UP at New York Maker Faire 2016

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UP Press Release: New York Maker Faire 2016

WORLD MAKER FAIRE, NEW YORK, Oct 2 2016
It all began with this question:
“Is it possible to have a high performance x86 embedded board for prototypes and ready for mass production, in a tiny form factor and with a reasonable price?”
The answer was a firm YES!

UP board is a project that was launched on Kickstarter in October 2015. It is a tiny credit card sized board aimed at professional makers. UP is powered by an Intel® Atom™ x5 Quad-Core 1.33/1.84Ghz 64 bit CPU (Cherry Trail), with 1GB/2GB/4GB RAM, 16GB/32GB/64GB eMMC, 40 GP-bus expansion, 4 x USB 2.0, USB 3.0 OTG, Ethernet, HDMI, DSI and Intel hardware security features on one board.

During its Kickstarter campaign, it not only exceeded funding but also received substantial orders after the campaign, even though the board was not mass-produced yet. Similar to all Kickstarter projects, the UP board had its fair share of challenges along the way. Together with a brilliant UP team, the hurdles were overcome and orders started being fulfilled from May 2016. To date, the UP board can be shipped to most countries within 7 days after placing an order.

Since its inception, the UP board has partnered with varied companies, such as EnOcean, Altera, Predixion, Pi2 Design and Rex Control, to bring the widest range of applications to its users. Many professional makers love the idea of customization, the kind that the UP board offers, for their ODM projects. This is a great indicator that the UP board meets the market expectation. With this kind of support, the UP team maintains the momentum to continue innovating and moving forward!

UP in the US

Since we launched the Kickstarter campaign, many backers from the United States have embraced the UP board. 40% of our UP Shop customers are American. This is one of the biggest reasons why we are bringing UP to the US! Not only is USA the home of makers and the UP board is designed for professional makers, but we have also heard all the suggestions and compliments from our makers at the Faire on how they would like to use their UP board in their projects. We are elated to hear all the unique types of applications that makers have thought of thus far!

Live Demo at the Faire

At the faire, the UP booth boasted a variety of live demo’s which featured Smart Home, LoRA, KODI and RealSense person-tracking. Our smart home demo house has a range of different sensors installed within, giving the audience a great live demonstration of how a smart home operates. Ranging from motion detection to temperature and lighting control, just to name a few.
Once you open the door of the demo house, you trigger a contact sensor installed at the door, this will send the signal back to the UP board, after which you can see the real-time status on your smart phone or tablet. Home devices can also be easily controlled directly from your mobile phone.

Besides short range transmission protocol, with a 40-pin GP-bus, the UP board allows for a long range transmission protocol, such as LoRa. We presented a LoRa gateway built by UP board at the Maker Faire to celebrate its first release. This will be available at the UP Shop for purchase very soon.
Of course, we did not forget the makers favourite gadget KODI. We showed a perfect example of how to integrate your UP board with KODI, a case from one of our user’s. This is placed next to your television.

Last but not the least, the UP team proudly presented the Person Tracking demo with the Intel RealSense Robotic Development Kit. The RealSense camera R200 works perfectly with the UP board whether you use it with either Windows or Ubuntu.

UP2 (UP-square)

With a great deal of anticipation, the team showed the prototype of the next generation of UP to some media. A comprehensive specification will be released with the Kickstarter campaign at midnight of 31st October. Watch this space for UP2 (UP-square) !

About UP Bridge the Gap

UP is a platform designed for makers who intend to rapidly UPscale their prototyped ideas into mass produced solutions. Building on some of the best capabilities of existing maker boards in the market today, UP bridges the gap between the world of prototypes and the world of high-grade mass-produced embedded systems solutions.
UP is powered by an Intel® Atom™ x5-8350 Quad-Core 1.4/1.92Ghz 64 bit CPU with 1GB/2GB/4GB RAM, 16GB/32GB/64 eMMC, 40 GPIO expansion driven by Altera Max V CPLD, 6 USB 2.0, USB 3.0 OTG, Gbit Ethernet, HDMI, DSI, and MIPI-CSI interface.
Designed to embrace as many software developer communities as possible, UP supports Ubilinux (a customized Debian distribution), Yocto, Ubuntu, and Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.
UP users will be supported by an online community where tutorials and pro-active support forums are available. The community also provides professional service where volume quantities of UP boards, including customized derivatives, can be requested and produced. www.up-community.org.
For more information about UP, please visit our website www.up-board.org
UP is available starting from 89$ at www.up-shop.com

Media contact :
Aling Wu
aling@up-board.org