On Tuesday April 4th at 2:30 Eastern, Tom’s Hardware is hosting Rich LeGrand on their Pi Cast webcast. Rich will be showing off Charmed Labs’ Vizy camera and its capabilities. Pi Cast is a regular webcast and focuses on the latest and greatest in the Raspberry Pi universe. Be sure to tune in!

 

Hi Everybody,

Hope all is well on your end. We are happy to announce an improved Pixy version 2.1. Included in the new design:

Wider field-of-view — the previous Pixy version (2.0) had a 60 degree horizontal field-of-view. The new version has an 80 degree field-of-view. Most users want the larger field of view because of the ability to see more of the environment per image. There is some spherical distortion with the new lens, which comes with the wider field-of-view.

Replaceable lens — the M12 lens mount allows you to substitute a different lens if you wish

Adjustable focus — the M12 lens has an adjustable focus that allows focusing on objects at practically any distance, including as close as 0.25”.

Less chromatic distortion — the new lens has virtually no chromatic distortion at the edges, whereas the previous Pixy version had a small amount of chromatic distortion.

Less pixel noise — the new lens has an F-stop of 2.0 vs the previous lens which had an F-stop of over 3.0. This means better light gathering ability, more signal and less noise for a given amount of ambient light. Less noise means better detection accuracy for this new Pixy version.

Everything else about Pixy 2.1 is the same — software, firmware and feature set. Pixy 2.1 is slightly larger, however, adding 0.25 inches to the height and depth of the camera versus Pixy 2.0. And while our cost has increased, we are keeping the distribution and retail cost exactly the same for Pixy 2.1.

Expect to see this new version of Pixy in stock soon with our distributors.

Thank you!

Exciting news – we just launched a new product on Kickstarter! It’s called Vizy, and it’s a powerful, easy-to-use use AI vision platform, built around Raspberry Pi.

Vizy can help defend your birdfeeder from squirrels, explore the physics of everyday objects, show you the wonders of space from the comfort of your own couch, and much more!

What makes Vizy special is a combination of custom hardware, a sleek Python-programmable web interface, and a variety of included programs that make it easy to do cool things like identify 20 different bird species, read text, capture the motion of moving objects, remote control telescopes, etc. etc.

Want to learn more? Check out our campaign!

We’re on the edge of our seats waiting for the HoverGames Challenge winners to be announced!

Put on by NXP and Hackster.io, the challenge pairs individuals and teams with a custom drone development kit, which (for 100 lucky participants who win a hardware coupon) includes a Pixy2 camera for object recognition. The goal is to figure out novel ways to assist firefighting crews – delivering supplies, scanning fires for hot spots, or something else.

Good luck to the teams and to the judges! We are happy to see our technology being used to build a healthier and more resilient world.

What’s this? Only the fastest line following robot in the world!

Congratulations to Giannos Eleftheriou and the Neapolis U crew for another win, this time at the XII Robotic Arena in Poland – first and second place in the Line Following Turbo category!

Check out the video before for the mind-bogglingly fast final run. Pixy2 onboard! Look for a research paper soon.

https://www.facebook.com/242722736619555/posts/485746838983809/

Hello Pixy fans! We are excited to share that we have been invited to join the digital realms of sellers on Walmart.com – so Pixy2 and its Pan/Tilt base are now available at Walmart online with free shipping in the US!

Check them out here: Pixy2 and Pan/Tilt2