It is now time to take a look at some of the
latest developments in the electronics field
and I have got 9 things I’d like to share
with you. You’ve probably already heard
about this but the Raspberry Pi Foundation
have launched a new HQ Camera which stands
for High Quality camera that features a 12
megapixel camera, improved sensitivity along
with interchangeable lenses. This would be
great for specific applications like security
cameras and so on. The module is expected
to work with all Raspberry PI boards that
run the latest operating system. The camera
module will cost 50 dollars and you will then
have to add a lens to it, two official lenses
will be made available for you at a price
of 25 and 50 dollars each. You can also add
any other compatible lens if you have one
around.
Flexible and stretchable lithium-ion battery
could reach our hands soon enough as engineers
have been able to create a micro-honeycomb
structure which allows the material to be
bent and stretched without affecting its energy
storage capability. What’s even more interesting
is that the energy capacity for this new type
of battery equals that of non-stretchable
equivalents which means that the future is
looking very bright indeed.
The next development is just as futuristic
as this one. BiTipText creates a QWERTY keyboard
on your fingertips and allows you to type
on both your index fingers. The prototype
uses flexible PCB cones that are placed on
the user’s index fingers. An MPR121 touch
sensing IC is used to detect the touch input
and everything is powered with an Arduino
UNO. The end result is an input speed of about
23 words per minute which is pretty impressive
given that the average user types around 40
words per minute on a traditional keyboard.
There’s obviously a lot of room for improvement
here but this could serve as inspiration for
a future project.
The next project is kind of strange and interesting
at the same time. It is an interactive toy
that consists of a robot and some tape which
has RFID chips embedded into it. As the robot
is moved over the tape, it reads the tags
and creates different sounds based on the
information. This is then used to simulate
the sound of roads, train tracks and so on.
It’s definitely an interesting proof of
concept, so it’s only about time before
there’s a better implementation of this
type of technology.
And now, we are onto some interesting products
starting with the pisugar2 that aims to be
a UPS for your raspberry pi. The L variant
uses a 1200mAh battery to give you a run time
of about 5-6 hours with an output current
of 2.4 amps. IT also features an on-board
real tiem clock which means that you can create
a timer or schedule to automatically switch
ON the raspberry PI and run your scripts.
It uses pogo-pins which means that there’s
no soldering required to get started and it
is currently available on Tindie for 40 dollars.
We have played around with a few environmental
sensors before and the ESPEnvi adds a bunch
of these in a nice form factor seen here.
For 30 dollars you get a board that consists
of an ESP8266 module, an MQ-2 gas sensor which
can detect several gases and also an HDC1080
temperature and humidity sensor. It is powered
over USB and you also have the serial port
header pins which can be used to reprogram
the ESP8266 module which means that you could
also use it with ESPHome for instance.
The ODROID-GO advance is a slim, hand held
equivalent of the popular single board computer.
It consists of a 1.3GHZ quad core ARM chip
as the main processor with 1GB of DDR3 memory
along with a 3.5” display and the usual
bits and pieces. An ESP32 module is used for
WiFi connectivity and the entire thing weighs
about one hundred and seventy grams. The clear
case does have a nice look and feel to it
and the expected price is around 60 dollars.
If you are looking to use a raspberry PI 4
as a media center then you probably need a
nice case to hide all the wires to give you
a nice setup. The Argon One case brings all
the connectors to one side which allows you
to have a much cleaner setup. It consists
of an Aluminum top cover and definitely looks
to be well designed. The case is available
for just 20 dollars which I think is pretty
good value for money. Assembly looks to be
very straightforward as well.
And finally, this board allows you to control
multiple relays using a raspberry pi. It has
a stackable design which means that you can
control a lot of different devices using it.
I am not sure where you would want to control
these many devices but if you need to, then
you have an off the shelf board available
to do it. 20 dollars gets you one of these
board and you also have the python drivers
and everything else you need to get started.
That is it for this edition of WattHour, come
back next Tuesday for some more electronics
news. Thank you for watching and I will see
you in the next one!
