ANAVI Flex is an open source hardware Raspberry Pi HAT (add-on board) for rapid prototyping of Internet of Things (IoT) powered by free and open source software. It features:
- IR transmitter (IR LED)
- IR receiver (IR photo sensor)
- Relay
- Piezoelectric speaker (buzzer)
- Button
- RGB LED
- Slot for modular 16x2 LCD character display
- Slots for up to 5 plug and play I2C sensors for temperature, barometric pressure, humidity and light
- UART (Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter) pins for debugging
The project was brought to life through a crowdfunding campaign in IndieGoGo. You can still order it at Tindie.
ANAVI Flex started as a small hobby project by Leon Anavi in November 2015. Initially the project was using off the shelf components but soon after that Leon decided to create his own Raspberry Pi HAT for easy IoT prototyping.
Inspired by Olimex and Tsvetan Uzunov's presentations about open source hardware at FOSDEM and Hackaday Belgrade, Leon insisted on using the free and open source electronics design automation suite KiCAD for the PCB design. In April 2016, the software engineer Leon bought his first soldering iron from Olimex and started working on the first hardware prototypes.
Designing PCB requires a lot of hardware skills and experience so Leon needed help. It was not easy to find a suitable hardware engineer familiar with KiCAD. After making a lot of contacts and speaking to various engineers finally Leon found the right people. Thanks to the PCB manufacturing services of OSH Park the first PCB prototypes were ready at the end of June 2016.
As expected the first version was far from perfect. There were a few bugs which were quickly fixed. The next hardware revision and a small-run batch was ready in August 2016. It featured a new buzzer, a new button and a potentiometer for controlling the light and contrast of the LCD display module.
In September 2016, after a lot of hard work, the first version of the user's manual of ANAVI Flex was released with open source examples written in Python and the C programming language.
In October 2016 first prototypes of ANAVI Flex were shipped to developers and bloggers. Another hardware revision with minor improvements was made and a small quantity of ANAVI Flex Raspberry Pi HATs was released on sale and quickly went out of stock in Tindie.
On 1 November 2016 ANAVI Flex crowdfunding campaign was launched in IndieGoGo. In 2017 the project was renamed from RabbitMax to ANAVI. The crowdfunding campaing was successful and all perks were shipped on time. Now can still order ANAVI Flex HAT at Tindie.
The project is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Note: This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license.
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation. No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
You will have to provide a link to the original creator of the project http://www.anavi.technology on any documentation or website.
Credit can be attributed through a link to the creator website: http://www.anavi.technology