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Eweat R9 Plus Android TV Box and OpenWrt NAS Review – Part 1: Unboxing and Teardown

Zidoo X9S is getting some competition with Eweat R9 TV boxes based on the same Realtek RTD1295 processor with built-in SATA, Gigabit Ethernet, 4K VP9 and H.265, HDR, and USB 3.0. The company has three R9 models, and they sent me to top of the line R9 Plus with 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, a 3.5″ SATA bay, HDMI input, and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports for evaluation. I’ll start the first part of the review by checking out the hardware inside and out, before testing the firmware in the second part. Eweat R9 Plus Unboxing The device ships in a large package with a handle which can be convenient in brick and mortar shops since the whole package weights about 1.8 kilograms.The package then contains a smaller package will all accessories: a 12V/2.5A power supply, a “Quickly User Guide” (sic.), a HDMI cable, and an IR remote control taking two AAA […]

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How to Use Sonoff POW ESP8266 WiFi Power Switch with MQTT and ThingSpeak

ITEAD Studio’s Sonoff is a family of cheap home automation products based on ESP8266 WiSoC, and I’ve already tested Sonoff TH16 wireless switch with a humidity and temperature sensor using the stock firmware and eWelink app for Android or iOS. It works, but up to recently it required a registration to a cloud service (the company will now allow use from the local network), and the source code is closed. So for the second device under review, namely Sonoff POW wireless switch with a power consumption monitor, I decided to install ESPurna firmware working on ESP8266 Sonoff devices and NodeMCU, as it’s open source, supports Sonoff POW natively, includes a web interface to control the device from the LAN, and includes an MQTT client. MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging protocol used to control IoT sensors and devices, and it’s a popular method to gather data […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM
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VGA Output Hack on $2 PADI IoT Stamp & Other Realtek RTL8710AF Modules

It’s pretty amazing what you can do with those cheap WiFi modules coming from Espressif and Realtek. You may remember CNLohr getting ESP8266 to broadcast video to your TV though NTSC, and that was impressive. But developer kissste, who has been very active since the announcement of a $2 Realtek RTL8710 module, has now developed a VGA driver demo for Realtek Ameba WiFi SoCs, and successfully tested it on Pine64 PADI IoT Stamp. Just like on ESP8266, there’s no hardware display block on RTL8710AF, RTL8711AF, and RTL8195AF SoCs, so instead he had to connect the signals to GPIOs with the video signal connected to GA1 via a resistor, H-Sync to GC2, and V-Sync to GA5. Video and H-Sync data is actually transfered over an SPI connection using DMA transfer for better performance. Normally the video signal for VGA is divided into red, green, and blue signal, so I understand he mixed […]

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Junsun H552C Android 4.4 Car DVR and GPS Navigation System Comes with a 7″ Display

There are plenty of Android car systems for sale with DVR and/or GPS navigation capabilities on the net, but sometimes they lack some features, or come in a 2 DIN form factor, which is nice if you know how to disable your car dashboard, but it might be a little complicated if you don’t. An alternative is to get an Android rear view mirror, but obviously the display is much smaller, and it reduces the usable space on the rear view mirror to see what’s going on behind. However, this morning I’ve come across Junsun H552C Android 4.4 system with a 7″ display, rear and front cameras, and GPS navigation system that might be easier to install since it sits on top of the dashboard, and is selling for $118.54 on Dealextreme. Junsun H552C specifications: Processor – Quad core CPU @ 1.3 GHz System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – […]

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STMicro SensorTile is a Tiny STM32 Module with Bluetooth 4.1 LE and Four Sensor Chips

STMicroelectronics SensorTile is a 13.5 x 13.5mm sensor board based on STM32L4 ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller, a MEMS accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, pressure sensor, a MEMS microphone, as well as a 2.4Ghz radio chip for Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy connectivity for wearables, smart home, and IoT projects. SensorTile hardware specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32L476 ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller@ up to 80 MHz with 128 KB RAM, 1MB flash Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.1 Smart/LE via BlueNRG-MS network processor with integrated 2.4GHz radio compliant with Sensors LSM6DSM 3D accelerometer + 3D gyroscope LSM303AGR 3D Magnetometer + 3D accelerometer LPS22HB pressure sensor/barometer MP34DT04 digital MEMS microphone I/Os – 2x 9 half holes with access to UART, SPI, SAI (Serial Audio Interface), I2C, DFSDM, USB, OTG, ADC, and GPIOs signals Debugging – SWD interface (multiplexed with GPIOs) Power Supply Range – 2V to 5.5 V Dimensions – 13.5 x 13.5 mm Software development can be done through […]

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How to Install ThingSpeak in Ubuntu 16.04

Last week-end I installed ESPurna open source firmware with MQTT server on Sonoff POW WiFi switch, and the next step is find a way to draw power consumption charts in some web based interface. We could do this in the IoT cloud with services like Xively or ThingSpeak, but since one of the goals of replacing the default firmware was not to rely on a proprietary cloud based solution, I decided to find a way to draw those chart in a local server, and it so happens that ThingSpeak is also open source with the code available on Github. Hardware platforms like NanoPi NEO / NEO Air, or Orange Pi Zero boards appear to be particularly well suited for the task of running an MQTT broker and Thingspeak, but at first I wanted to install ThingSpeak in my own Ubuntu 16.04 computer to have a try. As you can see […]

Rockchip RK3568, RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs and SoMs in 2025
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Nordic Semi Unveils nRF52840 Bluetooth 5 Ready SoC and Development Kit

Nordic Semiconductor nRF52xx Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz solutions are very often found in development kits and low power devices such as wearables, and it’s no surprise that the company introduced a new nRF52840 SoC supporting Bluetooth 5, the new standard promising twice the range, and four times the speed of BLE 4.x, as well as ANT, 802.15.4, 2.4GHz proprietary, and NFC connectivity. Nordic Semi nRF52840 key features and specifications: MCU – 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 @ 64 MHz with with FPU Memory & Storage – 256 KB RAM, 1MB Flash Connectivity Bluetooth 5-ready multiprotocol radio Bluetooth 5 data rate support: 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps, 500 kbps, 125 kbps 104 dB link budget for Bluetooth low energy -96 dBm sensitivity for Bluetooth low energy Programmable output power from +8 dBm to -20 dBm NFC-A tag on chip Single-ended antenna output (on-chip balun) I/Os USB – Full-speed 12 Mbps USB controller SPI up […]

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First Intel Apollo Lake J3455/J4205 Processor Benchmarks & Video Tests

Many products powered by Intel Apollo Lake processors have already been announced, but few are actually shipping, and I have yet to get one here. However, AndroidPC.es got hold of ASRock J4205-ITX and J3455-ITX motherboards powered by respectively a Pentium J4205 quad core processor and a Celeron J3455 quad core processor, run a few benchmarks, and tested videos in Windows 10 on the motherboards with Kodi 17 and MPC-HC.   Let’s have a look at some of the benchmarks to better understand of what we can expect from Apollo Lake desktop processors. First there’s not that much of a difference between Celeron J3455 (1,771 points) and Pentium 4205 (1,830 points) in PCMark Home Convetional benchmark, however you should clearly feel a boost in performance compared to systems with Intel Cherry Trail x5-Z8300 processor (1,141), and the score is getting fairly close to a mini PC with an Intel Core i3-5005U […]

Boardcon CM3588 Rockchip RK3588 System-on-Module designed for AI and IoT applications