Raspberry Pi News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

September 2, 2025September 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SONOFF Dongle Plus MG24 – A Zigbee/Thread USB Dongle based on SiLabs EFR32MG24 SoC

SONOFF Dongle Plus MG24 laptop Raspberry Pi SBC

SONOFF Dongle Plus MG24, also called Dongle-PMG24, is a Zigbee/Thread USB dongle based on Silicon Labs’ EFR32MG24 wireless SoC, which offers the same features as the SONOFF ZBDongle-E with an EFR32MG21 SoC, but with “better performance”. SONOFF says the Dongle Plus MG24 comes with 300% more RAM (256KB) and 100% more flash (1536KB) than the ZBDongle-E/Dongle Plus E (I wish the company would just stop giving two names for each of its products…), offers a range of up to 200 meters with the provided 3dBi antenna. SONOFF Dongle Plus MG24 specifications: Wireless SoC – Silicon Labs EFR32MG24 MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 MCU @ 78 MHz Memory – 256 KB RAM (300% more RAM than ZBDongle-E) Storage – 1536 KB flash (twice the flash of ZBDongle-E) Radios/Protocols – 802.15.4, Matter, OpenThread, Zigbee 3.0, BLE, Bluetooth Mesh, Proprietary 2.4 GHz, Multiprotocol (for the SoC, but only Zigbee is used here) Connectivity […]

August 28, 2025 by Debashis Das - 3 Comments

Xerxes Pi – A Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 carrier board with a rack-friendly design (Crowdfunding)

Xerxes Pi A cross vendor compute module carrier board

Designed by Rapid Analysis in Australia, the Xerxes Pi is a cross-vendor compute module carrier board that fits into a 1U rack and supports Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5, Radxa CM5, Banana Pi CM4/CM5, and Orange Pi CM4/CM5 compute modules. Designed at just one-third the size of a Nano-ITX board (120 × 40 mm), it’s ideal for home lab and small business servers looking for a low-cost way to run Docker containers and other open-source software. For storage, the carrier board includes a microSD card, and an M.2 E-Key slot enables support for accelerators or peripherals. Additionally, it features an I²C/SPI header and optional PoE via add-on boards or splitters. The design is well thought out and comes with a thermally efficient design with ventilated enclosures, optional PLA or metal heatsinks, and open-source 3D printable rack cases (single or multi-board). With open schematics, 3D files, Xerxes Pi targets DIY electronics, clustered computing, edge servers, […]

August 27, 2025August 27, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Prophesee Starter Kit GenX320 camera for Raspberry Pi 5 enables low-latency event detection

The Starter Kit GenX320 is a power-efficient, event-based camera designed for the Raspberry Pi 5 that detects events with a latency of less than 150 μs, or the equivalent of about 10,000 FPS. The Prophesee GenX320 sensor offers a 320×320 resolution and a >140 dB dynamic range. The kit connects to the Raspberry Pi 5 like the official camera modules, through the MIPI CSI-2 connector. Starter Kit GenX320 specifications: Sensor – Prophesee GenX320 1/5 inch format event-based vision sensor Resolution – 320×320 array of 6.3μm contrast detection pixels Event Rate – ~10,000 FPS equivalent Latency – <150 μs at 1,000 lux, <1,000 μs at 5 lux Dynamic Range – >140 dB Host interface – MIPI CSI-2 (D-PHY) connector Power Consumption -<50 mW Camera (two variants) M12 mount Focal length – 1.8 Focal ratio (f-stop) – f/2.8 fixed iris FOV – 76° diagonal, 58° horizontal, 58° vertical IR cut filter – […]

August 27, 2025August 30, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Adafruit Fruit Jam – An RP2350 mini computer running classic Macintosh

The Adafruit Fruit Jam is a credit card-sized RP2350-powered mini computer that is designed to run classic Macintosh through the uMac emulator. It supports System 2.0 up to System 7.5.5, 720p video via DVI, audio, and USB keyboard and mouse. Built around the Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU, the Fruit Jam board also features an ESP32-C6 wireless module and offers DVI output via the RP2350’s HSTX interface, USB-C for bootloading, a microSD card slot for storage, and an onboard TLV320DAC3100 I2S audio DAC for stereo headphones and a mono speaker. There’s also a 16-pin GPIO header, NeoPixels LEDs, tactile switches, and STEMMA QT and JST connectors for expansion. These features make this board suitable for retro emulation, educational projects, and lightweight standalone computing. Adafruit Fruit Jam specifications: Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2350B CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot OR Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz […]

August 26, 2025August 26, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Waveshare RP2350-Matrix board features 8×8 WS2812 RGB LED matrix, 6-axis IMU, Dout pin for more LEDs

Waveshare’s RP2350-Matrix is a Raspberry Pi RP2350A-powered LED matrix board featuring 64 RGB LEDs (8×8 RGB matrix), a built-in 6-axis IMU, and a Dout pin in case the user needs even more LEDs. The RP2350-Matrix also includes 25 GPIOs along with 12 PIO state machines for custom peripheral support, an on-chip temperature sensor, accurate hardware timers, and support for low-power sleep and dormant modes. It comes with a USB Type-C port for power and programming via USB 1.1 device/host, and an onboard 800mA LDO regulator for stable power delivery. These features make this board suitable for motion sensing and visual feedback. Waveshare RP2350-Matrix Specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350A CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot OR Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used in any combination Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Package – QFN-60 Storage – 16 MB […]

August 25, 2025August 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

Pi Zero-sized Radxa Cubie A7Z SBC features Allwinner A733 Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, up to 16GB RAM, WiFi 6

Radxa Cubie A7Z is the little brother of the Cubie A7A SBC, still based on a powerful Allwinner A733 octa-core Arm Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, but offered in a more compact form factor inspired by the Raspberry Pi Zero. The compact single board computer also comes with up to 16GB RAM, a microSD card slot, optional UFS flash, micro HDMI and USB-C DisplayPort video output, a WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.x wireless module, a 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connector, a PCIe Gen3 FPC connector (at first for Pi Zero-sized board), and a 40-pin GPIO header. Radxa Cubie A7Z specifications: SoC – Allwinner A733 (A733MX‑HN3) CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.3, OpenCL 3.0 VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator […]

August 25, 2025August 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments

Centron CT1832 Real.Pi – A Realtek RTD1619B SBC based on Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor

Centron Design’s CT1832 Real.Pi is a RealTek RTD1619B SBC that mainly follows the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B form factor and is designed for AIoT applications, vehicle-mounted central control, entertainment/game equipment, and digital signage. It follows the RTD1619B-powered XpressReal T3 SBC based on a smaller form factor, which was introduced a few weeks ago by Fyde Innovations, with support for the Chromium-based FydeOS operating system. The CT1832 Real.Pi board is equipped with 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, an HDMI 2.0 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port with optional PoE, optional dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 module, a 16-pin PCIe x1 connector, and a 40-pin GPIO header, among other features. CT1832 Real.Pi specifications: SoC – Realtek RTD1619B CPU – Quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.7GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G57 MP1 with support for Vulkan 1.1, OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0 VPU Decoding 4Kp60 AV1, H.265/EVC, and VP9.2, all with HDR support […]

August 23, 2025August 23, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

TrueNAS is now (unofficially) available for 64-bit Arm platforms with UEFI support

TrueNAS Scale NAS platform was designed to work on x86-64 computers only, but there’s now an unofficial port for 64-bit Arm (Aarch64) targets running a UEFI bootloader, including the Raspberry Pi 4/5 SBCs and other higher-end Arm boards. Previously known as FreeNAS, the community edition, FreeBSD-based TrueNAS Core was phased out in 2022 and replaced with the Linux-based TrueNAS Scale. iXsystems also provides TrueNAS Enterprise, a paid version with more advanced features, but all versions only work on 64-bit x86 machines. TrueNAS forum user Joel0 decided to change that and patched TrueNAS Scale to run on ARM (aarch64). The main requirements are having a 64-bit Arm target, at least 8GB RAM, 16GB boot storage, and a working UEFI bootloader. The image has been tested with a QEMU virtual machine, and it should also work on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 with UEFI, but it has not been tested. One […]