This story first appeared in our sister Site, Digital World Native.
Well, guess what? What was once the world’s smallest computer, Raspberry Pi, is already passe. Though it was one of the pioneers in the small computer space, it’s now being challenged by the HummingBoard.
The HummingBoard micro-computer is a product of a company called SolidRun, founded by Kossay Omary & Rabeeh Khoury, who have worked for over a decade & half in global embedded companies like Marvell. The 85mm by 56mm HummingBoard is indeed very tiny yet powerful ARM-based development platform aimed at almost everyone – students, hobbyists, developers, & those who make applications for the Internet Of Things (IoT).
But even though it cost US $10 more than the Raspberry Pi, it has more power under its hood. The latter has only a 700Mhz ARMv6 processor, the HummingBoard has a 1GHz ARMv7 processor. It’s also scalable to dual core, a feature that the Raspberry does not support.
There are currently 3 models available: The Single Core (HB-i1), the Dual Core (HB-i2) & the eXtreme Dual Core (HB-i2eX). For more details, see here.
The HummingBoard allows you to run many open source operating systems such as Ubuntu, Debian & Arch, as well as Android & XBMC. With its core technology based on SolidRun’s state-of-the-art Micro System on a Module (MicroSOM), it has ready-to-use OS images, while its open hardware comes with full schematics & layout. Further, as a Linux single board computer, the HummingBoard is backed by the global digital maker community, which means you can alter the product in any way you like and get full kernel upstreaming support and all the assistance you need.
Here’s a video on the HummingBoard:
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