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Setting up Home Assistant on your own hardware has never been easier. With Armbian, we provide a preloaded Home Assistant supervised installation on a clean Debian base, ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience. Whether you need a smart home hub or a reliable Linux server, this setup offers the best of both worlds. Why Choose Armbian for Home Assistant? Preinstalled Home Assistant – No complicated setup, just boot and start using it. Clean Debian Base – Our images are debootstrapped and cleanly assembled, ensuring a minimal and optimized system. Armbian-Maintained Kernels – Improved, optimized, and regularly updated for better performance and s…

Vantron has introduced the VT-SBC-SMARC-IMX952, an 82 × 50 mm SMARC 2.1 system-on-module (SoM) built around NXP’s i.MX 952 processor with two or four Arm Cortex-A55 cores, a Mali-G310 GPU, and a 2 TOPS eIQ Neutron NPU. The module is designed for industrial HMIs, edge AI vision, factory automation, in-cabin sensing, and other embedded applications. The module comes with 8GB LPDDR4x memory, 64GB eMMC storage, two Ethernet interfaces (GbE + 2.5 GbE) with TSN support, and an optional Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module. It exposes all I/Os through a standard 314-pin MXM 3.0 connector VT-SBC-SMARC-IMX952 specifications: SoC – NXP i.MX 952 CPU Dual- or quad-core Arm Corte…

Tektronix is better known for its high-end and pricey oscilloscopes, but has now introduced the 1 Series DPO, a line of low-cost digital phosphor oscilloscopes starting at just $450, with optional AI-assisted control through the new Tek Intelligence connector. These oscilloscopes are designed for electronics testing, embedded development, education, and everyday circuit debugging. The 1 Series DPOs feature up to four analog channels, 50 MHz to 200 MHz bandwidth, 12-bit vertical resolution, and up to 1.25 GS/s sampling rate. They also integrate a 7-inch touchscreen and 10 Mpoints of memory per channel, support I2C, SPI, and UART protocol decoding, and implement built-in wa…

Designed by CoolMaker Lab in China, the ESP32 4-channel PWM fan controller is an open-source, Home Assistant-compatible board for managing cooling in server racks, NAS systems, network cabinets, and other DIY enclosures. It can independently control up to four 4-pin PWM fans, supporting PWM-based speed adjustment, tachometer-based RPM monitoring, and individual fan power switching. The controller supports up to four external DS18B20 temperature sensors for automatic fan speed adjustment, along with a web interface, an HTTP REST API, and Bluetooth proxy functionality. The latest v2.0 hardware and firmware also support optional LD2402G 24GHz mmWave radar for presence-based …

VZMORE sent us a review sample of the iX9 Max mini PC powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H 16-core/22-thread Meteor Lake processor clocked at up to 5.1 GHz, paired with 24 GB of LPDDR5-5600 memory and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. It supports up to four simultaneous displays via HDMI 2.0 and USB4 ports, offers six USB Type-A ports, two 40 Gbps USB4 ports, and two 2.5 GbE ports, as well as Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity. In this article, we will list the specifications, go through an unboxing and a teardown to check out the hardware, and boot the system to the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro operating system. A more detailed review with feature testing and benchmarks on …

HIYD is a compact and thin (2.7mm) health and fitness tracker that attaches to the back of a regular wristwatch and looks very similar to the Azume One, which we wrote about last month. Developed by San Jose-based HIYD, the device adds heart rate, sleep, recovery, and activity tracking to traditional watches using a removable microsuction mechanism. It features optical sensors for heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring, along with an accelerometer and skin temperature sensor. The device connects to Android and iOS smartphones over Bluetooth and supports sleep tracking, daily readiness scores, and camera-based nutrition logging. Batte…

WeAct Studio Logic Analyzer V2 is a low-cost, small WCH CH32H417 board designed to be used as a 16-channel USB 3.0 logic analyzer with up to 200 MHz bandwidth. The company says the board runs three different “apps”: logic analyzer, USB-serial + DAP, or custom firmware developed by the user, all located at different addresses on the flash and selected by simply pressing the button on the board. WeAct Logic Analyzer V2 board specifications: MCU – WCH CH32H417 CPU cores QingKe RISC-V5F up to 400 MHz QingKe RISC-V3F up to 144 MHz GPU – Graphics Processing Hardware Accelerator GPHA Memory – 896KB SRAM Storage – 960KB flash; 304 KB slot for “user app”/custom firmware (slot 2 @ …

Lumissil Microsystems IS31CS9202 and IS32CS9202 are 50 MHz Cortex-M0+ microcontrollers for industrial, consumer, and automotive applications with a serial video bus (SVB), a LumiBus LED controller, and a capacitive touch-key controller. Both chips come with 16KB RAM, 256KB flash, a CAN FD controller, SPI master/slave, I2C master/slave, two enhanced UART interfaces, a quadrature encoder, a 14-bit sigma-delta ADC, a 12-bit SAR ADC, an 8-bit DAC, up to 42 GPIO pins, and more. The only differences are that the IS32CS9202 is designed for automotive applications and benefits from a wider -40°C to 125°C temperature range and AEC-Q100 and ASIL-B qualifications. Lumissil IS31CS920…

MikroTik KNOT Gateway HL9 is an IP66-rated outdoor IoT gateway that combines 915 MHz Wi-Fi HaLow (802.11ah), Bluetooth 5.1, Wi-Fi 6, LTE Cat 1 bis, Gigabit Ethernet, and GNSS. The gateway supports asset tracking, remote sensor monitoring, industrial IoT, and agricultural applications. Built around a dual-core Qualcomm IPQ-5010 ARM64 processor, it features 256MB RAM and 128MB NAND flash. It relies on a Morse Micro MM6108 Wi-Fi HaLow SoC for sub-GHz connectivity, with Gigabit Ethernet, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi 6, and LTE Cat 1 bis cellular for backhaul. MikroTik KNOT Gateway HL9 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm IPQ-5010 dual-core 64-bit Arm processor @ 800 MHz Memory – 256MB RAM Storage…

Arduino Nano XL Link is an evolution of the popular Arduino Nano board, with the same dimensions, but featuring a more powerful Microchip PIC32CK Arm Cortex-M33 running at 120 MHz with 2 MB of flash and 512 kB of RAM. It also adds CAN FD, RS485, and 10/100 Mbps Ethernet field bus transceivers for industrial, home, and building automation applications such as industrial networks, motor drives, building automation buses, smart sensors, and touch panels. The company also unveiled the Nano XL Link Connector Carrier to go along with the new board. Arduino Nano XL Link Arduino Nano XL Link (ABX00182) specifications: MCU – Microchip PIC32CK2051SG01144 CPU – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 120…

Renesas RZ/T2N industrial MPU supports up to four-axis motor control and includes PWM timers, encoder interfaces, and trigonometric accelerators. It’s designed for industrial robots, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), motion controllers, and multi-axis servo drives. The MPU features up to two 1.2 GHz Arm Cortex-A55 cores for application processing and two 800 MHz Cortex-R52 cores for real-time control. It also integrates a three-port Gigabit Ethernet switch with TSN support and industrial Ethernet protocols such as EtherCAT, PROFINET RT/IRT, and EtherNet/IP. This feature set allows real-time motor control, industrial networking, and Linux applications to run on a sing…

AAElectronics’ LocalDot is an open-source replacement mainboard that converts a 3rd-generation Amazon Echo Dot into a local voice assistant compatible with Home Assistant. The board replaces one of the two original PCBs while reusing the existing microphones, speaker, buttons, LEDs, and enclosure, so the device works without relying on Amazon’s cloud services. The board combines an ESP32-S3 for WiFi connectivity and device control with an ESP32-P4 for audio processing. It supports the original four-microphone array with beamforming, on-device wake-word detection, and local voice commands through Home Assistant. Installation requires no soldering or enclosure modifications…

Andrii Shylenko’s LabWired is an MIT-licensed MCU firmware simulation core that runs compiled firmware against modeled CPUs and peripherals, captures UART and bus output, register state, and supports repeatable checks in CI. The simulator works on Arm Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M4, Cortex-M7, Cortex-M33 cores, RISC-V architecutre, and Xtensa LX6 and LX7 (some ESP32 parts). The main benefit of the project is speeding up firmware testing since doing some on real boards is slow. The hardware must be ready, then the firmware must be flashed to the board each time you want to test it, and if something breaks, developers get a dark LED and no trace. If a firmware project nee…

It’s now possible to run KiCad 10 directly in a web browser or as an Android app thanks to two separate open-source projects, unaffiliated with the official KiCad project. Let’s have a look at both. Ziro Designer/ZiroEDA – KiCad 10 in your web browser Akshay Rukade (ZiroEDA), an engineering student in India, ported KiCad 10.0.6 to the browser through the Ziro Designer/ZiroEDA Designer project. It’s a TypeScript translation of KiCad’s C++, kept file-for-file against the KiCad implementation, so the real schematic editor, PCB editor, interactive router, and ERC/DRC run in a browser tab and read and write normal KiCad projects. That means you can open local KiCad projects or…

The STM32G5 series is a family of 280 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 mixed-signal MCUs designed for industrial power supplies, photovoltaic inverters, EV chargers, robotics, and motor control systems. It doubles the performance of the older STM32G4 series unveiled in 2021. The new MCU family features up to 512KB flash, 112KB SRAM with ECC, a 111 ps high-resolution timer (HRTIM) with up to 12 PWM outputs on some variants, and 12-bit ADCs supporting up to 5 MSPS. Other features include position encoder interfaces, a 16-element programmable logic array, CORDIC and FMAC mathematical accelerators, and security features such as Arm TrustZone, secure boot, and post-quantum cryptography supp…

This cycle is defined by the launch of the armbian/external packaging pipeline, broad kernel and U-Boot version bumps across platforms, and substantial desktop and repository infrastructure work. The new armbian/external repository establishes a dedicated build and mirror pipeline for third-party software, with tooling for dependency checks, parallel sync, incremental uploads, and a package site published at external.armbian.com. Initial payloads include charsiu for the RK3576 NPU, developer tools such as claude-code, codex, grok-cli, Zed, and a GitHub CLI build for riscv64, alongside a full Armbian Hyprland shell derived from the Omarchy port with companion packages for …

Seeed Studio XIAO STM32C5 is the company’s first XIAO development board based on an STMicroelectronics MCU, namely a 144 MHz STM32C5A3CG Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller. It features two CAN FD controllers and a 6-axis IMU with programmable heating for robotics, industrial control, and motion-sensing applications. The board also includes 16MB of external flash, a 48 MHz external crystal, a USB-C port, and battery charging circuitry. One CAN FD channel is connected to an onboard transceiver, while the second requires an external transceiver. The integrated IMU heater allows firmware to control sensor temperature and reduce measurement drift from temperature changes. XIAO STM…

SparkFun introduced two new development boards called IoT RedBoard, both based on the ESP32-P4 v3.x (ESP32-P4X) and compatible with the Arduino UNO R3 form factor. The main difference is that one features an ESP32-C5 for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 LE, Zigbee, and Thread connectivity, while the PoE version includes 10/100 Mbps Ethernet and Power over Ethernet (PoE) support. They also include MIPI CSI/DSI camera and display connectors, two USB-C ports, a microSD card slot, Qwiic expansion, Arduino R3-compatible headers, and LiPo battery charging and monitoring. These features make it suitable for HMI, edge computing, and IoT applications. SparkFun IoT RedBoard ESP32-P4 specificat…

M5Stack’s Core Matrix is an ESP32-C61-based IoT controller with a 16×16 white LED matrix for displaying icons, animations, device status, and notifications. It supports 2.4 GHz WiFi 6 connectivity and is designed for IoT applications, sensor data monitoring, and interactive displays. It also includes a 6-axis BMI270 IMU, a microSD card slot, a passive buzzer, three user buttons, a power button, and a USB-C port. The board supports external modules and sensors through M5-Bus and Grove interfaces, with battery-power management circuitry that lets it run on either USB power or an external battery. M5Stack Core Matrix specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-C61HR8 CPU –…

Back in May, we wrote about the Procolored X One 3-in-1 laser engraver with UV and UV-DTF color printing, and the company contacted us a few months later for a review. But instead of having us review the laser engraver, they proposed that we test their K13 Lite DTF printer “developed for small businesses and creators producing customized apparel and merchandise”. Basically, a T-shirt printer using DTF (Direct-to-Film) technology. I wasn’t so sure at first, since T-shirt and garment printing isn’t exactly one of the primary topics we cover here at CNX Software! But I eventually decided to go ahead, since it might be interesting to understand the setup process, workflow, so…

Waveshare ESP32-S31-Zero is a small ESP32-S31 development board that follows the form factor of the earlier Waveshare “Zero” boards, such as the ESP32-C6-Zero-B, RA4M1-Zero, and ESP32-S3-Zero, among others. The new tiny board still features a USB-C port for power and programming, as well as eighteen through and castellated holes for GPIO and power signals, but it boasts a more powerful ESP32-S31 dual-core RISC-V MCU clocked at up to 320 MHz, featuring 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, and 802.15.4 connectivity, as well as up to 32MB on-chip PSRAM and a 16MB or 32MB SPI flash chip. Since the ESP32-S31 has quite a few extra I/Os, Waveshare also added a 40-pin high-density con…

STMicroelectronics has introduced the STM32H7P4 and STM32H7P5, two 520 MHz Arm Cortex-M7 MCUs part of STM32H7P family designed for digital power, motor control, industrial sensing, and edge AI applications. Both feature a Hardware Signal Processor (HSP) for accelerating mathematical and signal-processing operations, while the STM32H7P5 also includes an 85 GOPS Neural-ART NPU for Edge AI inference/TinyML. The MCUs feature up to 2MB dual-bank flash, 736KB SRAM, two high-resolution timers with up to 24 PWM outputs, three advanced motor-control timers, and four 12-bit ADCs. Other features include CORDIC and FMAC mathematical accelerators, three CAN FD interfaces, USB OTG Full…

We’ve been sent a GEEKOM A5 2027 Edition mini PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8-core/16-thread CPU for review. The mini PC supports up to 64GB dual-channel DDR5-5600MHz memory, can drive up to four independent displays via HDMI 2.0 and USB-C ports, includes three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, one USB 2.0 port, a full-size SD card reader, a 2.5GbE port, and Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity. The model sent for review ships with 16GB DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM and a 512GB M.2 SSD pre-loaded with an activated Windows 11 Pro operating system. In the first part of the review, we’ll list the specifications, perform an unboxing and teardown t…

AAEON claims the PICO-PTH4 is the world’s first 2.5-inch Pico-ITX board powered by an Intel Panther Lake processor, such as the Core Ultra 5 325, Core Ultra 7 355, and Core Ultra X7 358H, delivering up to 180 TOPS of AI performance in a 100mm x 72mm form factor. The single board computer ships with up to 32GB of LPDDR5X, supports M.2 M-Key/E-Key and PCIe x4 FPC expansion, and offers dual 2.5GbE, HDMI 2.1 video output, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and internal connectors for USB 2.0, front panel, RS-232/422/485, GPIO, and SMBus/I2C. AAEON PICO-PTH4 specifications: Panther Lake SoC (one or the other) Intel Core Ultra 5 325 CPU – Octa-core (4P+4LPE) CPU up to 4.5 GHz with 12MB S…

Olimex UEXT-CH390 is a small open-source hardware module that adds 10/100 Mbps wired Ethernet connectivity to microcontroller boards through an SPI interface. It is designed for Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico 2 boards, as well as ESP32-S3, C3, C5, C6, and other microcontrollers without built-in Ethernet connectivity. The module is based on the WCH CH390 Ethernet controller and features an RJ45 connector, a standard UEXT connector, and a smaller 1.0mm-pitch pUEXT connector. It measures 50 x 21 mm and is supported in the Arduino IDE and ESPHome firmware, making it suitable for wired IoT sensors, Home Assistant devices, and other applications where WiFi is unreliable or unwanted…

Next week we'll be at electronica in Munich! In partnership with Renesas, Collabora will showcase real-time, low-latency ML video analytics on Renesas RZ/G2L and RZ/V2H platforms, using GStreamer for integrated video processing and on-device AI inference. View the full article

NXP MCX W70 and KW43 wireless MCU families support Bluetooth 6.x Channel Sounding for secure distance measurement in industrial IoT and automotive applications. The MCX W70 supports Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, Thread, and Matter for Smart Home and industrial devices, while the KW43 is designed for automotive applications such as digital keys and secure vehicle access. Both families feature a 96 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 application core, a separate Cortex-M33 core for wireless connectivity, up to 1.5MB flash, 256KB SRAM, a dedicated Localization Compute Engine (LCE), and NXP’s EdgeLock security features. Bluetooth Channel Sounding support combines phase-based ranging (PBR) and round-t…

Gil Tal has developed the P4 Launcher, an open-source application platform designed to bring a PC-like experience to ESP32-P4 boards with an attached touchscreen display. The launcher boots directly into its interface, while applications (.papp files) are stored on a microSD card and loaded into PSRAM when launched. You can add, remove, and run applications without reflashing the firmware or rebooting the device by simply copying files to the microSD card.Gil says 21 PAPP (PSRAM APP) applications are available now, mostly emulators and games, including Neo Geo and Atari 2600 emulators, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and OpenTyrian, plus Clock and Files. Like ESPBrookesia, the…

After checking out the ACEMAGIC Kron Mini K5’s hardware with an unboxing and a teardown in the first part of the review, we tested the entry-level Intel Core 3 304 mini PC on Windows 11, and we’ve now taken the time to test Linux on the low-cost mini PC with Ubuntu 26.04. In this article, we’ll report our experience installing Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS, checking system information, running benchmarks, evaluating storage and networking (2.5GbE and WiFi 6) performance, running a stress test to monitor thermal throttling, and measuring fan noise and power consumption of the mini PC. Installing Ubuntu 26.04.1 For this test, we installed Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS alongside Windows 11. We st…

Altera has introduced the Agilex 27 FPGA and SoC family designed for AI infrastructure, high-speed networking, 6G and satellite communications, and aerospace and defense applications. The family includes 14 device models, each available as either an FPGA-only device or an FPGA SoC with integrated Arm processors The new devices rely on Altera’s third-generation HyperFlex architecture, which the company claims delivers 1.8 times the performance per Watt compared to the previous-generation Agilex 7 FPGAs. Other features include up to 17.6 million logic elements, second-generation AI Tensor DSP blocks, an Arm Cortex-A720/A520 processor subsystem in the SoC FPGA variants, 256 …

The Armbian 26.11 release cycle is in its final stretch. November is for stabilizing: fixing regressions, building release images, and testing on as much supported hardware as we can. Since Armbian 26.08, hundreds of contributions have improved the build framework, kernel support, installation tools, hardware compatibility and release automation. Now it’s time to bring it all together and get Armbian 26.11 ready to ship. What’s coming in this releaseDebian Trixie is now the build base. It’s the official build host and the default Docker image. Ubuntu Noble has been removed from release targets, and every image format is now signed. U-Boot 2026.10 is in place on most platf…

Today, I’m going to review the LattePanda Mu Ultra, a compact x86 compute module designed for on-device AI applications. It comes in two versions, powered by either an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V or a Core Ultra 7 256V processor. Both models feature 16 GB of high-speed LPDDR5X memory running at 8533 MT/s, with the higher-end model delivering up to 115 TOPS of combined AI computing power. In this review, I installed Ubuntu 26.04 and benchmarked the LattePanda Mu Ultra using various tools, including sbc-bench, Geekbench 7, and Geekbench AI. I also tested its CPU, GPU, and NPU performance with llama.cpp and YOLO26 to evaluate its capabilities for AI applications. Finally, I crea…

Wireless Tag WT99P461-S1 is an ESP32-P4X and ESP32-C61 board based on the same WT01P461-S1 module as found on the ESP32P4C61-TINY board introduced last June. The main differences are that the WT99P461-S1 is a full-featured development board, adding features such as Fast Ethernet, RS-485, CAN bus, an on-board microphone, and a speaker connector. It still comes with a microSD card slot, MIPI DSI/CSI connectors, and other features, making it suitable for industrial HMIs, gateways, and control applications. WT99P461-S1 specifications: Wireless Module – Wireless-Tag WT01P461-S1 (25 x 25mm) Microcontroller – ESP32-P4X (ESP32-P4 v3.2) MCU Dual-core RISC-V microcontroller @ 360/4…

ZOTAC has introduced the ZBOX CI471 nano, a fanless mini PC powered by an Intel Core 7 350 hexa-core Wildcat Lake processor with integrated Xe3 graphics and a 17 TOPS NPU. The company has also introduced two lower-end models, the ZBOX CI451 nano with a Core 5 320 processor and the ZBOX CI431 nano with a Core 3 304 processor. All three mini PCs use passive cooling and share the same 204 × 129 × 68 mm enclosure. They support up to 64GB DDR5 memory, M.2 NVMe SSD storage, and three 4K displays. Other features include dual Thunderbolt 4, 2.5GbE networking, and WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity. The systems are offered as barebones, meaning users must install their…

You might assume that a Google-certified Android TV box will both work better and guarantee no malware. However, you’d be wrong, at least for the latter. Google has just published a new Threat Intelligence report entitled “Shutting the Door on the XCPE Botnet”, where they found that 1.3 million TV boxes were infected by the XCPE backdoor, enrolling them into a botnet used for financial gains. Google assesses with high confidence that the malware was intentionally developed, deployed, and operated by Videostrong Technology, a TV box manufacturer, which we frequently covered in the past when Android TV boxes were still somewhat a novelty and at times usable as an alternativ…

Collabora authored 111 patches for Linux 7.3, spanning DRM core, Rust, MediaTek, Rockchip, and more. Highlights include a new color format property, per-connector hotplug events, sparse mappings in Panthor, and continued progress on Tyr. View the full article

Nordic Semi has just announced the nRF71 Series of ultra-low-power SoCs with ultra-low-power Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), and Thread connectivity, as well as an Axon NPU for edge AI workloads. The company claims the new chips, starting with the dual-band nRF7120 and tri-band nRF7120E, deliver up to 20 times lower standby power usage than current-generation nRF70 Series Wi-Fi products. This should allow nRF71 devices to run for years on battery, whether they use BLE, Thread, or Wi-Fi, for Smart Home, wearables, and industrial IoT applications. Nordic Semi nRF7120/nRF7120E specifications: MCU cores Arm Cortex-M33 @ up to 256 MHz RISC-V coprocessor @ up to 256 MHz wit…

Seeed Studio has launched two Nordic nRF52840-based Bluetooth LE e-paper kits preloaded with the OpenDisplay open-source firmware for e-paper displays and supporting Home Assistant integration. The OpenDisplay 4.26″ Mono features a 4.26-inch monochrome/grayscale display with 800×480 resolution and partial refresh support, while the OpenDisplay 7.3″ Color Kit is equipped with a 7.3-inch Spectra 6 color e-paper with the same resolution. Both are powered by a 2,000 mAh battery and feature a few buttons for control and reset. Seeed Studio OpenDisplay kits specifications: MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52840 CPU – Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ up to 64 MHz Memory – 256 KB SRAM Storag…

Raspberry Pi has announced yet another price increase, this time for most models with 16GB of RAM. The Raspberry Pi 5 16GB now sells for $385, an $80 increase compared to the last price hike in April, and the Raspberry Pi CM5 system-on-module gets a $40 increase, starting at $375 for the Lite model without wireless. The “good news” is that the Raspberry Pi 500+ mechanical keyboard PC stays at the same price, starting at $410. I suppose they can afford it on that model, because it’s already richly priced and the demand must be lower than for single board computers and compute modules. Here’s the updated price list for the Compute Module 5 16GB variants. Interestingly, the …

This week's work centers on a large-scale kernel CVE backporting program for the 6.1 and 6.12 LTS series, a CPU tuning and frequency framework overhaul, and sustained board, SoC, and vendor-kernel maintenance across the Rockchip, MediaTek, and Allwinner ecosystems. The CVE effort dominates activity, with more than one hundred reviewed backport sets landing across 6.1 and 6.12 covering networking (mac80211, cfg80211, Bluetooth, netfilter, mlx5, stmmac), filesystems (btrfs, f2fs, ext4, smb client, ksmbd), virtualization (KVM SVM/SEV, vhost, virtio), graphics (amdgpu, i915, vc4, msm), and core subsystems (bpf, mm, io_uring). Supporting this is a new fasttrack CI pipeline wit…

An AI-assisted side project turned a missing KDE tablet feature into a working handwriting mode, combining open source recognition, stylus input, and human-led debugging across an unfamiliar software stack. View the full article

Banana Pi BPI-M8 is a credit card-sized SBC powered by an Allwinner A733 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC that aims to offer an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 5. The BPI-M8 comes with 4GB LPDDR5, HDMI and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera interfaces, Gigabit Ethernet, on-board WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, four USB ports, a 16-pin FFC PCIe connector, and the usual 40-pin GPIO header. Two variants are offered: the BPI-M8A with 64GB eMMC flash, and the BPI-M8B with 16MB SPI NOR flash. Banana Pi BPI-M8 specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.80 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU…

TOOCAA NOVA is a desktop laser cutter and engraver that combines creative functions in a compact body. It comes with a translucent orange cover and an A4 work area of 297 × 210 mm, suitable for making signs, decorations, personalized gifts, and DIY projects. The reviewed model uses a 20W diode laser module for cutting and engraving, and supports materials such as wood, paper, leather, and coated aluminum. The machine’s highlight is its 5MP AI camera, which displays an image of the material inside the machine in the software, making it easier to align designs with the desired position. It also has an autofocus system that automatically adjusts focus distance and a material…

A few weeks ago, we noted that the Brainchip AKD1500 M.2 module could work with the Raspberry Pi 5 using a compatible M.2 HAT+ expansion card to evaluate the solution or develop applications using the company’s low-power, low-latency neuromorphic AI technology. To make things even easier, they’ve now introduced the AKD1500 Raspberry Pi 5 Dev Kit that packs a Raspberry Pi 5 8GB, an official M.2 HAT+, and an Akida AKD1500 M.2 B+M-Key card into a metal case. Most ports from the Raspberry Pi 5 are exposed, namely the Gigabit Ethernet port, the four USB connectors, the two HDMI video outputs, and the USB-C port for power. The Raspberry Pi 5 power button and an LED on the M.2 …

BIOSTAR EdgeComp MS-U320 is a fanless industrial mini PC powered by an Intel Core 3 304 or Core 5 320 Wildcat Lake SoC with four COM ports, dual 2.5GbE, and 4G/5G cellular connectivity expansion. The mini PC supports up to 64GB DDR5, M.2 NVMe SSD storage, features 4K-capable HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 connectors, earphone and microphone jacks, and six USB ports. It supports a wide 9-24V DC input and can operate in the -20°C to +50°C temperature range for industrial automation, smart manufacturing, industrial IoT, smart retail, and smart infrastructure. BIOSTAR EdgeComp MS-U320 specifications: Wildcat Lake SoC Intel Core 3 304 5-core CPU – 1x P-cores @ 1.5/4.3 GHz (Turbo…

Waveshare UNO-Q-DSI-TOUCH-10.1A is a 10.1-inch touchscreen display designed for the Arduino UNO Q single board computer. The Arduino UNO Q exposes its MIPI DSI interface through the 60-pin JMEDIA and JMISC headers, and for all practical purposes, you normally need a board like the Arduino UNO Media Carrier to make use of it. The UNO-Q-DSI-TOUCH-10.1A display solves that by integrating the headers so users can simply insert the Arduino UNO Q into it without an additional adapter board or special wiring. Waveshare UNO-Q-DSI-TOUCH-10.1A specifications: Screen Size – 10.1-inch Panel type – IPS panel Native Resolution – 1280 x 800 Refresh Rate – 60 Hz Colors – 16.7 millions Vi…

Azume, a Munich-based startup, has designed the Azume One, a compact health tracker that attaches to the back of a regular wristwatch to track heart rate, sleep, stress, and daily activity without needing an additional smartwatch. The device measures 30mm in diameter, is 2.8mm thick, and weighs 5 grams. It features an optical PPG sensor and a motion sensor to track health and activity data, which it sends to an Android or iOS smartphone over Bluetooth 5.4. Other highlights include up to 48 hours of battery life, a removable nano-suction mounting system, and an included wristband for sleep tracking without wearing a watch. Azume One specifications: MCU / SoC – Not specifie…

Just last week we wrote about the GL.iNet Mango 2 (GL-MG1300), a low-cost mini travel router built around a MediaTek MT7621A dual-core MIPS SoC. Now, Banana Pi has introduced another MIPS router: the BPI-RT2 router board built around a Realtek RTL8198D dual-core MIPS SoC. The BPI-RT2 ships with 256MB DDR3 RAM, 128MB SPI-NAND flash, four Gigabit Ethernet ports (one WAN and three LAN), and a USB 3.0 port. It also supports dual-band WiFi 6 with 2×2 MIMO on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The board measures 97 × 65mm and is designed for home networking, wireless access points, and small business routers. Banana Pi BPI-RT2 specifications: SoC – Realtek RTL8198D Dual-core MIP…

The LattePanda Sigma 2 is a compact single board server/computer powered by an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H Panther Lake-H processor with Intel Arc B390 graphics and a 50 TOPS NPU delivering up to 180 TOPS of combined performance for local AI workloads. The board features up to 64GB of LPDDR5X-8533 RAM, three M.2 M-Key slots, one M.2 E-Key slot, and an OCuLink port for storage, wireless, and accelerator expansion, as well as two Thunderbolt 4 ports, dual 10GbE, USB 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 2.0 ports, and HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1, and eDP 1.5 display interfaces. Key Specifications SoC – Intel Core Ultra X7 Processor 358H CPU – 16-core (4P + 8E + 4LPE) @ 1.9/1.5/1.5 GHz (base frequen…

BeagleBoard.org has introduced the BeagleConnect QuadESC, an open-source 4-channel BLDC motor controller/carrier board built around the BeagleConnect Torque SoM. The SoM features TI’s 200 MHz AM13E23019 Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller with a trigonometric math unit (TMU) and a TinyEngine neural-network accelerator for edge AI applications. The QuadESC carrier board supports four three-phase BLDC motor outputs, twelve current and twelve voltage sensing channels, four temperature sensors, and battery voltage monitoring. It also includes an eight-pin flight controller connector with DShot, telemetry, and current reporting signals, along with SWD debugging, a buzzer connector,…

Welcome to the latest Armbian newsletter! This development cycle brings a massive wave of progress across the entire ecosystem, packed with broad new board enablement, major platform maturation, and essential tooling upgrades. Highlights include: Extensive Board Enablement: Expanding support across multiple SoC families—including the EasePi R1, Pine64 Quartz64 Zero, ArmSoM CM7s IO board, Boardcon EM3588, Skysi X5 laptop, Banana Pi BPI-M4, Qualcomm Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 4, NVIDIA Jetson Nano, Altera Agilex 5 SoCDK, Banana Pi R3 Mini, Firefly AIBOX-K3, Radxa Rock 2A/2F, and Anbernic handhelds like the RG Rotate. Bootloader & Kernel Modernization: A sweeping refresh m…

We moved our Home Assistant to a bigger board, and nothing needed re-pairingOur house runs on Armbian, and it has for years. Its Home Assistant setup started on an Allwinner H5 NanoPi K1 Plus. In 2025, it moved to the Rockchip NanoPi R3S LTS as soon as that board came out. This month it moved again, to the NanoPi M6. It was a live install: a Z-Wave mesh, a Zigbee network, a pile of automations and years of history. We expected at least one evening of re-pairing sensors. It took about half an hour, and every device came back on its own. Before: NanoPi R3S LTS After: NanoPi M6 V2 SoC Rockchip RK3566 Rockchip RK…

We moved our Home Assistant to a bigger board, and nothing needed re-pairingOur house runs on Armbian, and it has for years. Its Home Assistant setup started on an Allwinner H5 NanoPi K1 Plus. In 2025, it moved to the Rockchip NanoPi R3S LTS as soon as that board came out. This month it moved again, to the NanoPi M6. It was a live install: a Z-Wave mesh, a Zigbee network, a pile of automations and years of history. We expected at least one evening of re-pairing sensors. It took about half an hour, and every device came back on its own. Before: NanoPi R3S LTS After: NanoPi M6 V2 SoC Rockchip RK3566 Rockchip RK…

The easiest way to get Armbian onto your board just got easier. In Armbian Imager 2.5, you set up a board by answering a few simple questions, and Imager double-checks your storage right before it writes. Settings now has a page of its own, and the app speaks Greek and Serbian too. Armbian Imager 2.5 in four minutes: the real app, from start to finish. Set up your board with a few answersA first-boot profile writes your network, user account, SSH keys, language and time zone onto the card, so the board is ready to use the moment it boots. In 2.5, New profile walks you through setup one question at a time: how the board connects, who logs in, which language and time zone t…

The easiest way to get Armbian onto your board just got easier. In Armbian Imager 2.5, you set up a board by answering a few simple questions, and Imager double-checks your storage right before it writes. Settings now has a page of its own, and the app speaks Greek and Serbian too. Armbian Imager 2.5 in four minutes: the real app, from start to finish. Set up your board with a few answersA first-boot profile writes your network, user account, SSH keys, language and time zone onto the card, so the board is ready to use the moment it boots. In 2.5, New profile walks you through setup one question at a time: how the board connects, who logs in, which language and time zone t…

LILYGO T-Display K230 is a handheld dev kit based on Canaan’s Kendryte K230 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor. The kit features a 4.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen and supports an optional detachable keyboard with battery and optional nRF9151 cellular and GNSS connectivity. The device also comes with 1GB LPDDR4 RAM, a 2MP camera, HDMI output, Ethernet, WiFi 4, and either an SX1262 or LR2021 LoRa transceiver. These features make this kit suitable for remote monitoring, wireless communication, and other embedded applications. LILYGO T-Display K230 Kit specifications: SoC – Kendryte K230 CPU 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 1.6GHz with RISC-V Vector Extension 1.0, FPU 64-bit RISC-V proce…

Picotronix is a modular oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and frequency meter from Sydney-based Thort Werx Pty Ltd, based on two Raspberry Pi Pico 2 units, more exactly a Pico 2 used as a signal processor and a Pico 2 W used to drive the display and for wireless connectivity. The solution is comprised of the Picotronix Main Module with an integrated LCD and three expansion ports, used to connect picoPods plug-in expansion modules to add high-speed ADCs, mixed-logic family logic state analysis, a waveform generator, analog conditioning, and more. Picotronix key features and specifications: Main Module Two-channel digital storage oscilloscope 8-channel logic analyzer, expandabl…

Synergy Logic SLM-RP4 industrial PLC is built around a Raspberry Pi 4 SBC and designed for industrial automation, machine control, data acquisition, and Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications. The DIN-rail mountable controller supports 24V DC input and an SPI-based backplane that connects up to eight Synergy Logic I/O modules, providing up to 128 I/O points. It also features Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, USB ports, two micro-HDMI outputs, and a fanless aluminum enclosure. The system runs Raspberry Pi OS with OpenPLC pre-installed for standard IEC 61131-3 logic programming. Synergy Logic SLM-RP4 specifications: SBC – Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (2GB RAM) Storage – 16GB m…

This cycle is defined by three themes: broad new board enablement, a coordinated U-Boot v2026.10 refresh across Rockchip and Allwinner platforms, and substantial Rockchip kernel, media, and wireless work. Board support expanded on multiple SoC families, including the EasePi R1 and Pine64 Quartz64 Zero on RK3568, the ArmSoM CM7s IO board and Boardcon EM3588 on RK3588, Forlinx OK3572-C, and the Skysi X5 laptop. The Banana Pi BPI-M4 (RTD1395) and Cubieboard 4 returned with full enablement including A80 cpufreq, thermal, HDMI, and audio. Qualcomm support advanced with the Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 4 on an SM8750 edge kernel bumped to 7.2.11, while the NVIDIA Jetson Nano joined t…

This cycle is defined by three themes: broad new board enablement, a coordinated U-Boot v2026.10 refresh across Rockchip and Allwinner platforms, and substantial Rockchip kernel, media, and wireless work. Board support expanded on multiple SoC families, including the EasePi R1 and Pine64 Quartz64 Zero on RK3568, the ArmSoM CM7s IO board and Boardcon EM3588 on RK3588, Forlinx OK3572-C, and the Skysi X5 laptop. The Banana Pi BPI-M4 (RTD1395) and Cubieboard 4 returned with full enablement including A80 cpufreq, thermal, HDMI, and audio. Qualcomm support advanced with the Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 4 on an SM8750 edge kernel bumped to 7.2.11, while the NVIDIA Jetson Nano joined t…

MYIR MYC-JR3576 is a SMARC 2.2 system-on-module (SoM) powered by a Rockchip RK3576/RK3576J octa-core Cortex-A72/A53 SoC with a 6 TOPS NPU designed for Edge AI applications. It features up to 8GB LPDDR5, up to 64GB eMMC flash, an optional WiFI 6E and Bluetooth 5.4 module, and exposes all I/Os through a 314-pin MXM connector as defined in the SMARC 2.2 standard. The company says it’s the socketed counterpart to its LGA-packaged MYC-LR3576 (43 x 45 mm) module introduced in 2024, so the same processor is now available in both solder-down and standard form factors from MYiR. MYC-JR3576 – Rockchip RK3576 SMARC 2.2 module MYIR MYC-JR3576 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3576 (c…

Kraid is now the default Panfrost compiler for Valhall and newer Mali GPUs, delivering major reductions in shader instructions, spilling, compile time, and memory use while providing a stronger foundation for future compiler optimization. View the full article

Adafruit has launched the Metro ESP32-P4 Hydra, an Arduino UNO-shaped development board with ESP32-P4, 16MB PSRAM, and 16MB NOR flash, and an ESP32-C6 for WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 LE, Thread, and Zigbee connectivity. Other features include Raspberry Pi-compatible MIPI DSI and CSI interfaces, a USB 2.0 High-Speed host port, a microSD card slot, and Arduino UNO expansion headers. The board also includes a STEMMA QT connector, LiPo battery charging, and multiple power input options, making it suitable for HMI, camera, and IoT applications. Adafruit Metro ESP32-P4 Hydra specifications: Microcontroller – Espressif Systems ESP32-P4 (v1 chipset) CPU Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V HP (High…

Renesas has introduced the RX74M and RX74N, two new 32-bit RX family MCUs built on a 22nm process with embedded MRAM. Both MCUs integrate a 600MHz RXv3e core and are designed for industrial automation, motor control, robotics, and energy management applications. The MCUs feature up to 1MB of code MRAM, 1.5MB SRAM, and 256KB of zero-wait-state local RAM for real-time processing. The RX74M adds an integrated EtherCAT slave controller, dual Gigabit Ethernet MACs with TSN support, and an Ethernet switch for industrial networking, while the RX74N offers a single Gigabit Ethernet interface for general industrial applications. Other features include CAN FD, USB 2.0, I3C, high-re…

Deki Engine is an open-source modular C++ engine with a Unity-style visual editor for embedded devices, currently optimized for ESP32 platforms such as LilyGO T-Deck Plus, T-Display S3 AMOLED, and soon Elecrow CrowPanel Advanced 7″ ESP32-P4. The editor is available for Windows and Linux with a compiler for the 2D graphics engine, and everything is released under an Apache 2.0 license on GitHub. The project also works on desktop through SDL3, which may be convenient during development. Some of the highlights of the Deki Engine project: Workflow Build scenes visually (sprites, text, particles, tilemaps, state machines, tweens) Pick a board in the editor’s Build panel Flash …

ZOTAC ZBOX PRO CM5-PICO is a compact fanless industrial mini PC built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) with up to 16 GB LPDDR4x memory, optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity. The mini PC measures 114.8 x 76 x 31.3 mm and features two 4K HDMI outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, and M.2 expansion for NVMe storage or AI accelerators, along with an internal 40-pin GPIO header, camera interfaces, and a wide 5V to 20V DC input for industrial automation, digital signage, and IoT gateway applications. All I/O ports are placed on a single side to simplify cable management and stacking. ZOTAC ZBOX PRO CM5-PICO specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module…

LILYGO T-Halow P4 is a compact M.2 development board that combines an ESP32-P4 MCU, an ESP32-C6 wireless co-processor, and a Taixin TX-AH WiFi HaLow module for long-range wireless connectivity. The board measures just 80 x 22mm (M.2 2280) and uses an M.2 B-key connector to expose GPIO pins and other interfaces for integration into custom carrier boards. It also supports MIPI CSI cameras and MIPI DSI displays, along with hardware H.264 video encoding at up to 1080p30, making it suitable for compact IoT gateways, remote cameras, and industrial monitoring applications. LILYGO T-Halow P4 specifications: SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-P4NRW32X CPU Dual-core RISC-V @ 400 MHz wi…

Shanghai-based RoboParty has introduced the RP1 (ROBOTO 01), an open-source humanoid robot designed for robotics research, embodied AI development, and motion-control experiments. The robot is available in two configurations: the standard RP1 with 24 active degrees of freedom (DoF) and the RP1 Pro with 30 DoF. The robot stands 1.35 meters (~4.43 feet) tall and is built around a Rockchip RK3588 processor, with the Pro model adding an Allwinner A733 processor and an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX development computing module. Other features include in-house ROMOMO joint actuators with up to 160 N·m peak torque, interchangeable head modules, optional dexterous hands, and a 10Ah batte…

GL.iNet Mango 2 (GL-MG1300) mini dual-band WiFi 5 travel router is built around the MediaTek MT7621A dual-core processor. It is designed to share hotel WiFi, wired Ethernet, or mobile internet connections with multiple devices. The router measures just 89 x 63 x 15mm and weighs 100 grams. It supports WiFi speeds of up to 400 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and 866 Mbps on the 5 GHz band, along with WireGuard VPN speeds of up to 184 Mbps and OpenVPN speeds of up to 95 Mbps with DCO. Other features include dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, USB 3.0, USB-C power, and others. GL.iNet Mango 2 (GL-MG1300) specifications: Processor – Mediatek MT7621A dual core MIPS 1004Kc processor @ 880Mhz…

Following our coverage of a 4.3-inch ESP32-S31 display development board, a Facebook reader pointed out the GUITION JC3636F118C-I-YR1 rotary encoder with a built-in 1.8-inch touchscreen display. It appears to be an update to an earlier ESP32-S3 model, now equipped with an ESP32-S31NRV16 WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and 802.15.4 SoC with 16MB of PSRAM. The rotary knob also includes 16MB SPI flash, a speaker, a microphone, and an optional rechargeable battery. GUITION JC3636F118C-I-YR1 specifications: SoC – ESP32-S31NRV16 CPU RISC-V HP (High-performance) RV32IMAFCP CPU @ 320 MHz with FPU, SIMD, etc. RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core Memory – 512 KB SRAM, 32 KB low-power SRAM, 16MB P…

Tyr has reached a major milestone by booting the Arm Mali-G610 GPU’s MCU using upstream Rust DRM memory-management abstractions, while helping shape the kernel infrastructure future Rust GPU drivers will rely on. View the full article

Espressif Systems ESP-Mosaico is an ESP32-S31 development platform with a 480 × 480 OLED touchscreen, haptic feedback, a built-in battery, USB Type-C connectivity, and expansion I/O. It’s specifically designed for AI <-> hardware integration and targets magnetic expansion toys, motion sensing, square touch display HMI, and edge voice/multimedia applications. ESP-Mosaico specifications: CoreBoard SoC – ESP32-S31NRV16 CPU RISC-V HP (High-performance) RV32IMAFCP CPU @ 320 MHz with FPU, SIMD, etc. RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core Memory – 512 KB SRAM, 32 KB low-power SRAM, 16MB PSRAM Wireless 2.4 GHz WiFi 6 (802.11ax) Bluetooth 5.4 with support for LE Audio, direction fin…

The Raytron SE5 1280 is a high-resolution uncooled infrared module designed for integration into OEM thermal imaging systems. Based on a 1280 × 1024 uncooled VOx infrared detector with a 12 μm pixel pitch, the module delivers more than 1.3 million infrared pixels in a compact form factor measuring no more than 29 × 29 × 15.7 mm and weighing less than 26 g. 1280 × 1024 VOx Detector for High-Resolution Thermal Imaging At the core of the SE5 1280 is a 1280 × 1024 uncooled VOx infrared detector with a 12 μm pixel pitch, operating in the 8–14 μm long-wave infrared (LWIR) band. With more than 1.3 million infrared pixels, the detector provides a substantially higher spatial reso…

Earlier this month, we saw how the humble ESP32-S3 could be turned into an SDR transmitter and receiver; then we saw developer h0m3us3r release the w1700k-sdr project, which turns a Gemtek W1700K Wi-Fi 7 router into a wideband SDR receiver. The LR2021-SDR open-source project by Samuel Reynolds (SAMS0N1TE) follows the same principle and turns the Semtech LR2021 LoRa transceiver into a software-defined radio (SDR) capable of receiving signals from 100 MHz to 2.74 GHz. Using an undocumented command in the chip’s ROM, this project exposes raw 16-bit I/Q samples, allowing software to decode P25 Phase 1 digital voice, POCSAG pager messages, and analog FM signals without an exte…

This week's work centers on expanded board support, Rockchip and Realtek platform maturation, and continued refinement of installation and BSP tooling. New hardware enablement spans several SoC families. Initial build support arrives for the Altera Agilex 5 SoCDK, Banana Pi R3 Mini, Firefly AIBOX-K3, and the Allwinner H5 PBS TV Stick, while a new realtek-rtd129x family brings mainline kernel and U-Boot to the Banana Pi W2. The MangoPi MQ Pro gains Debian GRUB EFI boot and a proper maintainer, and the Radxa CM5-IO transitions to mainline kernel and U-Boot. Supporting firmware updates include Tegra210 USB, GPU and VIC blobs, Amlogic VDEC firmware, Realtek rtl8261c, and Qual…

This week's work centers on expanded board support, Rockchip and Realtek platform maturation, and continued refinement of installation and BSP tooling. New hardware enablement spans several SoC families. Initial build support arrives for the Altera Agilex 5 SoCDK, Banana Pi R3 Mini, Firefly AIBOX-K3, and the Allwinner H5 PBS TV Stick, while a new realtek-rtd129x family brings mainline kernel and U-Boot to the Banana Pi W2. The MangoPi MQ Pro gains Debian GRUB EFI boot and a proper maintainer, and the Radxa CM5-IO transitions to mainline kernel and U-Boot. Supporting firmware updates include Tegra210 USB, GPU and VIC blobs, Amlogic VDEC firmware, Realtek rtl8261c, and Qual…

Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 7.3 on LKML last Sunday: It’s Sunday afternoon, and this week I somehow kept my wits together long enough to keep track of the day of the week, so the release isn’t randomly delayed. Will wonders never cease? Anyway, nothing very special seems to have happened this last week, so as expected the final 7.3 is out, and thus tomorrow the merge window for 7.4 opens. Except I’m on my annual family vacation, so instead of merging anything first thing in the morning, I’ll spend most of the day on a boat and under water. I’ll get back to merging in the afternoon, but I expect my schedule to be a bit unusual for a while. I hope I can st…

BIOSTAR BIWCL-PAT is a 3.5-inch industrial SBC built around the Intel Core Series 3 “Wildcat Lake” SoC family, ranging from the Core 3 304 to the Core 7 360. The board supports up to 64GB DDR5-6400 memory, three independent displays, and dual 2.5GbE networking. It also features three M.2 slots for NVMe storage, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, and 4G/5G cellular connectivity, along with USB 3.2 ports, four serial interfaces, and an 8-bit digital I/O header. The compact 148 x 102mm form factor makes it suitable for industrial automation, edge computing, AIoT, human-machine interfaces (HMI), and POS/kiosk applications. BIOSTAR BIWCL-PAT specifications: Wildcat Lake SoC (one or the other) I…

Axera AX8860P is a new 16-core Cortex-A55 SoC with up to 128 TOPS/256 TOPS (FP4) NPU, 256-bit LPDDR5/5X memory, and PCIe 5.0 connectivity, aiming to power desktop AI solutions competing with NVIDIA DGX Spark at a fraction of the cost. Dr. Qiu Xiaoxin, founder and CEO of Axera, unveiled the new AX8860/AX8860P processor a few days ago at the China International Industrial Fair, along with upcoming products from Sipeed and Radxa. Axera AX8860P key features and specifications: CPU – 16x Arm Cortex-A55 processor AI – Up to 256 TOPS VPU – 64-channel decode, 16-channel encode Memory – Up to 128GB 256-bit LPDDR5x with 273GB/s bandwidth Interconnect – PCIe 5.0 + AXLink (C2C) casca…

M5Stack has released the PaperDIY series, an updated version of its 2020 M5Paper ESP32 development kit, featuring an ESP32-S3 MCU and a 4.7-inch e-paper display with 16 levels of gray. It comes in two versions: the PaperDIY Complete Kit, which ships factory-assembled in a 3D-printed enclosure, and the PaperDIY Assembly Kit, which is designed to be integrated into custom projects. Both boards also include a microSD card slot for extended storage, a built-in 140mAh battery, and a custom M5PM1 low-power management chip. M5Stack PaperDIY specifications: Core module – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 SoC – ESP32-S3 CPU – Dual-core LX7 processor with up to 240MHz Memory…

Seeed Studio has introduced the XIAO IPS touch display series, a family of six compact development boards built around the XIAO ESP32-S3 Plus or XIAO nRF52840 Plus MCU, with 0.96-inch, 1.14-inch, and 1.47-inch IPS color displays. All six boards include a 6-axis IMU, a PDM digital microphone, user buttons, and LiPo battery support. The larger 1.47-inch version adds capacitive touch and a microSD card slot, whereas the 1.14-inch model includes a Grove I2C connector for connecting external sensors. The ESP32-S3 versions support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE connectivity, while the nRF52840 models focus on lower-power Bluetooth LE applications. The boards are designed for portable d…

After a successful campaign for Xerxes Pi back in 2025, Rapid Analysis has returned with a Xerxes Home Lab ecosystem that includes the Xerxes Pi 2026 and Xerxes Nano carrier board. The upgrade includes M.2 NVMe storage support on the bottom of the board, an I2S Qwiic connector for digital audio, and added debug and boot jumper pins for easier headless deployment. Designed for home labs, edge AI developers, and small businesses, the Xerxes Pi 2026 supports Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 and other CM modules, Gigabit Ethernet, optional PoE+, and CSI/HDMI expansion. The larger Xerxes Nano supports NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano and Turing RK1 modules, adding M.2 PCIe, OCuLink, and SPI/UART c…

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. The captured data is then streamed over a 10 GbE connection using the router’s Airoha AN7581 SoC to a Linux computer, where you can view the live spectrum and waterf…

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. HPMicro HPM5100 specifications: MCU core – Single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor…

Orange Pi O1 is a new single board computer (SBC) based on the somewhat older SOPHGO BM1688 octa-core Cortex-A53 SoC with a built-in 16 TOPS AI accelerator/TPU, and support for decoding up to sixteen 1080p30 video streams, or encoding ten. The board comes with 8GB or 16GB memory, supports M.2 NVMe, eMMC module, SPI flash, SATA III, or microSD card storage, and offers HDMI and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, dual GbE, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and optional 4G/5G cellular connectivity, as well as a few USB ports, audio interfaces, and a 26-pin GPIO header for expansion. Orange Pi O1 specifications: SoC – SOPHGO BM1688 CPU 8-core Arm Cortex-A53 pr…

Bitmerse Romu is a tiny (15.5 x 12 mm), almost minimal Raspberry Pi RP2354A USB board with a USB 2.0 interface on one side of the PCB, and the dual Cortex-M33/RISC-V MCU on the other side, connected to a few debugging/programming pads, buttons, and an RGB LED. It doesn’t come with any GPIO, and it’s mostly designed for USB applications such as a security key for passwordless login, a USB MIDI controller, a macro pad, or a custom HID device. You can plug it directly into a spare USB Type-A port of your computer/host without any cables, breadboard, or adapters required. Romu specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2354A CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone…

This week's development centers on expanded board support and vendor kernel work, mainline kernel progression to 7.3 with CI resilience improvements, and a substantial refresh of the Armbian Imager. New hardware enablement spans multiple SoC families, including the Boardcon SBC3568 (RK3568), ELTAY RM66 (RK3566) with vendor HDMI and power-domain workarounds, the Anbernic RG Rotate on the new Unisoc UMS512 family, and the NanoPi M6 V2. The NanoPi R6S, R6C, M6/M6V2, and NanoPC T6/T6-LTS have been unified under a single image with shared aliases, reducing duplication across the FriendlyELEC RK3588 lineup. On the vendor side, an initial rk35xx-vendor-next branch based on 6.12-…

This week's development centers on expanded board support and vendor kernel work, mainline kernel progression to 7.3 with CI resilience improvements, and a substantial refresh of the Armbian Imager. New hardware enablement spans multiple SoC families, including the Boardcon SBC3568 (RK3568), ELTAY RM66 (RK3566) with vendor HDMI and power-domain workarounds, the Anbernic RG Rotate on the new Unisoc UMS512 family, and the NanoPi M6 V2. The NanoPi R6S, R6C, M6/M6V2, and NanoPC T6/T6-LTS have been unified under a single image with shared aliases, reducing duplication across the FriendlyELEC RK3588 lineup. On the vendor side, an initial rk35xx-vendor-next branch based on 6.12-…

A look at the USB-PD, PHY, hotplug, and DRM changes involved in making USB-C DisplayPort Alternate Mode work on RK3588/RK3576, and where they stand on the way to mainline Linux. View the full article

This week's work centers on expanded board and SoC support, build and repository infrastructure modernization, and refinements to user-facing tooling and documentation. On the hardware side, mainline support arrived for the Radxa Rock 2A/2F and the Toradex Verdin iMX8M Mini, while the KickPi K2B V2.2 DDR3 gained a full board definition including a new Maxio MAE0621 PHY driver. The Allwinner sun60iw2 platform saw substantial advancement on the Orange Pi 4 Pro with GPU, desktop, and hardware video decode enablement, alongside kernel configuration refinements. The Amlogic C400-plus received U-Boot repacking and Mali-T820 stabilization, the Rockchip armhf edge kernel was bump…

This week's work centers on expanded board and SoC support, build and repository infrastructure modernization, and refinements to user-facing tooling and documentation. On the hardware side, mainline support arrived for the Radxa Rock 2A/2F and the Toradex Verdin iMX8M Mini, while the KickPi K2B V2.2 DDR3 gained a full board definition including a new Maxio MAE0621 PHY driver. The Allwinner sun60iw2 platform saw substantial advancement on the Orange Pi 4 Pro with GPU, desktop, and hardware video decode enablement, alongside kernel configuration refinements. The Amlogic C400-plus received U-Boot repacking and Mali-T820 stabilization, the Rockchip armhf edge kernel was bump…

Next week we'll be in Prague for a packed Open Source week! We’ll speak at the Linux Plumbers Conference and GStreamer Conference, and present two demos at the ELC Technical Showcase. View the full article

Welcome to the latest Armbian Newsletter: your source for the latest developments, community highlights, and behind-the-scenes updates from the world of open-source ARM and RISC-V computing. JetHome boosts Armbian CIJetHome (Shenzhen JetHome Technology Co.) donated a build server for Armbian. The server compiles Armbian images, kernels and U-Boot packages. Thank you, JetHome. HW Specifications CPU 2 × Intel Xeon Gold 6148, 80 threads Memory 384 GB Storage 3.84 TB SSD, plus 20 TB of disk Network 2 × 1Sponsored Github HighlightsThis week’s work centers on Rockchip platform maturation, kernel and toolchain modernization, and board-level enablement across vendors. Rockchip r…

Welcome to the latest Armbian Newsletter: your source for the latest developments, community highlights, and behind-the-scenes updates from the world of open-source ARM and RISC-V computing. JetHome boosts Armbian CIJetHome (Shenzhen JetHome Technology Co.) donated a build server for Armbian. The server compiles Armbian images, kernels and U-Boot packages. Thank you, JetHome. HW Specifications CPU 2 × Intel Xeon Gold 6148, 80 threads Memory 384 GB Storage 3.84 TB SSD, plus 20 TB of disk Network 2 × 1Sponsored Github HighlightsThis week’s work centers on Rockchip platform maturation, kernel and toolchain modernization, and board-level enablement across vendors. Rockchip r…

Armbian builds for hundreds of boards. A kernel bump that is clean on one SoC can leave another unbootable and no build log will tell you. So there is a rack, and the rack boots them. Compiling is not evidence. A kernel that builds, packages that install, an image that flashes — none of it proves a board comes back after reboot. Armbian supports a very large number of boards across a dozen vendors and twenty SoC families, maintained largely by volunteers who each own one or two of them. The failure mode that hurts is not a broken build. It is a change that builds perfectly and quietly bricks the boot path on hardware nobody happened to have on their desk that week. The au…

Armbian builds for hundreds of boards. A kernel bump that is clean on one SoC can leave another unbootable and no build log will tell you. So there is a rack, and the rack boots them. Compiling is not evidence. A kernel that builds, packages that install, an image that flashes — none of it proves a board comes back after reboot. Armbian supports a very large number of boards across a dozen vendors and twenty SoC families, maintained largely by volunteers who each own one or two of them. The failure mode that hurts is not a broken build. It is a change that builds perfectly and quietly bricks the boot path on hardware nobody happened to have on their desk that week. The au…

JetHome (Shenzhen JetHome Technology Co.) donated a build server for Armbian. The server compiles Armbian images, kernels and U-Boot packages. Thank you, JetHome. HW Specifications CPU 2 × Intel Xeon Gold 6148, 80 threads Memory 384 GB Storage 3.84 TB SSD, plus 20 TB of disk Network 2 × 1 Gbit/s, bonded Build runners 40 That is about a tenth of the fleet's capacity, running up to 3 kernel or 40 full image builds at once. The server also remembers work it has already done: Compiled code is reused. A rebuild takes under a minute instead of three.Software packages are downloaded once and shared by all 40 b…

JetHome (Shenzhen JetHome Technology Co.) donated a build server for Armbian. The server compiles Armbian images, kernels and U-Boot packages. Thank you, JetHome. HW Specifications CPU 2 × Intel Xeon Gold 6148, 80 threads Memory 384 GB Storage 3.84 TB SSD, plus 20 TB of disk Network 2 × 1 Gbit/s, bonded Build runners 40 That is about a tenth of the fleet's capacity, running up to 3 kernel or 40 full image builds at once. The server also remembers work it has already done: Compiled code is reused. A rebuild takes under a minute instead of three.Software packages are downloaded once and shared by all 40 b…

Running Gemma 4 E2B on a Mali GPU with LiteRT-LMThis guide should work on any armbian minimal/console (trixie) system with a working Mali-g610 GPU. DO NOT USE DESKTOP Verified on: Orange Pi 5 Max (Rockchip RK3588, Arm Mali-G610 MC4), Armbian/Debian 13 (trixie), aarch64, 8 GB RAM. Status summary: Both CPU (XNNPACK) and GPU (WebGPU/Dawn → Vulkan → panvk → panthor) work on the mainline panthor kernel — numbers below. The GPU path needed one line of local patching in Mesa's panvk driver (raise maxImageDimension3D 512 → 2048 to meet the WebGPU minimums that LiteRT's Dawn library enforces; recipe in §5, rationale in §7.1). The model is multimodal (Text + Vision + Audio): the …