Flemish company releases open source USB oscilloscope

The Flemish start-up Labnation has released its USB oscilloscope. The SmartScope is the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign and combines the functions of an oscilloscope, logic analyzer and wave generator with mobile and desktop apps

The basis of the SmartScope is an aluminum box with dimensions of 110x64x24.2 mm and a weight of 158 grams. It receives power via the USB connection. The oscilloscope has two analog input channels with a sampling rate of up to 100MS/s. In addition, the SmartScope can serve as a logic analyzer, with eight input channels and the protocol decoders i2c, spi and uart. Finally, the accessory works as a single-channel analog wave generator with a rate of up to 50MS/s, while a data rate of up to 100MS/s can be realized via four-channel digital output.

The software allows the users to set the voltage scale, time scale, input coupling, trigger settings and simple voltage measurements. According to the makers, the interface does not only work with mouse and keyboard, but there is also touchscreen support.

The software is available for Android, OS X, Windows 7 and later versions and the Ubuntu and Debian distributions. There is also an iOS app, but it requires a jailbreak. Labnation supplies the SmartScope with USB cable, two analog probes, a digital cable and digital probes. The package costs 230 euros.

The SmartScope was developed after a Kickstart campaign last year, which raised more than $320,000. The target amount was $50,000. Last December 750 SmartScopes were delivered to backers and now the oscilloscope is available to everyone. The system is open source: as much design drawings and code as possible have been made public.