#embedded

RP2350B bells&whistles development board features on-board RP2040 debugger, HDMI, and microSD card slot

Bảng phát triển RP2350B Bells&Whistles tích hợp sẵn bộ gỡ lỗi RP2040 (Picoprobe), cổng HDMI (qua PicoDVI), khe cắm thẻ microSD, PSRAM 8MB tùy chọn, flash SPI 4MB, 46 chân GPIO và hai cổng USB-C. Bo mạch hỗ trợ nguồn mở (KiCad, sơ đồ trên GitHub) với giá 29,95 USD trên Tindie.

Lập trình viên muốn phát triển ứng dụng trên RP2040 nhưng gặp khó khăn với việc debug và mở rộng hệ thống cần tìm hiểu cách tích hợp RP2350B để tiết kiệm chi phí và tăng hiệu năng với các tính năng như debug built-in, HDMI, và lưu trữ MicroSD.

CSS On The ESP32

The Gea stack enables developers to write CSS and TypeScript for ESP32 microcontrollers, compiling it into native C++ firmware. A demo shows a smooth 3D cube animation running at up to 60 FPS on a 410×502 AMOLED screen with full color and transparency support. It's not a full browser engine — limitations include no hover states, rasterized fonts, and a 512-node UI tree cap — but it lets web developers leverage familiar skills for embedded UI development without major performance loss.

Rust Foundation Trusted Training Program Launches, Giving Learners a Mark of Quality to Trust

The Rust Foundation has launched the Rust Foundation Trusted Training (RFTT) program, the first formal accreditation for Rust training providers. Accreditation is awarded based on five criteria: credibility and ethical practices, curriculum quality, instructor competence, transparency and accessibility, and learner evaluation and feedback. The founding cohort of five accredited providers includes Mainmatter, Integer 32, Wyliodrin, Doulos, and Ferrous Systems. Accreditation is valid for two years and is open to Rust Foundation member organizations with at least two years in business and one year of Rust training experience. The program aims to give learners, employers, and the developer community a trusted signal for evaluating Rust training quality.

Increasing Local GPS Accuracy For A Small Robot

Standard GPS receivers only achieve around two-meter accuracy, which is insufficient for precise robotic navigation. RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) GPS solves this by using a base station at a known location to transmit phase-angle correction data to a mobile receiver, enabling centimeter-level accuracy. GreatScott! demonstrates this on a tracked robot platform, placing the base station on a fence post and the RTK receiver on the robot. While the RTK system itself proved accurate enough, the robot's steering hardware and algorithms became the limiting factor for hitting centimeter-sized targets. The setup demonstrates practical applications like autonomous lawn mowing and amateur land surveying.

Orange Pi 6 CIX CD8180 12-core Arm SBC gets 2.5GbE networking, smaller form factor, drops battery support

Orange Pi 6 is a new compact SBC (90x90mm) powered by the CIX P1 (CD8180) 12-core Arm Cortex-A720/A520 SoC with up to 32GB LPDDR5 RAM. Compared to the larger Orange Pi 6 Plus, it features 2.5GbE instead of 5GbE networking, drops LiPo battery support, and comes in a smaller form factor. Key specs include dual M.2 PCIe Gen4 x4 slots, multiple display outputs, a 28.85 TOPS NPU, and support for Debian, Ubuntu, Android, Windows 11, and OpenHarmony. Pricing starts at $239 for the 8GB model, reflecting the high cost of LPDDR5 RAM, making it significantly pricier than typical Orange Pi boards.

Iridium Development Kit Accelerates Hybrid IoT Design

Iridium Communications has launched the 9604 module and development kit, a hybrid IoT platform combining satellite (SBD), LTE-M cellular, and GNSS into a single compact module (16×26×2.4 mm). Built on the u-blox SARA-R5 platform, it can reduce board space by over 60% versus discrete implementations. The module supports GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou, offers independent subsystem management for custom failover strategies, and provides a unified AT command interface with an SDK. It targets industrial monitoring, transportation, maritime, and remote asset tracking applications where terrestrial networks may be unavailable.

Louder ESP32 Mini board adds WiFi and Bluetooth to old speakers for SqueezeLite, Snapclient, or ESPHome support

Sonocotta's Louder ESP32 Mini is a compact open-source hardware board designed to retrofit old passive speakers with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Built around the ESP32-S3 with 8MB PSRAM and a TAS5805M DAC/amplifier, it comes in two sizes (42×42mm and 52×52mm) and replaces the standard speaker terminal cup. It supports multiple firmware options including Squeezelite-ESP32 for Spotify Connect and AirPlay, Snapclient for multi-room audio, and ESPHome for Home Assistant integration. Priced at $15–$20, it's available on Lectronz and Tindie, with schematics and Gerber files published on GitHub.

A More Convenient IButton Reader

Geoffrey Wells designed ChillPoint, a handheld iButton reader built around an ESP32-C6 microcontroller, aimed at modernizing cold chain logistics data retrieval. The device uses a 1-Wire probe to read iButton temperature data loggers on contact, stores data on internal flash, and hosts a web UI over its own WiFi access point for easy access from any smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Both hardware and software will be open source, with a CrowdSupply campaign planned for release.

OpenC6 BIOS project brings PC-like firmware to ESP32-C6 MCU with network boot and OTA update support

OpenC6 BIOS is an open-source project that brings PC BIOS-like architecture to the ESP32-C6 microcontroller. Instead of combining hardware setup and application code into a single firmware image, it separates the base system from application payloads (2–10 KB). Key features include dynamic CPU frequency scaling, a System Call Interface (ABI) for Wi-Fi/crypto/math access without full ESP-IDF, PXE-like network boot over Wi-Fi, A/B OTA updates with rollback, a web-based BIOS setup interface, LP-Core health monitoring using the ESP32-C6's low-power RISC-V core, and Aura Sync RGB support. The project targets ESP32-C6 boards with at least 8MB flash and is available on GitHub under the MIT license.

Can Spotflow Solve Remote Debugging for Embedded Systems?

Spotflow is an observability platform designed to bring cloud-style monitoring to embedded devices. This walkthrough covers setting up Spotflow with Zephyr RTOS on an NXP FRDM-MCXN947 board, including installing the MCUXpresso toolchain, resolving a Python 3.14 compatibility issue (downgrading to 3.12 fixes it), configuring Ethernet connectivity, and establishing a secure MQTT/TLS connection to the Spotflow cloud dashboard. After connecting the board to a network via Ethernet, the device successfully registered with Spotflow and began transmitting logs remotely. A follow-up article will cover integrating Spotflow into a custom Zephyr project for real telemetry collection.

From the Telstar to the Trionda: Inside the World Cup’s Smartest Ball

The Adidas Trionda, the official ball of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, contains a sophisticated embedded electronics module developed with Kinexon. Inside is an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) combining accelerometers and gyroscopes, plus an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) chip, transmitting position, acceleration, and rotation data at 500 Hz. Engineering challenges include keeping the module imperceptible to players (weight, balance), surviving repeated high-velocity impacts, maintaining stable radio transmission through constant rotation, and running on a sealed rechargeable battery for over 90 minutes. The ball also features only 4 heat-bonded panels — the fewest in World Cup history — which shifts the aerodynamic drag crisis to ~43 km/h, eliminating unpredictable knuckleball behavior. The sensor's primary role in VAR is providing millisecond-precise timestamps of ball contact, enabling accurate synchronisation with camera-based player tracking for Semi-Automated Offside Technology. Future balls may infer biometric data about players indirectly through AI analysis of impact signatures.

From Silicon to Systems: Reimagining the Future of Embedded Engineering

The embedded engineering industry faces a growing mismatch between system complexity and outdated, fragmented development workflows. Despite decades of silicon-driven progress, most embedded teams still rely on disconnected tools, manual integration, and late-stage validation. The path forward lies in platform-driven, model-based approaches that create digital continuity across hardware, software, validation, and lifecycle management. This shift mirrors transformations seen in cloud and enterprise software, moving from component-centric development to reusable, interconnected system architectures. Silicon vendors must also evolve from delivering components to enabling complete system development. Organizations that adopt these approaches early will be better positioned to manage complexity and accelerate edge innovation.

Graperain GR1126MB development board features solder-on 3 TOPS Rockchip RV1126B AI Vision module

Graperain has announced the GR1126MB development board, built around a 42x42mm GR1126B stamp-hole system-on-module powered by the Rockchip RV1126B SoC. The SoC features a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU, a 3 TOPS NPU supporting TensorFlow, ONNX, PyTorch, and Caffe, plus a 12MP ISP and AI-ISP. The module offers up to 4GB LPDDR4x RAM and 256GB eMMC, with extensive I/O including dual MIPI CSI, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, CAN Bus, and more. The development board adds WiFi/BT, optional 4G LTE, a 40-pin GPIO header, and dual camera connectors. Software support includes BuildRoot and Debian 12, along with an AI framework for object detection, face recognition, and edge analytics. No pricing has been disclosed.

A T9 Keyboard For Your Smartphone

A hardware enthusiast built a custom T9-style keypad using the physical keypad from a Nokia E52, mounted on a custom PCB with Alps SKRK tactile switches, an ESP32-C6 microcontroller, and Bluetooth connectivity. The device lets users type on modern smartphones using the classic multi-tap number key input method. A second revision improved the feel by switching to firmer 1.57 N actuation force switches.

Someone built a BIOS for the ESP32-C6, bringing a PC-like architecture to the $2 chip

OpenC6 is an open-source BIOS-like firmware for the ESP32-C6 microcontroller that reimagines the $2 chip with a PC-style architecture. Rather than monolithic firmware, it acts as a host platform that initializes hardware, provides out-of-band management via an LP-Core coprocessor, and exposes a standardized System Call Interface (ABI). This lets developers hot-swap, download, and execute tiny bare-metal payloads directly into RAM or Execute-In-Place (XIP) Flash. The project is still in progress, with open bounties for features like a fully open-source file system and execution security measures.

A Custom PCB For The Casio G-Shock

David Volovskiy phát triển một bo mạch PCB tùy chỉnh thay thế hoàn toàn cho đồng hồ Casio G-Shock, tích hợp firmware mã nguồn mở mở rộng chức năng như đo bước chân, chạy game (Blackjack, Wordle), hiển thị pha mặt trăng, tính giờ mặt trời mọc/lặn và nhiệt kế. Dự án cung cấp công cụ mô phỏng web và hiển thị LCD, đồng thời kế thừa từ dự án Sensor Watch của Joey Castillo, với cộng đồng Discord hỗ trợ người quan tâm tham gia danh sách sản xuất.

Lập trình viên nên đọc để khám phá cách kết hợp hardware đơn giản với firmware mở nguồn để tạo ra những ứng dụng thực tế, từ đó học cách tối ưu hóa thiết bị cũ bằng cách tái sử dụng và mở rộng chức năng.

How to use RISC-V custom instructions with Ubuntu

RISC-V allows hardware vendors to define custom instructions beyond the standard ISA. This post explains how to support those custom instructions on Ubuntu-based Linux systems. For stateless custom instructions (no extra processor state), a custom toolchain and Ubuntu PPAs on Launchpad are sufficient. For stateful custom instructions requiring OS-level context save/restore, a custom kernel is also needed, with Canonical's image cookbook as a starting point. The post also covers runtime portability via the Linux hwprobe mechanism, which lets user-space code query the kernel for supported extensions, enabling graceful fallback rather than illegal instruction traps on incompatible hardware.

MYiR MAC-B5760 fanless Edge AI industrial PC offers Rockchip RK3576 SoC, optional RK1828 LLM/VLM module

MYiR has launched the MAC-B5760, a fanless Edge AI industrial box PC built around the Rockchip RK3576 SoC featuring a 6 TOPS NPU. It ships with 8GB LPDDR5 and 64GB eMMC by default, offering dual Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 2.1, Mini DisplayPort, optional WiFi 6/BT 5.4, and expansion via M.2 and mini PCIe slots. An optional Rockchip RK1828 M.2 AI accelerator module (20 TOPS) supports LLM/VLM inference for models up to 7 billion parameters. Software support includes a Linux 6.1 BSP with Debian, Yocto, and Yocto Preempt RT images. The standard model starts at $299, while the variant with the RK1828 AI module is $599.