Ever wanted to dabble in face and/or speech recognition? Espressif’sESP-EYE is a miniature ESP32-based development board that combines a digital microphone, ESP32 (of course) with 8 MB PSRAM and 4 MB flash, and a 2 megapixel camera. There’s a few buttons and LEDs as well for basic control and configuration.
Unlike some boards, this codebase does not require internet connectivity – you don’t have to send video or audio data to ‘the cloud’ – it’s all processed on-chip! The built in demo shows off what it can do:
Plug into a computer USB port and open up a serial port connection at 115,200 baud to the new serial port
Once the red LED is lit, activate the board with the watchword “Hi Lehshin” (in documents they spell it lexin, the x is pronounced as a shh sound)
The red LED will blink – then connect to the new Wi-Fi access point created
Open up a web browser to http://192.168.4.1/face_stream
Point the camera at faces to show off the recognition boxes! Video is about 2 frames per second, not super fast.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
