Welcome to the latest edition of the VoltJots newsletter, linking you to the very best electronics and IoT news, products, and projects.

Hope you enjoy! Until next week,

VoltJots

Build an AI agent that runs fully offline on an Arduino UNO Q, letting you type plain English commands that control hardware instantly without any cloud or API keys. The board’s Linux side runs a language model that sends simple instructions to the microcontroller, so new behaviours happen right away without re-flashing.

Using an ESP32 and free ADS-B data from online APIs, this project displays real-time aircraft positions with a rotating radar sweep on a 7" screen. It shows detailed info like aircraft type, speed, and altitude, while listing detected planes by distance on the side.

By hosting a web server on one ESP32, you can send ESP-NOW commands to two other ESP32 boards to control specific GPIO pins. The server displays toggle switches for each board’s GPIOs, sending commands addressed by MAC and only confirming changes when the messages get through.

This pocket-sized Bluetooth macro keyboard runs on the nRF52840 and lets you start voice typing, open chats, submit prompts, and toggle your mic with simple button presses to keep your coding flow.

Measuring just 19.1 by 17.6mm, the M5Stamp-C5 USB-C board runs an ESP32-C5 with WiFi 6 and Zigbee, offers up to 19 GPIO pins via headers and FPC, supports 3.7V battery charging, and includes an external IPEX antenna since it lacks a built-in one.

Instead of juggling phones and SIM cards, try virtual numbers and SMS APIs to quickly test SMS verification flows like OTP receipt and code entry. This approach handles most test cases efficiently, leaving physical SIM testing for the last stage to confirm real network behaviour.

Researchers at NTU Singapore ave developed ultra-thin perovskite solar cells that are highly efficient, with the possibility of enabling any glass surface to generate electricity while staying clear.

This project transforms a Fender 10G practice amp cabinet into a Bluetooth speaker with an internal rechargeable battery and USB-C charging. Using DSP, it offers cardioid or omnidirectional output, room compensation for bass and treble, and a bass boost that automatically limits distortion at higher volumes.

The Forgix board merges a Trion T8 FPGA and RP2354 dual-core MCU with built-in flash, all powered via USB-C. This guide walks you through preparing the RP2354 environment, programming FPGA logic blocks, and creating a MicroPython interface for seamless interaction between the FPGA and microcontroller.

Check out this article outlining a five-step solution involving temperature monitoring, peak current logging, power profile smoothing, temperature-aware firmware adjustments, and selecting batteries specifically designed for cold-weather operation.

The AOI function combines multiple AND operations, sums them with an OR, and inverts the final output. This three-level logic circuit efficiently handles complex Boolean sums of products like AB + CD before outputting the inverted result.

The DEEPX AI HAT is an AI acceleration board that fits on Raspberry Pi 5 systems. It embeds an ultra-low-power neural processor to run AI models locally, enabling real-time edge AI applications without relying on cloud servers, ideal for power-limited setups.

Developers can now use Microchip’s MPLAB XC Pro compilers and embedded AI tools without any cost or installation limits, thanks to a new licensing model covering their microcontroller and microprocessor devices.

Find out how to safely add your application code inside STM32CubeIDE’s generated files so that tweaking pin or config settings won’t wipe out your work.

Thanks for subscribing and reading. If, however, you are not a subscriber, and you would like to receive this newsletter in your inbox, then hit the subscribe button now — it’s free, and you can unsubscribe any time you like.