Blog

Based on the many different feature requests, we can finally release the new Ethernet Extension. The Customer wishes included PoE support, such that a whole stack of Bricks and Bricklets can be powered by an Ethernet cable. Another request was, that the Ethernet jack is on the Extension itself, a two-circuit-board solution was not desired. Since there is not much height available in the stack, most of the Ethernet jacks were out of the question. In the end we had to find a manufacturer that could produce a custom Ethernet jack for us, which supports PoE and has an acceptable height. This was one of the reasons for the long waiting time before the release.

But now it’s happening, the Ethernet Extension is available in the shop. It has an introductory price of 49.99€ (valid until June 30th).

The introductory price of 99.99€ (compared of the regular pice of 130.33€) will be extended until June 6th.

The magazines c’t Hardware Hacks and Elektor are reporting about the Starter Kit: Weather Station in their current issues. We extended the discount by two weeks (until June 6th). This will allow Elektor and c’t readers to still receive the introductory discount.

In response to many requests we have developed a small demo appplication for the weather station. It can be used to test the weather station after installation of Brickd.

The application implements three example projects. In the first example the measurements will simply be displayed on the LCD. The second one allows you to switch between different modes with the buttons of the LCD 20x4 Bricklet. It displays graphs, min, max and average values. The third project implementation can be configured to upload the measurements to Xively (Cosm).

For further information take a look at the documentation.

We got lots of positive feedback for the new “Starter Kit: Weather Station”. Many thanks for that!

But there were also a few improvement suggestions, mostly for the construction documentation. Based on your suggestions we changed it to a list style and added schematic images. We hope that the construction of the weather station is now easier.

Additionally we published a fun application for the push button extension. It lets you play a guitar on the weather station. Maybe you have developed similar applications. We look forward for your applications or other improvement suggestions!

With the Starter Kit: Weather Station we are able to introduce the first kit of the new Starter Kit series:

A plethora of information regarding the new Starter Kit: Weather Station is available in the documentation. We arranged a promotional discount in the tune of 30€. It is valid until May 1st!

Points of criticism for the old Starter Kit were the missing description of applications, assembly instructions and documentation. We want to counteract these points with a whole series of Starter Kits. The new Starter Kits will always have a specific application as well as instructions for assembly and for the usage of all of our supported programming languages.

The Idea is, that you can finish a whole project with the software and hardware as it is provided by the kit. It will however always be possible to add a whole range of modifications, extensions and improvements, so that the fun of tinkering doesn’t come short.

The old Starter Kit will be available in the shop for a while, but it will be completely replaced by the new Starter Kit series in the long run.