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Working notes &
field dispatches

Essays on edge AI, embedded Linux, and the teaching of both. Published when experiments settle and the bench is clean.

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Under the Hood of the Arduino UNO Q: Vanilla Zephyr on the Cortex-M33 Arduino

Under the Hood of the Arduino UNO Q: Vanilla Zephyr on the Cortex-M33

Part three of the UNO Q series removes the App Lab, Arduino core, sketch loader and just uses west, a devicetree, and our own Zephyr firmware on the board's STM32U585, driving the 13x8 LED matrix through Zephyr's display API with grayscale functionality.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 30, 2026 · 50 min read
How Charlieplexing works: an interactive demo Embedded

How Charlieplexing works: an interactive demo

Eleven pins, 104 LEDs, and a scan you can slow down until the trick falls apart. An interactive walkthrough of the Arduino UNO Q's charlieplexed matrix, built from the board's own devicetree.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 29, 2026 · 28 min read
The OpenMV AE3: A Time-of-Flight Doorman for the NPU OpenMV

The OpenMV AE3: A Time-of-Flight Doorman for the NPU

Part two of the OpenMV series shrinks the board and the power to a quarter of a watt, while running YOLO. Built on Alif's Ensemble E3 with two Cortex-M55s and two Ethos-U55 NPUs, the AE3 also carries something its bigger sibling does not, a VL53L8CX 8x8 ToF depth sensor.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 26, 2026 · 42 min read
The OpenMV N6: A MicroPython Camera with a Real NPU OpenMV

The OpenMV N6: A MicroPython Camera with a Real NPU

The OpenMV N6 pairs an 800 MHz Cortex-M55 with ST's 600-GOPS Neural-ART NPU and a removable global-shutter camera, and MicroPython - YOLO object detection at 30 fps, in Python, under a watt. We tour the hardware properly, walk through setup, and build a people-counting application on the NPU.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 24, 2026 · 25 min read
A Real Dual-Brain Application on the Arduino UNO Q: an AI Brick, a Camera, and a Presence Lamp Arduino

A Real Dual-Brain Application on the Arduino UNO Q: an AI Brick, a Camera, and a Presence Lamp

Part two of the UNO Q series puts the board's dual-brain design to real work - a vision AI Brick on the Linux side detects a person through a camera, and the microcontroller side turns that into a smoothly breathing lamp that never stutters, no matter how hard the AI is working.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 22, 2026 · 19 min read
Getting to Know the Arduino UNO Q: Two Brains, One Board, and Zephyr Underneath Arduino

Getting to Know the Arduino UNO Q: Two Brains, One Board, and Zephyr Underneath

The Arduino UNO Q pairs a quad-core Linux processor with a real-time STM32 microcontroller on one UNO-shaped board, and quietly runs Zephyr where the classic Arduino runtime used to be. This guide takes an engineer's look at the architecture.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 21, 2026 · 30 min read
The State of Rust for Embedded Development in Mid-2026 Rust

The State of Rust for Embedded Development in Mid-2026

A survey of where Rust stands for embedded and edge development in mid-2026, from bare-metal async on microcontrollers to services on embedded Linux, including the toolchain, the safety-certification story, the wireless gaps, and measurements from this blog's own boards.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 15, 2026 · 13 min read
From TinyML to Tiny Language Models: the State of Edge AI in 2026 Edge-AI

From TinyML to Tiny Language Models: the State of Edge AI in 2026

A field guide to state-of-the-art edge AI in 2026, covering the models that now run on small devices, the neural accelerators that make them possible, and federated learning, grounded in the low-cost hardware used throughout this blog.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 10, 2026 · 20 min read
The Zephyr Web Server, Now in C++: Classes for Embedded Hardware Zephyr

The Zephyr Web Server, Now in C++: Classes for Embedded Hardware

A short follow-on from the Zephyr Thread web server guide, rebuilding the same project in C++ on the Seeed XIAO nRF52840, and adding the RGB LED and the on-die temperature sensor to show why classes suit Zephyr hardware so well.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 06, 2026 · 22 min read
A Zephyr Web Server on the Seeed XIAO nRF52840, over Thread (C/C++) Zephyr

A Zephyr Web Server on the Seeed XIAO nRF52840, over Thread (C/C++)

In an earlier guide we built a tiny web server on an ESP32-C3 in async Rust, using Embassy. A browser could connect over Wi-Fi,

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 03, 2026 · 34 min read
A Low-Cost Thread Border Router: ESP32-C6-WROOM as an OpenThread RCP for Home Assistant in Docker ESP32

A Low-Cost Thread Border Router: ESP32-C6-WROOM as an OpenThread RCP for Home Assistant in Docker

Thread is the low-power IPv6 mesh that underpins most Matter smart-home devices, and to use it you need a Thread Border Router (a bridge

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jul 01, 2026 · 20 min read
An Async Wi-Fi Web Server on the ESP32-C3 with Embassy and no_std Rust Rust

An Async Wi-Fi Web Server on the ESP32-C3 with Embassy and no_std Rust

This guide explains how Embassy ties an ESP32-C3 Wi-Fi web server together. It assumes you are comfortable with basic Rust (ownership, traits, match) but new to embedded async.

Derek Molloy Derek Molloy · Jun 28, 2026 · 23 min read