The Meadow F7 Board

The variety of process computer boards available for developing new applications is astonishing but if you want to write code using Visual Basic or C#, options start to drift away like sand between your fingers. The new Meadow F7 board stands out here. It uses an STM32F777 for executing the .NET runtime, while an ESP32 module takes care of Wi-Fi connectivity.

Annex WiFi RDS (Rapid Development Suite) is a development environment originally designed to use the BASIC programming language on inexpensive ESP8266 modules. Meanwhile an ESP32 version is also available. Those who have so far programmed the 8-bit controllers from Atmel/Microchip with AVR-BASIC now have access to the 32-bit performance class.

In microcontroller projects, developers often face the problem that many processor tasks need to be performed at a time. ESP32 and Arduino IDE make task programming easy, as the popular FreeRTOS is already integrated into the core libraries [1]. In this second part of the series we are especially dealing with task priorities.

It happens to all of us — you’re at home and there’s a caller at the door but for some reason or other you do not hear the doorbell buzz or ring! No problem if the person at the door has your phone number handy as he or she will be able to get hold of you. In all other cases, Catch-22 governs, which is especially annoying when you stayed home desperately waiting for a parcel delivery within a certain time frame. Here now comes a DIY project to end such inconvenience.

This is a submission from SECO on the SENSE-D01, their newest microcontroller for industrial applications. SENSE-D01 is SECO’s enfant terrible, a through-and-through silicon factotum in the embedded realm. To put it plainly, it is a cost-effective, wireless Industrial IoT microcontroller with battery support that is marked by impressive ease of use and a great degree of flexibility provided to the users.

Fabulous open source projects like ESPurna, ESPHome and Home Assistant make home automation much easier. Instead of spending many hours on developing communication protocols and other low-level stuff, you can concentrate on defining automation rules for your connected devices. What makes these projects even better is their support for many commercially available products. Seamlessly integrate your own ESP-based devices with e.g. Ikea Trådfri, Philips Hue and Zigbee-based lamps and switches.

Sensors are a worthwhile topic to write about: They bring electronics projects in contact with the real world and facilitate all kinds of practical applications. Dogan Ibrahim describes more than 40 projects in this comprehensive book.

A tutorial about using ESPHome to configure and connect an ESP-8266-based device to Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi.

With the compliments of the Elektor Labs and Editorial teams, and our best wishes for the new year, here comes another previously unpublished article that's free to download by all registered Elektor e-zine readers. "Free Fresh Articles" are published at two-weekly intervals in the Elektor e-zine, alternating with "Free Back Articles". This time we have a Graphic User Interface (GUI) with touch control that’s remarkable for two things: First, it’s one and the same piece of hardware running happily on at least three popular microcontroller platforms: ESP32, ESP8266, and Raspberry Pi. Second, it employs elements from the LittlevGL library which comes with an MIT licence and produces code for many 16-, 32- and 64-bit microcontrollers.

Many projects with a microcontroller inside have to display something. In the past, 2-line text displays were common and sufficient, but today graphic LCDs (or OLED displays) are increasingly used. There are several libraries for displaying attractive graphics as well as for touch operation. LittlevGL is a library under the liberal MIT license, which can be easily adapted to various displays and controllers. In this article, we demonstrate the whole thing using an ESP32 board and a touch LCD that displays data from a weather station.