[Hardware] Orange Pi Zero2: Small, Powerful, Cost Effective

[HiTLeR]

From zero to hero

 

 

The world of single board computers (SBC) is dominated by the Raspberry Pi, but there are alternatives. The Orange Pi Zero2 is a $16 64-bit quad core Arm powered single board computer (SBC) and despite its diminutive size it has plenty of features. With enough power for multimedia, home servers and robotics projects using Ubuntu, Debian operating systems along with support for Android 10.

 

 

SoC – Allwinner H616 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali G31 MP2 GPU

 

Memory – 512MB or 1GB DDR3

Storage – MicroSD card slot

Wired Networking - Gigabit Ethernet

Wireless Networking - Dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 + Bluetooth 5.0

USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port, 2x USB 2.0 interfaces via 13-pin header

13-pin header with 2x USB, analog stereo audio output, CVBS video output, IR input, 3x GPIOs

26-pin IO header with I2C, SPI, UART, multiple GPIOs

Debugging – 3-pin UART header for serial console

Power Supply – USB Type-C port 5V

Dimensions – 2.3 x 2 inches (60 x 53 mm)

 

A quad core, 64-bit Arm Cortex A53 running at up to 1.5GHz powers the Orange Pi Zero2. A respectable amount of CPU power given the size. Add 512MB or 1GB of DDR3 RAM and support for 4K60 decoding (AVS2, H265/HEVC and VP9) and 4k30 decoding (H264) and Orange Pi Zero2 could be a powerful multimedia platform which can be easily embedded into a project such as kiosks, art installations and digital signage.

WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity is provided  via an Allwinner AW859A wireless module, an established module used in other devices such as the X96Q MAX. An external antenna will hopefully provide good connections.

There are a series of GPIO pins on the Orange Pi Zero2. The largest is the 26 pin IO header which serves as the main GPIO access point. Here we can make digital IO connections or use protocols such as I2C, SPI and UART. The GPIO is typically available via the terminal, where we can control and read the pin state as if the GPIO were a typical device. It is not known if the GPIO will be supported by other languages via packages and modules, for example on of the many forks of the RPi.GPIO Python package. This is one of the key differences between Raspberry Pi and other SBC. With the Pi we know that there will be support and documentation for key languages.

A 13 pin GPIO, next to the Ethernet port provides additional USB, analog audio, video output and three extra GPIO pins.