news
Linux Devices, Raspberry Pi, and Open Hardware Leftovers
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Devices/Embedded
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CNX Software ☛ Olimex HoT aims to be lightweight, easier-to-use alternative to Home Assistant
Olimex HoT (Home of Things) is a lightweight Smart Home solution designed to run on low-end hardware (128MB RAM, 128MB flash) and interface with nodes running ESPHome. It can serve as an easier-to-use alternative for people who don’t need all the bells and whistles provided by powerful home automation frameworks such as Home Assistant or OpenHAB.
Home Assistant open-source home automation software is great, but it requires a system with at least 2GB of RAM, and 4GB of RAM is often recommended for most users. There’s also a steep learning curve. This is what Tsvetan Usunov, Olimex CEO, realized last year when he tried Home Assistant, and he decided to start working on a low-cost, easy-to-use solution for IoT and Smart Home applications. That’s why the Olimex HoT project was created. Tsvetan gave a talk about the project entitled “Designing EUR 20 Open Source Hardware running Free/Libre Open Source Software IoT home server” at FOSDEM 2026. We now have more details, so let’s dive into it.
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Open Hardware/Modding
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C4ISRNET ☛ US Marine designs Corps’ first NDAA-compliant 3D-printed drone
Further, HANX is NDAA compliant, meaning it’s not assembled from unapproved parts from foreign manufacturers that could contain security vulnerabilities. Previous Marine drones assembled using 3D printing were not subject to the same NDAA security requirements that exist today. The HANX drone is the first of its type to be approved by both NAVAIR and meet current NDAA requirements.
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Jeff Geerling ☛ The first good Raspberry Pi Laptop
They originally launched the laptop via Kickstarter, and have been shipping the laptop to backers as of early 2026.
I just received my Argon ONE UP a couple weeks ago, and I bought the Shell version, since I already had a spare CM5 and an NVMe SSD.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ Axera AX8850 edge platform arrives in a pyramid-style design
Both systems are based on the Axera AX8850 SoC, which integrates an octa-core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU running at up to 1.7 GHz alongside a 24 TOPS INT8 NPU.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ Maca 2 enables high-power wireless connectivity for UAV and robotic systems
The system is built on Qualcomm’s QCS405 system-on-chip, featuring a 650 MHz 24Kc MIPS processor paired with 128 MB of RAM and 32 MB of onboard flash.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Adrian Roselli ☛ Honoring Mobile OS Text Size
If your users scale the text size in Android or iDeviceOS, that doesn’t always affect the size of text on a web page. It’s a function of browser and authored code, as opposed to a standardized approach. That may be changing.
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