Back in March 2020, I asked whether Node-RED could generate code for MCUs. Today, the answer is yes. 

Thanks to the Moddable SDK and the Node-RED MCU plug-in, GPIO management, MQTT messages and even dashboards run on a board powered by an MCU.

Read the review.

The last release of Energia, the fork of the Arduino IDE and SDK for the LaunchPad boards, was numbered 1.8.10E23 and published in December 2019. This project seems to no longer be maintained.

The official tools from Texas Instruments are Code Composer Studio, based on Eclipse with an online variant. Each wired and wireless micro-controller family has its dedicated SDK. However, those tools are far from easy to use and may not appeal to non-professionals.

As a consequence, the LaunchPad platform and BoosterPack extensions turn legacy.

This is really unfortunate: the LaunchPad MSP432 brought RTOS for everyone with the Galaxia library; the sub-1 GHz CC1352 provided an excellent radio with ultra-low-power performance.

The initial version of the typie-walkie project used WiFi as radio. However, WiFi does not match the low-power feature of the e-paper screen.

Which radio to feature low-power? LoRa came up as a good alternative for short messages over long distances.

The new version runs on the iLabs Challenger RP2040 LoRa board, which combines a RP2040 MCU with a RFM95W-SX1276 sub-1 GHz radio.

Discover the new version of the project.

Everyone knows the talkie-walkie, but sound requires a large bandwidth. Here is a variant with an e-paper touch-screen.

The capacitive touch turns the e-paper screen into a human-machine interface. The user type the message with the keyboard and then press Send. The message is sent and displayed on the remote screen.

Discover the full project.

The last revision of the EPD Extension Kit Gen 3-1 supports the EXT3-Touch, an expansion board for touch​. With this combination, Pervasive Displays​ brings a whole new dimension to e-paper displays. 

​Instead on being passive devices, e-paper displays are now active input devices, perfectly suited for ultra-low power human-machine interfaces (HMI). 

Learn more at Pervasive Displays e-Paper EPD Extension Kit Gen 3-1 and Touch​.

The infamous butterfly keyboard seems to have finally a happy ending.

​Reuters reports today "Apple reaches $50 mln settlement over defective MacBook keyboards", or Apple Insider "Apple agrees to $50M settlement in MacBook butterfly keyboard lawsuit".

I was affected by this issue and, despite multiple actions, Apple had always denied the case. Unfortunately, it was neither the first case of hardware failure nor the first case of deficient customer service. Apple has lost a customer and I have switched to Linux.

I hope many more lawsuits and many more lost customers help Apple to deal with its contempt for its customers, whatever the country.

The Teensy boards are especially popular among hobbyists, thanks to their high performance and compact size.

Here is the procedure to connect the Teensy 3 to the Pervasive Diplays EXT3.

Read more at Connecting the EXT3 to the Teensy 3.

One of the most critical challenge of embedded systems is managing the power budget. And very often, measuring power consumption turns into another major challenge.

Nordic comes with an interesting option: a universal ammeter with 8 logic inputs, with a dedicated application running on Linux, Mac and Windows.

Read the full review

How to display pictures on a remote screen?

This project uses the open-source MQTT protocol. To save bandwidth, the pictures are first compressed on a local PC. An ESP32 board receives and displays the images on the e-paper panel.

Read the full project on Hackster.io or in this website.