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from the improving-pi-much-like-ice-cream-does dept.
One of Raspberry Pi's weaknesses is a lack of wireless technologies, which limits its communications capabilities with other devices. One new chipset from Qualcomm could help fill that gap.
The QCA4020 chipset packs in Bluetooth Low Energy 5, ZigBee 3.0, WiFi 802.11n, and OpenThread wireless communications protocols. The chipset is like a mini-developer board -- an integrated chipset with an ARM-based CPU. It can be used to create smart home or industrial devices. It can also serve as a wireless access point for Raspberry Pi and other developer boards used to make smart gadgets, drones, robots, and industrial devices. It has a number of connector protocols and can work with Arduino boards.
It'll work right out of the box, and gadget development is easy, said Joseph Bousaba, vice president of product management at Qualcomm. [...]"We are trying to make it as simple as possible to connect no matter what the radio is," Bousaba said.
The QCA4020 is one of the first development micro-boards based on new Bluetooth 5 protocol, which is two times faster and has quadruple the range of Bluetooth 4.2. Bluetooth 5 can transfer data at speeds of up to 2Mbps (bits per second) and has a range of more than 100 meters (109 yards).
[...] The QCA4020 chipset is also one of the few boards supporting OpenThread, which is an open-source take on Google's emerging Thread protocol. It is an adaptation from ZigBee, with a software stack that enables IP-based communication capabilities.
The QCA4020 has an integrated Cortex-M4 processor operating at 150Mhz, making it similar to Texas Instruments' $29 Launchpad Board and Nordic's nRF52840 Preview Development Kit, both of which have Bluetooth 5. But those boards don't include the wide range of radios like on Qualcomm's chipset.
[Ed Note - The RPi 3 does have Bluetooth 4.1 and WiFi 802.11n]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Rich on Wednesday February 22 2017, @02:21AM
This has about as much to do with a Raspi, as - German proverb - a fish with a bicycle.
But while we make up fun stuff, we might throw in the ESP8266 which, while being good enough for 99% of "IoT" applications, brutally hammers down everything Qualcomm ever will have to offer in the most important category: price.
Or the new legislation that will prohibit using such ESP8266 modules in devices based on the module certification alone, instead requiring a very expensive process that would make the chip cost of a "premium vendor" negligible., especially considering such a vendor might somehow be of assistance certifying.
Coincidence?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:25AM
Buy it from aliexpress, the chinese won't care about usian regulation.
It is low enough power anyway, won't be detected outside your walls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday February 22 2017, @11:04AM
usian regulation
Euro regulations from summer on, too.
won't be detected outside your walls
That's not an issue I would care about. I care about running my small-to-medium business. That might want to create its own products for sale. With low-scale production runs of a couple dozen units for niche applications, my estimate is that I'd have to slap on 200-500 EUR per unit for the rubberstamping, which pretty much rules out making anything under three grand, which happens to be the threshold where the average customer is willing to open their pockets for anything movable that's not a car.
Likely there will be workarounds - dongles for separate purchase, or such - like with external power supplies that work around the ludicrous levels of paperwork now required for anything that runs directly from mains, but still, it is a major annoyance.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @11:29AM
Though luck, my sincere commiserations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford