4D Systems gen4-IoD-28T
Many boards deal with IoT. Most send data to the cloud; none displays data from the cloud.
Here comes the 4D Systems gen4-IoD-28T. It combines an IoT-capable board with a touch-screen. IoD stands for Internet of Displays. This screen belongs to the 4th generation of 4D Systems screens, with a slim and sleek design. The white plastic provides protection around the screen and four supports to fix the screen. |
Hardware
The board relies on the very popular ESP8266 from Espressif with 512 Kbytes of external flash.
It features an internal antenna and a connector for an external antenna. |
The board comes with a programmer and a flat cable.
The programmer is the standard Silicon Labs CP2104. The board features two buttons, Reset and Flash, and a micro-USB port. |
The board includes a sliding micro-SD card slot.
The animation on the right details how to insert and remove a card. The SD-card stores the widgets used by Visi-Genie, or data retrieved from the cloud. |
|
Software
As a board powered by an ESP8266, the gen4-IoD-28T can be programmed with the Arduino framework.
Installing the board requires three steps.
Unfortunately, the listing contains non-standard ASCII characters. The folder that contains the boards.txt file depends on the OS, but the data-sheet only provides the path for Windows.
|
gen4-IoD-28T Boards Parameters fro Arduino
|
4D Systems has developed GFX4d, a graphics library with all the functions for displays graphics and texts, but also for downloading files and managing the SD-card.
The library comes with a large set of examples. The most sticking example is the GFXdemo4D project. This project connects to internet, downloads files and images, save them to the SD card, and finally displays them. As always, 4D Systems provides an extensive collection of Application Notes. However, I was unable to find any documentation of the GFX4d library, with an exhaustive list of the functions and their parameters. The header file isn't even self-documented, for example with Doxygen comments to auto-generate HMTL or PDF files. |
|
Conclusion
The 4D Systems gen4-IoD-28T illustrates the IoD or Internet of Displays concept perfectly. This is a must-have display for IoT projects.
Starting at $29, the gen4-IoD series offers great value for an all-in-one solution. Let's hope some improvements on the missing documentation about GFX4D library to make the gen4-IoD-28T even easier to use. |
Pros
|
Cons
|
Wrap-Up
|
Links |
Posted: Aug 4, 2017
Updated: