Espressif has launched a brand new improvement board based mostly on its ESP32-P4 system-on-chip — however, unusually, this one’s within the fashion of a compact digicam: the ESP32-P4-Eye.
“ESP32-P4-EYE is a imaginative and prescient improvement board based mostly on the ESP32-P4 chip, primarily concentrating on digicam functions,” Espressif explains of its newest launch, as if one glimpse at its kind issue could not reveal its supposed use-case. “Wealthy onboard options embody a digicam, show, microphone, and MicroSD card, enabling real-time monitoring of the surroundings and assortment of picture and audio knowledge. It’s appropriate for functions corresponding to good surveillance cameras, imaginative and prescient mannequin detection, and edge computing in IoT that require real-time picture processing and wi-fi communication.”
Espressif’s newest improvement board has a really application-specific kind issue: meet the ESP32-P4-EYE. (📷: Espressif)
The brand new improvement board, delivered to our consideration by CNX Software program, is constructed across the Espressif ESP32-P4 chip — a component Espressif introduced again in January 2023 however which was sluggish in coming to market. It options two 32-bit RISC-V processor cores working at as much as 400MHz and a low-power companion core working at as much as 40MHz, 768kB of static RAM (SRAM), and vector extensions designed to speed up on-device machine studying and synthetic intelligence (ML and AI) workloads. It additionally consists of different options tailor-made for video and imaginative and prescient work, together with a two-dimensional graphics accelerator and a imaginative and prescient processing unit for hardware-accelerated H.265 and JPEG encoding and decoding.
The place the corporate’s earlier improvement boards for the ESP32-P4 have taken a extra conventional design, the ESP32-P4-EYE is a digicam — actually, coming because it does with a case in a well-known in considerably outdated compact digicam kind issue. There is a 1.54″ 240×240 SPI-connected LCD on the rear and a two-megapixel digicam sensors to the entrance with handbook focus lens. There is a rotary encoder with push-switch operate accessible on the high of the case to manage a person interface, and a small lump that homes an LED serving as a primary flash and a digital microphone for audio.
The board consists of an ESP32-C6-MINI-1U as a communications coprocessor for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and IEEE 802.15.4. (📷: Espressif)
Contained in the housing, the event board consists of an ESP32-C6-MINI-1U module to function a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, and IEEE 802.15.4 communication coprocessor, 16MB of flash storage, and a 20-pin feminine enlargement header that breaks out unused general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) ports. There’s additionally a pair of buttons to the entrance, however do not anticipate both to seize a photograph: one is boot-select and the opposite reset. There is a microSD Card slot for storage, and two USB Kind-C ports, one USB On-The-Go (OTG) and one debug, for knowledge and energy — with assist for working from an inside battery, too.
The ESP32-P4-EYE is obtainable to order from Espressif’s AliExpress retailer now at $42 plus transport; extra info is obtainable on the corporate’s documentation web page.
