lithium batteries, supports USB PD 3.0

The Waveshare UPS HAT (E) is a UPS expansion board for Raspberry Pi 5/4B/3B+ that supports four 21700 Lithium batteries and includes a battery fuel gauge IC for monitoring voltage, current, and capacity. The USB Type-C port is compliant with the PD 3.0 standard and allows for 40W fast bi-directional charging, and a high-power buck chip provides a 5V/6A output. Additionally, it supports I2C for real-time status updates. Previously, we wrote about the wider SupTronics Raspberry Pi 5 UPS HAT, which supports four 18650 batteries and delivers up to 5V with a higher current output of 5A. This HAT has no Type-C support and uses a DC jack and XH2.54 connector for 6V-18V input. Feel free to check it out if you’re interested in this product. Waveshare UPS HAT (E) specifications: Compatibility – Raspberry Pi 5 / 4B / 3B+ USB Interfaces USB Type-C Input/Output – Supports multiple voltage levels […]

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Rockchip RK3576 castellated SoM powers development board with 12 analog camera inputs

Boardcon CM3576 is a system-on-module (SoM) Rockchip RK3576 with castellated holes that also powers the company’s EM3576 development board with 12 analog camera inputs among a range of other interfaces. We covered a few Rockchip RK3576 platforms in recent weeks including the Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC and Banana Pi BPI-M5 SBCs, and another system-on-module with the Forlinx FET3576-C with four 100-pin board-to-board connectors. The Boardcon CM3576 offers another option as a solderable SoM with castellated edges. Boardcon CM3576 SoM Specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.3GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores at 2.2GHz Arm Cortex-M0 MCU at 400MHz GPU – ARM Mali-G52 MC3 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2, OpenCL up to 2.0, and Vulkan 1.1 NPU – 6 TOPS (INT8) AI accelerator with support for INT4/INT8/INT16/BF16/TF32 mixed operations. VPU Video Decoder – H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1, and AVS2 up to 8Kp30 or 4Kp120 Video Encoder – […]

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NBIOT/LTE-M Air Monitor – A solar-powered ESP32-S3 multi-sensor board with SIM7080G NB-IoT & LTE-M modem

The NBIOT/LTE-M Air Monitor is a solar-powered device that utilizes a combination of ESP32-S3 and SIM7080G modules for remote environmental monitoring. It monitors and transmits environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, CO2, TVOC, and light intensity using low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology ensuring efficient power consumption, durability, and reliable data transmission. Previously we have written about similar environment monitor devices like the Airlytix ES1,  Sonoff SC WiFi, V-Air Monitro, and devices like Arduino MKR IoT Carrier Rev2, Radair mini gateway, and Nicla Sense ME  designed for environment monitoring applications. Feel free to check those out if you are interested in this type of product. NBIOT/LTE-M Air Monitor specification Wireless Module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 Espressif Systems ESP32-S3R8 – Dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration, 512KB RAM, 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16 MB flash Wireless – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth PCB antenna Cellular connectivity Module – SIMCom SIM7080G LTE Cat […]

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STMicro EVLDRIVE101-HPD 1.9-inch motor driver board can drive 750W BLDC motors

STMicroelectronics has recently revealed the reference design for “EVLDRIVE101-HPD” their homegrown BLDC motor driver board that can drive up to a 750W BLDC motor. This compact 50 mm (1.9-inch) circular PCB combines STDRIVE101 3-phase, triple half-bridge gate-driver IC with an STM32G0 microcontroller, which is responsible for driving three-phase brushless motors. The driver board supports various motor-control strategies, including trapezoidal and field-oriented control (FOC), with both sensor’ed and sensorless rotor-position detection. Additionally, it has a wide operating voltage range of 5.5V to 75V and includes STL220N6F7 60V STripFET F7 MOSFETs, which have very low Rds(on) for high efficiency. Other features of the board include ultra-low power consumption in sleep mode, a single-wire debug interface, direct firmware update capability, and protection mechanisms such as under-voltage lockout, overtemperature protection, and cross-conduction prevention. All these features make this board suitable for applications like hairdryers, handheld vacuums, power tools, fans, drones, robots, and industrial equipment […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC low-profile Rockchip RK3576 SBC supports AI models like Gemma-2B, LlaMa2-7B, ChatGLM3-6B

Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC is a low-power, low-profile SBC built around the Rockchip RK3576 octa-core Cortex-A72/A53 SoC which we also find in the Forlinx FET3576-C, the Banana Pi BPI-M5, and Mekotronics R57 Mini PC. In terms of power and performance, this SoC falls in between the Rockchip RK3588 and RK3399 SoCs and can be used for AIoT applications thanks to its 6 TOPS NPU. Termed “mini computer” by Firefly this SBC supports up to 8GB LPDDR4/LPDDR4X memory and 256GB of eMMC storage. Additionally, it offers Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, and Bluetooth 5.0 for connectivity. An M.2 2242 PCIe/SATA socket and microSD card can be used for storage, and the board also offers HDMI and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header. Firefly ROC-RK3576-PC specifications SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.2GHz, four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.8GHz Arm Cortex-M0 MCU at 400MHz GPU […]

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LattePanda Mu Intel N100 SoM and carrier board review – Part 2: Ubuntu 24.04

We’ve already checked out the hardware for LattePanda Mu and tested it on Windows 11 using both the Lite Carrier Board and Full-Function Evaluation in the first part of the review. We’ve now had time to test the LattePanda Mu Intel N100 board with Ubuntu 24.04 to see how it performs in Linux with the following tests:

Initial system information
Benchmarks for CPU, disks, peripherals, and networking (GbE and WiFi)
Web and multimedia usage
Power consumption

Since LattePanda Mu is an x86 machine, we can create a boot disk from the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO as we would on a PC.

Boardcon EM3562 Rockchip RK3562 SBC with 8 analog camera inputs