New Hardware: Lunar Lake Shrinks Down, a $39 RISC-V KVM, and a Handheld Electronics Lab

LattePanda has fit Intel's Lunar Lake architecture onto a credit-card-sized compute module rated for up to 115 TOPS of combined AI performance. JetKVM has gone in another direction, building a $39 remote-management KVM around an ESP32-P4X. And FREE-WILi 2 may be the oddest of the bunch: multiple microcontrollers, an FPGA, and a Linux computer, all crammed into one handheld tool.

LattePanda's original Mu brought the compute-module format, long associated with Arm SBCs, to x86 hardware. The new Mu Ultra is a significant jump forward.

Instead of an Intel N100 or Core i3-N305, the Mu Ultra comes with either a Core Ultra 5 226V or Core Ultra 7 256V, bringing Intel's Lunar Lake architecture to a module measuring just 60 × 69.6mm.

The Core Ultra 7 configuration gets eight CPU cores running at up to 4.8GHz, an Intel Arc 140V GPU with eight Xe cores, and an Intel AI Boost NPU rated at up to 47 TOPS. Combine the CPU, GPU, and NPU, and LattePanda rates the module at up to 115 TOPS of INT8 compute.

There's also 16GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory built directly onto the module, with as much as 11.6GB allocatable as graphics memory. That's enough headroom to experiment with smaller local language models alongside other workloads.

Unlike a typical mini PC, the Mu Ultra isn't meant to stand alone. It connects to a carrier board, allowing developers to build its CPU, GPU, NPU, and memory into their own hardware designs.

LattePanda backs that up with plenty of I/O. The module exposes PCIe 4.0, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 connections, six USB 2.0 interfaces, UART, I2C, GPIO, and display interfaces supporting up to three independent displays.

Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04 or later are officially supported, along with local AI tools including OpenVINO, llama.cpp, and Ollama.

LattePanda is pitching the Mu Ultra at robotics, computer vision, local AI agents, industrial automation, and other applications where a full x86 system is needed but a conventional motherboard doesn't fit.

We've had small Arm compute modules for years. Putting Lunar Lake CPU cores, Arc graphics, an NPU, and fast unified memory into that same category gives developers a powerful new option for building custom x86 devices.

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The next device costs a fraction as much.

JetKVM Mini is a matchbox-sized KVM-over-IP unit starting at just $39.

For anyone unfamiliar with the category, a KVM-over-IP device connects to a computer's video output and USB port so you can view and control it remotely.

Unlike ordinary remote desktop software, a hardware KVM keeps working through OS crashes, during boot, or even while sitting in the BIOS. That makes it especially useful for servers, homelabs, or any machine you'd rather not visit in person every time something breaks.

What's notable here is what's running the show.

Inside is an ESP32-P4X with a dual-core 400MHz RISC-V CPU, 32MB of PSRAM, 16MB of flash, and hardware H.264 video encoding.

The whole device measures just 42 × 42 × 23mm.

JetKVM is releasing two variants.

The standard $39 Mini includes 100Mbps Ethernet, while the $42 Mini W drops Ethernet in favor of dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi through an ESP32-C5.

Both capture video at up to 1080p30 or 720p60 and include a small 240 × 240 IPS status display.

A TF card slot handles virtual media, allowing disk images to be presented to the remote machine. That means you could connect to a server states away, enter its BIOS, mount an installation image, and reinstall the operating system without ever touching the hardware.

JetKVM says the rewritten ESP32-P4X firmware will be open source from day one, with both models becoming available October 26.

For $39, that's a lot of remote-management capability.

Then there's FREE-WILi 2, which is hard to describe as just a development board.

It's an open-hardware handheld electronics multitool built around an unusual mix of processors: two Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontrollers, an ESP32-C5, a Lattice iCE40UP5K FPGA, and a Raspberry Pi CM0 capable of running a full Linux environment.

That's several distinct computing platforms packed into one handheld device.

One RP2350 serves as the main processor for I/O and scripting, while the second handles the display, buttons, sound, and other interface functions. The ESP32-C5 provides wireless connectivity, the FPGA handles tasks that benefit from programmable logic, and the CM0 brings a complete Linux environment to the device.

And that's only part of the hardware.

FREE-WILi 2 also includes a 3.5-inch 480 × 320 touchscreen, LoRa and sub-GHz radios, NFC and RFID support, CAN FD, analog I/O, GPIO, a four-microphone array, and a collection of onboard sensors.

FREE-WILi 2 isn't trying to be another cyberdeck. It's built as a portable tool for embedded development, hardware experimentation, debugging, wireless testing, and general electronics work.

Need deterministic microcontroller I/O? There's an RP2350 for that. Need Wi-Fi? The ESP32-C5 covers it. Need programmable logic? That's the FPGA's job. Need a real operating system and Linux software? The Raspberry Pi module handles it.

It's the kind of device that looks almost intentionally over-engineered, and that's exactly what makes it so cool.

Instead of carrying several separate development boards and adapters, the idea is to fold many of those capabilities into one reusable platform. Because the hardware is open, developers also aren't limited to whatever functionality ships with the device out of the box.

On paper, these three devices don't have much in common: an x86 compute module, a tiny remote-management appliance, and a portable electronics lab.

But together they point to something we've been seeing across maker and embedded hardware lately: small computers are becoming far more specialized.

The Mu Ultra isn't trying to beat a Raspberry Pi on price. It's trying to make a modern Lunar Lake x86 system something you can embed inside another product.

JetKVM Mini takes a dual-core RISC-V processor and hardware video encoder and turns them into genuinely useful server infrastructure for less than the cost of many development boards.

And FREE-WILi 2 goes in the other direction entirely, packing multiple architectures into one device so makers can use whichever processor best fits the job at hand.

None of these is simply a faster SBC, and that's exactly the point.

The next generation of small computers isn't just getting more powerful. It's getting a lot more specialized.