These new development boards and kits can bring your design to the next level for audio/visual capabilities, industrial automation, and next-generation GPS applications. This month features products from Linear Technology, Seeed Technology Limited, and Adafruit.
SmartMesh Starter Kit
The SmartMesh Starter Kit is a truly awesome dev kit meant for large scale industrial applications. It's perfect for energy management, building automation, renewable energy and essentially any other smart-infrastructure design that requires ultra-low power.
The kit allows users to create, manage, analyze and deploy a multi-hop mesh network in the RF environment of their application. SmartMesh IP is built for Internet Protocol (IP) compatibility and is based on 6LoWPAN and 802.16.5e standards to achieve unsurpassed levels of network reliability and security. The kit includes the USB Network Manager, a USB access point mote, five Evaluation/Development Motes, an Eterna interface card, programming and evaluation adapters, extension cables and five CR2032 coin cell batteries.
Seeed Studio’s Audio Mezzanine Board
The Seeed Studio’s Audio Mezzanine Board is an expansion board that is intended for use with 96boards products, meaning that it is compatible with the Dragonboard 410c. The exciting thing about this Audio Mezzanine board is that it includes a 3.5mm audio port and two independent MICs that can be used in all of your multimedia processing applications. It also comes equipped with six Grove ports. These Grove ports can be used to implement any of the Grove functional modules into your design without the use of soldering. This allows you to flawlessly attach sensors, LCDs, relays, buttons and switches, all without soldering or a mess of tangled wires. Altogether, this audio mezzanine board is much more than that – it is a bridge for your Dragonboard into the world of Grove accessories and an Audio Mezzanine board.
Adafruit Ultimate GPS Breakout Module
The Adafruit GPS Breakout Module is built around the MTK3339 chipset, which is a high-quality GPS module that can track up to 22 satellites on 66 channels and has an excellent high-sensitivity receiver and a built in antenna. It can execute up to 10 location updates a second for high speed, high sensitivity logging or tracking. Power usage is incredibly low at only 20 mA during navigation. This GPS breakout is perfect for all of your DIY GPS needs and is extremely user friendly, which is why we like it so much. Adafruit also made a second wearable breakout board geared more towards wearable applications. It is based off of the same chipset and is also worth heavy consideration if you are working this GPS chipset into your design or just want to learn how to use GPS as a beginner.