Summary of ORANGE PI AI STICK LITE $20 NEURAL COMPUTE STICK SHIPS WITH FREE TRAINING TOOLS
Shenzhen Xunlong Software introduced the Orange Pi AI Stick Lite, an affordable neural compute stick priced at $19.99, significantly cheaper than its predecessor. It features a Gyrfalcon SPR2801S chip delivering up to 2.8 TOPS at low power consumption, supports TensorFlow, Caffe, and PyTorch frameworks, and runs VGG and SSD models. Unlike the earlier version that required paid training tools, the AI Stick Lite offers free PLAI training tools, although they are not publicly downloadable and require contacting the company. It is compatible with Allwinner-based Orange Pi SBCs and supports both ARM and x86 platforms.
Parts used in the Orange Pi AI Stick Lite:
- Gyrfalcon SPR2801S Lightspeeur series ASIC
- eMMC 4.5 flash storage
- USB 3.0/2.0 host interface
- 5V power supply at 200mA
Shenzhen Xunlong Software launched Orange Pi AI Stick 2801 neural compute stick last year for $69. It was interesting as an alternative to Intel Neural Compute Stick. But once the documentation and SDK were released a few days later we discovered you could only run demos with the stick for that price, and the training tools would cost an extra $149.
The excellent news is that the company has now launched an updated, yet similar Orange Pi AI Stick Lite for just $19.99, and best of all the PLAI training tools are now entirely free.
Orange Pi AI Stick Lite Specifications:
- ASIC – Gyrfalcon SPR2801S Lightspeeur series processor with 2-dimensional Matrix Processing Engine (MPE) with AI Processing in Memory (APiM) delivering up to 2.8TOPS @ 300mW, 5.6 TOPS @ 100 MHz (peak performance)
- Storage – eMMC 4.5 flash with 68 MB/s read, 84.69 MB/s write
- Host interface – USB 3.0/2.0 port
- Power Consumption – 5V @ 200mA
- Dimensions – 66.5 x 20.5 x 10.8 mm
- Temperature Range – Operating: 0 to 40°C; storage: -20 to 80°C
The hardware specifications look the same as last year’s model. Supported frameworks include Tensorflow, Caffe and PyTorch, and VGG & SSD models can run on the stick.
The company mentions compatibility with Allwinner based Orange Pi SBC’s. But the SDK is offered for Arm and x86 together with 1-2 model demos. The Plai training tools (aka model transformation tools) which allow customizing the models running on the stick are now provided for free, but for some unknown reason, the company does not provide a public download link and instead tells people to contact them to get it.
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