Hardware Devices and Open Hardware, Some Linux Focus

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 16, 2026

• Devices/Embedded

  • The Atlantic ☛ Invasion of the Self-Replicating AI-Malware Botnet

    Your count is almost certainly wrong. I’ve got no fewer than 170 computers in my house. That’s because my home, like nearly everyone’s, is now chock-full of devices that a reasonable person might not even know are computers. Mine include speakers and thermostats, wall switches and electric plugs, door locks and cameras, printers and televisions, ceiling fans and window blinds. Robot vacuums, lawnmowers, and pool cleaners also log on. So do some refrigerators, toasters, and washing machines. And that’s just a sample. Together, this family of supposedly smart gadgets is sometimes referred to as the “internet of things,” or IoT. If you’ve got a thing that you interact with via an app, then it’s almost certainly online and chattering in the background.

  • Clever Blog Title ☛ What Else I Self Host

    I run Wireguard and OpenVPN on my router. These are the only two services I’m willing to expose to the public Internet. Why both? Though I prefer Wireguard (configuration is simpler, client is lightweight), my mobile data provider throttles or otherwise disrupts my UDP Wireguard traffic. Wireguard works perfectly when I’m connecting from my laptop at a friend or relative’s house, but it won’t work when connecting from my phone. In contrast, OpenVPN using TCP works fine over mobile data.

    My router is a GL.iNet Flint 2 (MT-6000). I chose it because it ships with OpenWRT and was recommended as a modern router for those of us who remember the good old days of flashing DD-WRT (or even Tomato on the Linksys WRT54G. My ISP’s router was predictably garbage, and after replacing it with the MT-6000 I no longer had intermittent Internet outages, which previously seemed to happen every few months.

    I don’t use the Wi-Fi capabilities of the MT-6000. I already had a three unit Wi-Fi mesh network, which I continue to use in bridge mode (and have added a fourth unit - thick masonry walls really attenuate signals).

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Arduino ☛ Bring USB-connected Hey Hi (AI) vision to your projects with the new Arduino® USB Camera

    The Arduino ecosystem is expanding with a new USB-connected accessory designed to help simplify edge Hey Hi (AI) and computer vision: meet our first official, standalone Arduino USB Camera! And if you are thinking “Well, it’s just a camera” – think again.

  • CNX Software ☛ HPMicro HPM5100 RISC-V MCU integrates four 16-bit ADCs, four op-amps for analog sensing and motor control

    HPMicro has introduced the HPM5100 series, a family of 32-bit RISC-V mixed-signal MCUs, starting with the HPM5151 parts. It features a 400 MHz RISC-V processor, 416 KB SRAM, 1 MB flash, four 16-bit ADCs, four operational amplifiers, and four analog comparators. It also includes a high-speed USB 2.0 OTG interface with an integrated PHY, CAN FD, multiple UART/SPI/I2C interfaces, and 32 PWM channels for motor control. The chip supports hardware floating-point operations and DSP instructions, while the integrated analog peripherals reduce the need for external ADCs and signal-conditioning circuits.

  • CNX Software ☛ W1700K SDR turns a Wi-Fi 7 router into a 320 MSps software-defined radio receiver

    Just a few days ago, we wrote about the ESP-SDR project, which turned an ESP32 into an SDR receiver (and now SDR transmitter), but the data was streamed over UART, which couldn’t keep up with the sample rate. Now, developer h0m3us3r has released w1700k-sdr, also an open-source project that turns a Gemtek W1700K Wi-Fi 7 router into a wideband SDR receiver. The project uses the router’s built-in MediaTek MT7996 radio to capture raw 14-bit I/Q samples at up to 320 MSps across the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands.

  • Arduino ☛ Your Arduino Nano Matter board now speaks Zigbee

    Plug that board into the machine running Home Assistant (a Raspberry Pi works well), add it in ZHA as the Zigbee radio, and build the lights, switches and sensors with your other boards. Every radio in the network is then an Arduino-programmable board. To turn the coordinator back into a device, run Tools › Burn Bootloader with Tools › Programmer set to OpenOCD (this erases the coordinator firmware and its network), then upload a Zigbee sketch.

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ ESP32 Bit Pirate 1.8 Adds Experimental SDR and Browser-Based Firmware Analysis

    ESP32 Bit Pirate has reached version 1.8, adding experimental software-defined radio (SDR) functionality using the ESP32-S3’s internal Wi-Fi radio. The update also introduces browser-based firmware extraction tools, improved protocol debugging, expanded board compatibility, and updated Zigbee capabilities for ESP32-C5 and ESP32-C6 devices.

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ Barebones Mini PC from Shuttle Houses Intel N150 and Supports Three Storage Drives

    The XPC nano NC50N by Shuttle is an upcoming barebone mini PC based on Intel’s N150 processor. The system supports up to 16GB of DDR5 memory, dual M.2 NVMe SSDs, and 2.5GbE networking, targeting digital signage, point-of-sale terminals, office environments, and multimedia applications.