Open {hardware} specialist PINE64 has introduced a shock new system: the PineCam, a community digicam system that serves because the successor to the corporate’s earlier PineCube.
“Whereas the PineCube didn’t obtain the success the mission had hoped for, we consider it wasn’t because of a scarcity of curiosity in such {hardware}, however relatively the way in which it was executed,” explains PINE64’s Lukasz Erecinski of the PineCam’s predecessor. “We have gathered suggestions, realized from what went flawed, and have gone again to the drafting board. This time, the PineStore have determined to take a special strategy, utilizing a system-on-chip (SoC) already in our {hardware} line-up. The system consists of extra RAM (in comparison with the PineCube’s 128MB), and makes use of a digicam interface that ‘simply works.'”
PINE64 has unveiled the PineCam, a sensible community digicam constructed round Sophgo’s SG2000 system-on-chip. (📷: PINE64)
The brand new PineCam’s {hardware} is predicated on the corporate’s Oz64 single-board laptop (SBC), utilizing the identical Sophgo SG2000 system-on-chip — giving it two T-Head XuanTie C906 RISC-V cores, one operating at 1GHz and one at 700MHz, plus an Arm Cortex-A53 core operating at 1GHz, a tensor processor for on-device machine studying with a claimed 0.5 tera-operations per second (TOPS) efficiency at INT8 precision, and a microcontroller core based mostly on the venerable Intel 8051 structure.
To this, PINE64 has added 512MB of RAM — sufficient, the corporate says, to run a full Linux-based working system, comparable to MotionEyeOS, straight on-device — and a GalaxyCore GC02M2 two megapixel digicam. This, unusually, connects to the host by way of a MIPI Digital camera Serial Interface (CSI) to USB provider board — that means it may be disconnected from the PineCam mainboard and used as a generic USB webcam. There’s infrared LEDs for night-vision use, an built-in microphone and speaker, and user-accessible general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins that match the Oz64’s pinout.
The PineCam is predicated on the Oz64 single-board laptop, sharing the identical system-on-chip and GPIO pinout. (📷: PINE64)
“The PineCam is at the moment in early prototyping phases, with the plastic physique and ultimate PCB having simply arrived in current weeks,” Erecinski writes. “Nonetheless, the {hardware} is taking form rapidly and the printed circuit board meeting stage is at the moment on monitor for across the finish of October. The primary batch can be making its solution to builders quickly. The PineStore hasn’t zeroed-in on a worth level simply but, however the system will price lower than $30 upon launch.”
Extra data is obtainable within the PINE64 November 2024 group replace, together with information of its involvement with YuzujiHD within the Avaota-A1 single-board laptop mission unveiled again in April.