Devices and Open Hardware Leftovers
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CNX Software ☛ Arduino Core for ESP32 gets a Zigbee wrapper library
Some of the newer Espressif Systems wireless SoCs such as the ESP32-H2 and ESP32-C6 support Zigbee through their built-in 802.15.4 radio. It’s been working since the release of the ESP-IDF 5.1 framework along with the ESP-Zigbee-SDK for a while, but Arduino support was less straightforward. But this is about to change as an Espressif engineer nicknamed P-R-O-C-H-Y has recently added a Zigbee wrapper library for the ESP-Zigbee-SDK to Arduino Core for ESP32 that works with ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2 as standalone nodes and other SoC can be used as radio co-processor attached to an RPC (802.15.4 radio layer).
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Arduino ☛ Amassing a mobile Minion militia
Channeling his inner Gru, YouTuber Thomas Locatelli (AKA Electo) built a robotic Minion army to terrorize and amuse the public in local shopping malls. Building one Minion robot is, in theory, pretty straightforward.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Card-playing robot has Raspberry Pi brain and 3D printed arm
Dominic LeBoeuf is using a Raspberry Pi to power his card-playing robot which features a 3D-printed body and RFID reader.
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CNX Software ☛ ESP8266-powered Netgotchi network security scanner aims to protect your home network
The Netgotchi network security scanner is a simple, compact device based on an ESP8266 wireless microcontroller with a single goal: to defend your home network from intruders and potential bad actors. It is described as “Pwnagotchi’s older brother,” a network guardian that keeps your network safe instead of penetrating it.
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Raspberry Pi ☛ Zero-code LED animations with Raspberry Pi Pico
On this page, you can select which GPIO pins are used for outputs and how many LEDs are on each pin. The GPIO pins have to be sequential. We went for GPIOs 0–7. There’s not a fixed limit on the number of LEDs on each pin, though you will run out of RAM at some point. The more LEDs, the slower the updates are, so we’d recommend limiting it to about 100 or so per pin.
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CNX Software ☛ Allwinner H728 octa-core Cortex-55 SoC powers $40+ X96Q PRO+ Android 14 TV box
X96Q Pro+ is an Android 14 TV box powered by the new Allwinner H728 octa-core Cortex-A55 SoC with a Mali-G57-MC1 GPU, and a 4Kp60 / 8Kp24 H.265 and VP9 4Kp60 video decoder that looks very similar to the Allwinner T527 AIoT SoC.
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OMG Ubuntu ☛ This $149 RISC-V Tablet Runs Ubuntu 24.04
DeepComputing has unveiled an new version of its DC-ROMA RISC-V tablet — and this one runs Ubuntu! The DC-ROMA RISC-V Pad II boasts a 10.1 inch (1920×1200) IPS 10-point touch display, and is powered by the same SpacemiT K1 SoC found in their RISC-V Ubuntu laptop (which launched with a confused set of pricing tiers and availability).
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Hackaday ☛ Tiny Custom Keyboard Gets RGB
Full-size keyboards are great for actually typing on and using for day-to-day interfacing duties. They’re less good for impressing the Internet. If you really want to show off, you gotta go really big — or really small. [juskim] went the latter route, and added RGB to boot!
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Hackaday ☛ A Game Of Snake On A LEGO Mechanical Computer
Really, [OzzieGerff] had us at “LEGO.” But then he took it to another place entirely and built a completely mechanical, nearly 100% LEGO version of Snake. And it’s just as cool as it sounds.
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Pete Warden ☛ Why has the Internet of Things failed?
According to a survey last year, less than 50% of appliances that are internet-capable ever get connected. When I talk to manufacturers, I often hear even worse numbers, sometimes below 30%! Despite many years and billions of dollars of investment into the “Internet of Things”, this lack of adoption makes it clear that even if a device can be connected, consumers don’t see the value in most cases. I think it’s time to admit that the core idea of IoT has failed. To understand why, it’s worth looking at how it was originally pitched, and what flaws time has revealed in those arguments.