New Product Discoveries - Sensirion's SEK-SGP30 Eval Kit and XMOS' VocalFusion 4-Mic Kit

Evaluating new products is an integral part of being an engineer or maker. Whether it’s a new sensor, microcontroller, or even a connector – testing the product and exploring the features to ensure it fits your project is a must do prior to design-in. Today I have two evaluation platforms for some exciting new products from Sensirion and XMOS.

Sensirion AG is a well-known manufacturer of gas detector sensors. The SEK-SGP30 is an evaluation kit for one such sensor. The SGP30 is an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) sensor that’s typical application is (as the name suggests) sensing the quality of air indoors. With more and more time being spent indoors it’s important to keep an eye on the amount of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the ambient air which can be much higher indoors as opposed to out. VOCs can be released from a variety of household products that have the potential to have adverse health effects short- or long-term. By having the ability to monitor and report the varying levels of VOCs, you can ensure a safe environment inside a factory, lab, or warehouse.

This kit contains a SensorBridge, two of the SGP30 sensors, and three humidity/temperature sensors on Flex PCBs allowing for a plug-and-play set up. Additionally, the ControlCenter viewer software gives you the ability to quickly measure and see your results. Scott wrote up a great companion piece on this kit which details information on the sensors included.

The second evaluation platform I have for you today comes from XMOS. The xCORE VocalFusion 4-Mic Kit for Amazon AVS gives designers the opportunity to explore far-field voice interfacing utilizing the Amazon Alexa Voice Service. When it comes to developing voice control applications at a distance (up to several meters) designers can run into many obstacles, including isolation, noise, and direction. This kit specializes in full-duplex echo cancellation and noise suppression, dramatically improving voice command recognition. By combining a Raspberry Pi with this kit you’ll have everything you need to start developing and interfacing with Alexa. One of our Application Technicians, Curtis, explains this kit in detail with instructions on installing and running Raspbian and Amazon AVS in his blog post.

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