Samwise Makers' News
Saturday, June 20, 2026
Pine64 Launches $50 PineVoice RISC-V Smart Speaker for Home Assistant
Pine64 launched the PineVoice, a $50 open-hardware smart speaker built around the Bouffalo Lab BL606P RISC-V wireless microcontroller. The BL606P integrates Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, and Zigbee radio interfaces alongside a dual-core RISC-V CPU running at up to 320 MHz. Designed for local voice control with Home Assistant, PineVoice features a four-microphone array for far-field wake-word detection and a 3.5 mm audio jack for wired output. Pine64 is positioning the board as a privacy-respecting alternative to cloud-dependent smart speakers. The board ships with 8 MB of flash and runs a custom embedded Linux distribution, with community firmware support planned.
Sources: CNX Software
WLED 16 Brings GIF Playback, PixelForge Editor, and Particle System to LED Matrices
WLED 16 delivers the project’s most substantial feature release yet, bringing animated GIF playback directly to LED matrices. Alongside GIF support, the update introduces PixelForge, an in-browser toolbox for painting LEDs, creating frame-by-frame animations, and editing GIF content sized for addressable matrix displays. WLED 16 also ships a new Particle System powering effects including drifting sparks, motion trails, bursts, and flowing animations. Additional additions include full HUB75 panel support, DMX input, a custom font editor with scrolling text upgrades, and an expanded palette editor supporting over 100 custom palettes. The release is available on the WLED GitHub repository.
Sources: Adafruit Blog
Open-Source WEEDINATOR Agricultural Robot Reaches Field-Ready Milestone
The WEEDINATOR open-source agricultural robot, first featured on Hackaday in 2017, has reached a significant milestone: it now functions as an effective autonomous weed-management instrument in field conditions. The project uses a Raspberry Pi-based control system with GPS-guided navigation to traverse crop rows, and a mechanical weeding head that targets inter-row weeds without herbicides. The 2026 iteration incorporates improved motor controllers and a revised chassis for improved traction on uneven ground. Builder Pete Mendham has documented the full build on Hackaday.io, making the design reproducible for small-scale farmers and maker-agriculturalists looking to automate row crop maintenance.
Sources: Hackaday
Maker Etches PCBs Directly From Vintage Magazine Pages Using Toner Transfer
A maker has demonstrated the toner-transfer PCB fabrication method using circuit diagrams printed directly from a vintage electronics magazine, skipping the conventional laser-printer-to-glossy-paper workflow. The process lifts metallic ink traces from the magazine page onto copper-clad board using a clothes iron, then etches the board with ferric chloride. Results show clean single-sided boards suitable for simple analog circuits and through-hole components. The technique revives a pre-CAD era approach to rapid prototyping and highlights that functional PCBs can be produced without design software, a CNC router, or photoresist. Documentation and process photos are available on the Hackaday project page.
Sources: Hackaday
Raspberry Pi Pico Breathes New Life Into 1981 Epson HX-20 Laptop
A retrocomputing enthusiast has upgraded an Epson HX-20 — one of the world’s first laptop computers, introduced in 1981 — by replacing its original microcassette tape drive with a Raspberry Pi Pico acting as a solid-state emulator. The Pico presents itself to the HX-20 via the machine’s built-in serial interface, faithfully mimicking the timing and command set of the original Hitachi HD6301 tape drive controller. Storage is handled via a microSD card, giving the refurbished machine effectively unlimited capacity. The project required reverse-engineering the HX-20 tape protocol from period documentation and an oscilloscope trace. Full source code and wiring diagrams are published on Hackaday.
Sources: Hackaday
Matter 1.6 Specification Adds NFC Commissioning and AI Thermostat Suggestions
The Connectivity Standards Alliance has released Matter 1.6, adding NFC-based device commissioning as a headline feature. Under the new specification, users can commission Matter devices by tapping an NFC-enabled smartphone against the device rather than scanning a QR code or entering a setup code manually. The specification also introduces Thermostat Suggestions, enabling thermostats to offer AI-driven schedule recommendations, alongside a range of core protocol enhancements to improve interoperability between devices from different manufacturers. Matter 1.6 further refines the Energy Management cluster introduced in 1.3, giving home energy systems better reporting granularity. Device certification under the new spec is expected to begin in Q3 2026.
Sources: CNX Software
Million Measure Benchmark Charts Performance From WWII Colossus to Raspberry Pi 5
The Million Measure benchmark has become a community touchstone for comparing computing performance across radically different hardware generations, from the reconstructed World War II Colossus codebreaker to the Raspberry Pi 5. The benchmark executes one million loop iterations while recording elapsed time, producing a metric that scales consistently from electromechanical relays to modern ARM cores. Contributors have run it on ZX Spectrums, BBC Micros, Soviet MK-85 pocket computers, and Arduino Uno boards. Results are catalogued on a public spreadsheet revealing performance differences spanning twelve orders of magnitude. The project underscores how hobbyist benchmarking can create historically meaningful data sets.
Sources: Hackaday
Qualcomm Commits to Upstream-First Linux 2.0 for Dragonwing IoT Platforms
Qualcomm announced Qualcomm Linux 2.0, a significant philosophical reset for its Dragonwing IoT platform, committing to an upstream-first open development model. Under the new approach, all Dragonwing kernel patches will be submitted to mainline Linux before appearing in Qualcomm’s own SDK, reversing years of downstream-only development. The shift directly benefits makers and embedded developers who want to run community-maintained Linux builds on Dragonwing hardware such as the QRB5165 and QCS6490 SoCs without waiting for Qualcomm proprietary kernel releases. A Qualcomm Linux 2.0 SDK preview is available now, targeting robotics, industrial IoT, and edge AI applications. Full upstream support for initial Dragonwing SoCs is targeted for Linux 7.3.
Sources: CNX Software
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. Lumos Ultra — ~$4.6M raised — UV+MOPA laser machine (Kickstarter)
2. Revopoint POP 4 — ~$2.1M raised — handheld 3D scanner (Kickstarter)
3. CardputerZero — ~$1.4M raised — pocket Raspberry Pi maker computer (Kickstarter)
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. Fullive-AI/Anima — 1,391★ — open-source Agent OS for hardware/IoT
2. geo-tp/ESP32-Bit-Pirate — 3.9k★ — hardware hacking tool with web-based CLI
3. pikvm/pikvm — 9.5k★ — open-source IP-KVM based on Raspberry Pi
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Switzerland — June 20–21, 2026 — Switzerland
Maker Faire Bay Area (20th Anniversary) — Sept 25–27, 2026 — Mare Island, CA
Maker Faire Rome — Oct 23–25, 2026 — Rome, Italy
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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