Particle Tachyon 5G + 12-TOPS Qualcomm QCM6490 Edge AI SBC
Raspberry Pi-sized credit-card Linux single-board computer combining an octa-core Qualcomm Dragonwing QCM6490 SoC and 12-TOPS Hexagon 770 NPU with built-in global 5G Sub-6GHz cellular connectivity (EtherSIM+), Wi-Fi 6E, 4GB RAM, and 64GB UFS flash.
Editorial Rating Methodology (★ 4.8 / 5.0): This score is an internal editorial evaluation compiled by the RECIWO Labs editorial team—not a user poll or crowd-voted rating. It assesses published silicon compute efficiency (25%), optical/sensor/actuator engineering (25%), battery & thermal envelope (20%), SDK/software openness (15%), and price-to-specification value (15%) based on official manufacturer datasheets and public technical documentation. Learn more about our evaluation rubric →
Key Engineering Highlights
- Packs smartphone-grade Qualcomm QCM6490 silicon (12-TOPS Hexagon 770 NPU), 64GB UFS flash, and a global 5G Sub-6GHz cellular modem into an 85×56mm Raspberry Pi footprint
- Built-in Particle EtherSIM+ and dual-frequency GPS allow autonomous field robots, drones, and remote sentry cameras to stream telemetry across 180+ countries without external USB modems
- Includes onboard Li-Ion battery charging/fuel-gauge circuitry, dual 4-lane MIPI-CSI camera ports, PCIe Gen3 x2 expansion, and mainline Ubuntu 24.04 Linux support
Full Hardware Specifications
| Processor / Edge SoC | Qualcomm Dragonwing QCM6490 (8-Core Kryo 670 @ 2.7GHz + Adreno 643 GPU + 12-TOPS Hexagon 770 NPU) |
|---|---|
| AI Model Stack | On-Device Edge Vision (YOLOv10/v11, ViT), Whisper ASR & Small LLMs via Qualcomm AI Hub |
| Display & Optics | USB-C DisplayPort Alt-Mode (4K60) + 4-Lane MIPI-DSI Display Header |
| Camera & Vision | Dual 4-Lane MIPI-CSI Camera Connectors (Supports Up to 64MP / Dual 4K30 ISP Pipelines) |
| Measured Weight | 52.0g (85 × 56mm Raspberry Pi Credit-Card Footprint w/ Integrated 5G/Wi-Fi 6E Antenna) |
| Battery & Runtime | 5V USB-C PD or Li-Ion Battery Header w/ Integrated PMIC Charger & Fuel Gauge |
| Connectivity & I/O | Global 5G Sub-6GHz (2.5Gbps Downlink w/ Particle EtherSIM+) + Wi-Fi 6E + BLE 5.2 + Dual GNSS |
| Sensors & Acoustics | 4GB LPDDR4X RAM + 64GB UFS Flash + PCIe Gen3 x2 Lane + 40-Pin RPi-Compatible GPIO Header |
⚖️ Side-by-Side Comparison: Particle Tachyon 5G + 12-TOPS Qualcomm QCM6490 Edge AI SBC vs. Edge Compute & DevKits Peers
Direct specification comparison against leading competing devices in the Edge Compute & DevKits category.
| Specification | Particle Tachyon 5G + 12-TOPS Qualcomm QCM6490 Edge AI SBC (Current) | NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX Super Edge AI DevKit → | Xiaozhi AI Voice Cube Pro (ESP32-S3 Open DevKit) → | Apple Mac mini (M5 Pro 64GB) Private AI Node → |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Particle × Qualcomm | NVIDIA | Open Hardware Community | Apple |
| Retail Price | $149 | $499 | $12 | $1,799 |
| Editorial Rating | ||||
| Edge SoC | Qualcomm Dragonwing QCM6490 (8-Core Kryo 670 @ 2.7GHz + Adreno 643 GPU + 12-TOPS Hexagon 770 NPU) | NVIDIA Ampere GPU (1024 CUDA + 32 Tensor Cores) | Espressif ESP32-S3R8 (Dual-Core LX7 @ 240MHz + 8MB PSRAM) | Apple M5 Pro (14c CPU + 20c GPU + 16c Neural Engine) |
| AI Model Stack | On-Device Edge Vision (YOLOv10/v11, ViT), Whisper ASR & Small LLMs via Qualcomm AI Hub | Runs Llama-3.2 8B / Qwen2.5-VL 7B / YOLO11 Locally | Edge ESP-SR Wake + Realtime Cloud Voice LLMs | MLX Accelerated Qwen3-32B / Llama-3.3-70B |
| Display / Optics | USB-C DisplayPort Alt-Mode (4K60) + 4-Lane MIPI-DSI Display Header | HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4 (Up to 8K) | 1.28-inch Circular IPS LCD (240×240) / 0.96" OLED | Supports up to three 6K displays |
| Camera | Dual 4-Lane MIPI-CSI Camera Connectors (Supports Up to 64MP / Dual 4K30 ISP Pipelines) | Dual MIPI CSI-2 Camera Lanes + 4× USB 3.2 | Optional OV2640 / GC2145 Camera Module | External USB-C / Studio Display Camera |
| Weight | 52.0g (85 × 56mm Raspberry Pi Credit-Card Footprint w/ Integrated 5G/Wi-Fi 6E Antenna) | 450g (including active heatsink & carrier board) | 62g (with 3D-printed enclosure & speaker cavity) | 730g |
| Battery | 5V USB-C PD or Li-Ion Battery Header w/ Integrated PMIC Charger & Fuel Gauge | 19V DC Input (15W–40W configurable TDP) | 800mAh LiPo (5h continuous dialogue) | Internal 155W PSU (4W idle draw) |
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