Seeed Unveils Its First Raspberry Pi-powered Human-Machine Interface Device
Hey community,
Please welcome the newest member of our reThings product family (rePhone, reSpeaker, reComputer). Let’s meet our first Raspberry Pi-powered industrial human-machine interface (HMI) device, reTerminal. Aiming at bringing the next generation of HMI, reTerminal is fully-featured, designed, and certified for IoT developers to build industrial applications based around the Raspberry Pi® Compute Module 4 (CM4), ready to deploy to unlock endless scenarios at the edge.
HMI usually refers to the user interface, the dashboard that connects a person to a machine, or a system in industries. Traditionally, HMIs are stand-alone, isolated terminals as a part of a machine that are deployed by OEMs. As IoT is influencing the way all the connected devices operate with a dramatic increase in the amount of data and vertical connectivity, future HMIs must offer intuitive extensibility for developers to apply AI and machine learning algorithms at the edge. In this way it can learn from all the data generated from sensors and adapt to the ongoing behavior of the operator.
Expected to be available for pre-order in late April, reTerminal will be a future ready HMI device in a compact form factor with the dimensions of 140x95x21mm. With an industrial integrated design, reTerminal is durable and resistant to environmental contaminants in real-world scenarios. As an HMI device, it features a 5-inch, 1280×720 capacitive touchscreen with a 5-point multi-touch. It also comes with a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 with 4GB RAM and 32GB eMMC mounted on a true industrial-grade carrier board. It supports an embedded Linux Debian operating system with all the drivers installed on board, which ensures that every hardware feature is readily available for any standard development tool.
“With the great open-source ecosystem dedicated to the Raspberry Pi, we are launching reTerminal to enable IoT developers to transform their Raspberry Pi-based projects and solutions into real-world industrial use,” comments Albert Miao, CTO at Seeed.
reTerminal is small in form factor but offers robust capabilities and extensibility designed for further development in vertical industrial scenarios. It has wireless connectivity with dual-band 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 BLE. This device has security features such as a cryptographic co-processor with secure hardware-based key storage. It features built-in modules including an accelerometer, light sensor, and a Real-Time Clock (RTC). reTerminal has a Gigabit Ethernet Port for fast and uninterrupted network connections and also has dual USB 2.0 Type-A ports.
re_Terminal consists of a high-speed expansion interface and rich I/O for greater expandability. The 40-pin Raspberry Pi compatible header on the reTerminal opens it for a wide range of IoT applications. Furthermore, various extensions can be added to the product, by choosing it in the optional modules section including mic array/speaker, camera, LoRaWAN, 5G/4G, POE. All components and ports are surface-mounted on two sides, making the resulting assembly slim and good for surface-mount applications.
When explaining the slogan of reTerminal, “The Next Generation of Human-Machine-Interface with You”, Eric Pan, Founder of Seeed, adds: “Instead of a better HMI, Seeed wishes to offer a solid base for UX and machine learning experts to enchant the traditional machines with the latest productivity. By continuous growing hardware extensions and software partnerships, Seeed hopes to create an open collaborative ecosystem to redefine terminals.”
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