Blog

We just got a big delivery of our newest production panel. It contains 25 different Bricklets, including many new 2.0 Bricklets that replace their predecessors. With the E-Paper 296x128 Bricklet we also have a brand new Bricklet on the panel. We now have converted nearly all Bricklets to the new 7 pole connector.

The panel contains the following new Bricklets:

• CO2 Bricklet 2.0
• Hall Effect Bricklet 2.0
• Piezo Speaker 2.0
• Linear Poti Bricklet 2.0
• Joystick Bricklet 2.0
• Laser Range Finder Bricklet 2.0
• RGB LED Bricklet 2.0
• Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet 2.0
• E-Paper 296x128 Bricklet

The blog entry is split in two parts, today we will introduce half of the new Bricklets.

Many of you already have waited for the new CO2 Bricklet 2.0. It has a new and improved sensor and is also less expensive compared to the old one. The new Bricklet can measure CO2 concentration from 400ppm up to 10000ppm (parts per million) and it has an accuracy of ±30ppm (whole range) and ±3% (value). It measures temperature and humidity for compensation. Additionally it is possible to set the current barometric pressure value for further calibration.

Our new RGB LED Bricklet 2.0 has a new brighter LED and an interesting new feature: The luminance output of the LED is corrected for human light perception with accordance to CIE 1931. This means that for every color a fade from off to full brightness (value 0 to 255) will appear to be a smooth color gradient to the human eye.

The Piezo Speaker Bricklet 2.0 can be used if you like it loud. In comparison to the predecessor the new Bricklet has a notably bigger buzzer with more power and more features. If you thought the old Bricklet was too quite, you will not be disappointed with the new Bricklet. You can use a configurable frequency range from 50Hz to 15000Hz. The API directly has support for alarm/siren sounds. It can sweep through a frequency range with configurable range, step size and duration. The volume can be controlled with a sound pressure level range of 85dB(A) to 110dB(A).

The new Linear Poti Bricklet 2.0 and Joystick Bricklet 2.0 have a co-processor, a status LED as well as a 7 pole connector. They replace their respective predecessors.

In the next blog entry we will introduce the Laser Range Finder Bricklet 2.0, RGB LED Bricklet 2.0, Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet 2.0 as well as the brand new E-Paper 296x128 Bricklet.

In cooperation with Netways we developed a new and bigger Server Room Monitorning Kit. The result looks great!

Because of the bigger enclosure the kit is more flexible than ever. It is now possible to use up to 8 PTC Bricklets and mount them in the enclosure.

Cooperation with Netways:

Netways has a team of 60 employees, they describes themselves as follows:

"For more than 20 years, the NETWAYS Group has been supporting companies in monitoring and automating their infrastructure and software components based on open source."

Netways has developed a plugin for the kit and the kit is available in the Netways shop: https://shop.netways.de/produkt-kategorie/ueberwachung/hersteller/tinkerforge/

We just released the new Accelerometer Bricklet 2.0.

Compared to the old Accelerometer Bricklet it of course is one of the new 7-pole connector Bricklets with co-processor.

Additionally it has a maximum data rate of up to 25.6 kHz! To be able to transfer this amount of data we implemented a continuous acceleration streaming API. It will create a stream of acceleration data that uses the full size of the packages in the Tinkerforge Protocol. The data rate is high enough to calculate a FFT on it to see specific frequencies in the vibrations.

As a test we taped an Accelerometer Bricklet 2.0 to a stepper motor. We looked at the FFT at different speeds and it is very easy to see the current revolutions/min in the FFT. By adding some imbalance to the axle we could observe the FFT changing significantly.

The Bricklet does of course still have a simple getAcceleration() API like the predecessor. Additionally you should only use a data rate that is as high as you need it to be, since the noise increases significantly with high data rates.

As a side note: We were out of Humidity Bricklet 2.0, PTC Bricklet 2.0 and Ambient Light Bricklet 2.0. They are now all in stock again (Ambient Light Bricklet 2.0 was replaced by Ambient Light Bricklet 3.0) and all backorders will be shipped today/tomorrow.

For Christmas we released a beta version of our new Go API Bindings.

These are now officially released. You can find the the documentation on our homepage: https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/doc/Software/API_Bindings_Go.html.

If you don't know Go yet and want to see what it looks like, take a look at the Sound Pressure Level Bricklet examples: https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/doc/Software/Bricklets/SoundPressureLevel_Bricklet_Go.html#examples

Additionally you can now try out the first beta version of our new MQTT API Bindings.

There is a forum entry with more information about the beta release: https://www.tinkerunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4736.0.html

If you don't know MQTT yet: It is not a programming language, but a protocol that works on a publish/subscribe basis. It can often be used with cloud services or in IoT applications without the need to do any programming. We already had the "Brick MQTT Proxy", but it was completely hand-written, only sporadically updated and also did only support a subset of Bricks/Bricklets and a subset of the functionality.

The MQTT API Bindings on the other hand are completely generated, like the other API Bindings. If a new Brick/Bricklet or API function is released, the MQTT API Bindings will automatically be updated and support the new features. They are the very first non-programming language API Bindings. We also have support for more API Bindings in the pipeline, stay tuned!

We got a brad new kit: The Tabletop Weather Station.

It is based on the new Air Quality Bricklet and the touch capable LCD 128x64 Bricklet and it comes with a cute laser-cut enclosure that is available in four colors.

Optionally you can add the Outdoor Weather Bricklet with a wireless outdoor weather station or additional wireless temperature/humidity sensors.

A complex demo application that utilizes the touch screen and writes the measured data into a sqlite database is available as download for Linux, MacOS and Windows.

The demo application is written in Python and based on "screens" that the user can go through with tabs at the bottom of the LCD. We made sure that it is easy to add your own custom screens to the application. Below you can find some screens that are by default included in the demo application: