BeagleBone Green Wireless
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The latest addition to the BeagleBone family comes from Seeed Studio with the BeagleBone Green Wireless.
The WL1835MOD module from Texas Instruments provides the wireless features with WiFi b/g/n 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). |
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Hardware
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This board makes an interesting mix of removed and added features.
Gone are the HDMI and the Ethernet connectors, as well as the 5V DC jack. Welcomed are 4 USB and 2 Grove connectors, and full wireless connectivity with WiFi and BLE. Connecting the board to the USB port on macOS requires the previous installation of two drivers, HoRNDIS for network and FTDI for serial. Provisioning the WiFi is much easier thank to the built-in access point. Just follow this procedure and select on the main computer the LAN starting with BEAGLEBONExxxx and a welcome page asks for the SSID and password of the local LAN. Then connect to the BeagleBone with the standard ssh [email protected] to configure it. |
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Software
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The board comes pre-installed and ready-to-use. The 4 GB eMMC includes the Debian distribution, keeping the SD-card slot free.
Standard configuration includes selecting the time-zone, setting the password and optionally renaming the board. Bluetooth configuration is done with bluetoothctl. Already included, the board services the Cloud9 IDE on port 3000 and the Node-RED GUI on port 1880. |
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Node-RED comes with nodes for the BeagleBone and for the Grove devices.
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Pins Map
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The main differentiation of the BeagleBone over the Rapsberry Pi is the many available pins.
The 65 GPIOs provide up to 8 PWM, 4 timers, 7 ADC, 2 I²C, 2 SPI, 4 UART and/or 3 QEP ports. The MRAA and UPM libraries are already installed and bring an easier and higher-level interface with a dedicated pins naming. |
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Conclusion
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Priced at $45, the BeagleBone Green Wireless compares aggressively against the $70 BeagleBone Black Wireless and even against the $35 Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
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Pros
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Cons
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Wrap-Up
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