Piotr Pokryszka

POLAND
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Watch out Arduino, designer turns BeagleBone into a tiny IoT module

Now a group of German developers has brought BeagleBone up to date with a smaller module aimed at IoT device designs.

Step 1: Watch out Arduino, designer turns BeagleBone into a tiny IoT module

Now a group of German developers has brought BeagleBone up to date with a smaller module aimed at IoT device designs.

Step 1: Watch out Arduino, designer turns BeagleBone into a tiny IoT module

In the world of out-of-the-box design platforms open-source distributions are king.

Raspberry Pi may be grabbing the headlines and Arduino board may be developing a big following, but arguably the blueprint for the embedded design platform was created by TI’s BeagleBoard and BeagleBone boards.

Now a group of German developers has brought BeagleBone up to date with a smaller module aimed at IoT device designs.

Developer Martin Steger says they have shrunk the BeagleBone Black to a 49 x 32mm module, which is roughly one-third of the size of an original BBB.

And in keeping with the aims of open-source hardware, all hardware schematics, PCB layout, and BOM for the module called BeagleCore will be free to download, modify, and use.

There is also a software-suite called BeagleSuite that claims: “create your own IoT project without programming” and costs just €7.

The claim is that BeagleBone is seen as a fully supported professional development platform, unlike Raspberry Pi and even Arduino which are mainly focused on hobbyists.

The developers of BeagleCore want to tap into this professional design ecosystem and tune it to the world of IoT design.

Martin Steger writes:

“BeagleCore is completely compatible to BeagleBone – the programming remains the same. It provides the same pin-out which makes it possible to use the same software or even the same capes and extensions provided by BeagleBone Black.”

BeagleCore module and baseboard

The module which has a Texas Instruments AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 processor can be soldered onto almost any carrier board / baseboard. Thus developers can create their own boards with just the features and connectors needed for their projects.

Open source hardware is an important feature of BeagleCore. All specifications are freely accessible, even the reference design for a baseboard variant.

The BeagleCore project is looking for backing on the Kickstarter crowd-funding website.

Backers will get a BeagleCore module for €39. A module plus baseboard costs €99.