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News, Tips, & Products | ISSUE
#39 | | |  | | | | EDITOR’S NOTE | BLUETOOTH LOW ENERGY
Technology Fuels Innovation in Smartphone and Tablet Add-Ons
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless network technology that requires much less power consumption than the original Bluetooth standard while providing similar range. BLE’s prevalence in the latest generation of smartphones is fueling rapid growth in innovative new hardware/sensor add-ons that rely on BLE-enabled smartphones and tablets as user interfaces (UIs).
“Hardware UIs are expensive and their power requirements are many orders of magnitude higher. BLE-based design can cut total product costs by more than half and increase usability by leveraging the customer’s smartphone," Eric VanWyk writes in a recent Circuit Cellar essay. “This provides a high-resolution screen, an already familiar user experience, and an Internet connection essentially for free.”
VanWyk, who received his BSc in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2007, is co-developer of the crowdfunded Mooshimeter, a multimeter that uses a BLE-enabled smartphone or tablet as a wireless, high-resolution graphical display. His essay examines the advantages of BLE’s power draw and its future in applications ranging from fitness aids and wearable medical devices to home appliances.
“BLE’s rapid market growth offers an inexpensive and unobtrusive way for system architects to provide new and compelling user experiences,” he says.
Mary Wilson | Circuit Cellar
| | | QUOTE TO NOTE
“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.”
—British software engineer Martin Fowler | | | | REHOST ARDUINO CODE | Execute Open-Source Code in a PIC Microcontroller Using the MPLAB IDE
 Tom Kibalo, who has written several print and online articles for Circuit Cellar, last year completed his book Beginner's Guide to Programming the PIC32. In the final chapter, he outlines an approach to hosting Arduino script code for the Microchip Technology PIC32 using Microchip Technology’s MPLAB X IDE environment.
His recently posted Circuit Cellar article shares the approach with our readers.
“The motivation was to allow Arduino users to rehost their code using a complete debug and programming environment with the Microchip tool suite (something the Arduino environment does not have today),” says Kibalo, a Washington, D.C.-area electrical engineer and Microchip academic partner. “In addition, as Arduino is open source, it allows developers an opportunity to port their code into a proprietary environment.”
What Kibalo says started out as a “modest exercise” expanded into his creating a core reference library.
“Your own reasons for using this approach will depend on your personal needs and background,” Kibalo says in his article. “Perhaps as a long-term Arduino user, you want to explore a new processor performance option with your existing Arduino code base. Or, you want to take advantage of or gain experience with the Microchip Technology advanced IDE tools and debug with your existing Arduino code. All of these goals are easily achieved using the approach and the beta library covered in this article.”
If you enjoy Kibalo’s latest article and find you want more, then read his two-part Circuit Cellar “robot boot camp” series: “Autonomous Mobile Robot (Part 1): Overview & Hardware” and “Autonomous Mobile Robot (Part 2): Software & Operation.”
| | | | | | | | EE TIP #128 | | Spotlight |  Op-Amp vs Comparator
Electronics professors and textbooks often discuss how to use an operational amplifier as a comparator. But in EE Tip 128, Michael Holzl explains why it can often be a poor choice.
At first glance, op-amps and comparators appear indistinguishable. But EE Tip 128 outlines some important differences:
The big difference, which is not apparent without looking at the circuit more closely, is that the output stages of operational amplifiers are designed for linear operation, with the general aim of amplifying the input signal with as little distortion as possible (assuming that some negative feedback is provided). But in the case of a comparator, the output circuit is designed to operate in saturation, that is, to switch between the upper and lower output voltage limits without the provision of external feedback. Comparators often also offer a ground connection in addition to the usual power connections, and provide digital logic levels at their outputs while accepting symmetrical analogue input signals.
What do these differences mean in practice? Comparators can react very quickly to changes in their input voltages with short propagation delays and output rise and fall times all specified by the manufacturer.
In contrast, because op-amps are not expected to be used in this mode, manufacturers tend not to give explicit specifications for propagation delay and rise and fall times (although they do normally specify slew rate), and these characteristics can be considerably poorer for op-amps than for comparators. To take an extreme example, a low-power op-amp might have a propagation delay measured in milliseconds, whereas a comparator might react in nanoseconds: a million times faster.
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| | | | | EMBEDDED SYSTEMS AND ELECTRONICS NEWS |  | Programmable Logic Controller Board
Triangle Research International’s SmartTILE (Smart TRi Integrated Logic Engine) is a programmable logic controller CPU board that plugs onto a carrier I/O board. The board integrates a 32-bit CPU, ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) and flash memory, a battery-backed real-time clock, and an Ethernet port on board. Its digital, analog, and serial I/O signals are brought to a user’s carrier board via three sets of header pins.
Continue reading... |  | Event, State, and Count Data Logger
DATAQ Instruments’s DI-160 is a stand-alone event, state, and count data logger that features four programmable measurement modes. The data logger enables you to determine when events occur, the total number of events, and the period of time in between events. It can count parts by monitoring a proximity sensor’s pulse output or gauge a machine’s downtime by monitoring AC power.
Continue reading... |  | A Chip to Link Your Smartphone and Automobile
Texas Instruments (TI) has introduced the SimpleLink CC2541-Q1 wireless microcontroller with built-in dual-mode Bluetooth (BL6450Q). It targets the emerging market of smartphone control and display of automobile systems using Bluetooth Smart technology.
Continue reading... |  | IoT Poses an Unprecedented Privacy Risk
Ubiquitous sensors, tell-tale Wi-Fi signals, and the roll-out of networked Internet of Things (IoT) devices have created a world in which controlling your personal data borders is almost impossible, concludes a White House report on Big Data. An electrical and computer engineering professor proposes privacy-aware design to prevent a future of total information awareness.
Continue reading... | | | | | ELEKTOR.LABS |  MCU-Based Universal Man-Machine Interface Module
Most basic circuits that include a microcontroller appear virtually identical, comprising the microcontroller, an LCD, and a few push buttons. This man-machine interface (MMI) module, which is built around an NXP Semiconductors LPC1343 microcontroller, presents a more universal approach that enables integrating several LCD types and a variable number of buttons.
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Inductance and Capacitance Meter using Microchip's PIC18F2550 connected to USB using HID class (Plug-n-Play). diagram using ...
