I have the chip, esp8266, rpi, teensies, trinkets, arduinos... I studied electronics principles and built various circuits.. yet I have no idea what I can practically use these devices for in my life. They all sit in a box and I have a hard time justifying buying more of them.
Raspberry Pis and CHIPs: good for a home automation hub of sorts or a thing where you want a portable computer capable of working with video, audio, or large volumes of data.
Arduino et al: need to have buttons do more complicated things than buttons can actually do: slowly change light colors, actuate things, CNC, etc.
ESP8266: sensors and remote controls for switches and such. Anything Arduino does above, except the button is now on a network and not necessarily physical.
I have the same problem, but at the same time I have found some use cases. For example an Arduino to remember the height settings for my sitting/standing desk project. Or an ESP8266-based garage door opener on the cheap.
I do think that a lot of the not-Arduino hardware a la teensy is not really that relevant to me. I don't want to study hardware. I want to build shit, and in most cases a Wemos D1 Mini is actually what I need. But there are cases where things like that can be really nice. The MSP430 for example is a really low power chip.
Basically if you don't know what to do with the stuff, donate it to a local hackerspace. Or find a project idea, then dig into the box-o-stuff.
You mean like going to the super market without having a shopping list, buying everything that attracts your attention which all goes out of date in your fridge because you forgot you had all that food and not having any time to plan your house hold duties?
I have 4 RPi's, a couple of BeagleBone Blacks, numerous Arduino and Teensy boards.
Disclosure: This stuff happens to be my hobby and profession, and I have extensive experience with embedded systems and microprocessor based electronics design.
The smaller boards have been infinitely useful to me. I do a lot of development, using Teensy boards to create peripherals that I can connect via USB to either a PC or a RPi. These peripherals control things like sensors, motors, etc. The microcontroller code serves as a sort of hardware abstraction layer, letting me test and talk to my gadgets via a terminal program.
Admittedly, the RPi's have been less useful. Because my gadgets talk via USB, it's easy to configure my systems so that I can do my higher level software development on either a PC or a RPi. The same software, in Python, runs on both systems with no code changes. So I tend to use the more "comfortable" system for development, and that's the Windows system with its big screen and quick response.
Bill Gates claims to have predicted that more people would be interested in developing software than hardware, and when the software runs on any platform, it gets harder for the lower performance hardware to justify its existence. Most of my projects are finished to my satisfaction without ever completing the final step of transferring them to a RPi to run autonomously.
Maybe the problem is that cross platform portability ultimately makes platforms less important.
I recently bought a Wifi Modem for my Commodore 64 that is based off the Arduinos board. OK, that sounds embarrassing when I say it, but I do value it nevertheless. It allows me to connect to some BBSes (!) where like-minded crazy people like me can hang.
I think it all has to do with the creativity and/or niche (in my case, a passionate hobby) designers like you can fill.
Media devices or home automation is two big players I would say. But I feel exactly the same as you. I used my rpi as a server for different things and I have used it as a media player.
But now I want to build video surveillance and control it all with my rpi. Though, I live in an apartment so there is not a super large need which makes me prioritize other stuff since I don't really need it.
Another thing I want to do is an app that connect to different lights in my house so when my alarm goes off in the morning I want it to light up the hallway so that I can wake up. I live in Sweden so here it's dark as fuck most of the year at 06:00-07:00.
I was in the same boat as you until I stumbled on a real, money-saving project. My PetSafe invisible fence wired transmitter blew out, and I wasn't keen on dropping over $100 on a new one. After dragging my feet for a few weeks and doing nothing about it, I realized that I could probably replicate whatever the transmitter was doing with my RPi. Sure enough, somebody online had hooked their transmitter up to an oscilloscope and figured out the correct signal pattern to send over the wire.
If I have time tonight, I'm going to finish the code and test it out.
When I'm done, I should have a new transmitter that I can control via my phone for significantly less money than the junk PetSafe sells.
Set up an automated indoor garden. I'm currently working on a simple ebb and flow hydroponics garden with a dashboard to monitor health stats etc.
Pump on/off, lighting and sensing some stuff.
I'll try my hand at tomatoes and maybe chilli peppers. The initial goal was to grow as much as I can which goes into home cooked chilli :)
exactly what most people were talking about computers before.
think of those things as hobby computers and Intel/amd/arm as the huge inaccessible ivory tower mainframes. you know how you have zero access to any device on your laptop or phone? those things will eventually solve that. but they are hobbyist grade for now.
As a muggle, every time I see these things I can't help but wonder:
WHY do we not have a good open-source gaming handheld based on one of these yet?
Smartphones have all but killed the traditional physical-buttons Game Boy/DS/Vita model. Gaming on glass sucks, but people generally don't want to carry around another device in addition to their phone. I'm looking forward to the Nintendo NX, but I'm afraid a proprietary platform won't be able to bring handhelds back again — it will just be too limited and locked-down.
Here's my wish/suggestion list for a modern handheld, for those of you that can build these things:
- Open-Source OS. (Android?)
- Bundled with emulators for all classic systems (C64/GB/NES/SNES/etc.) out of the box.
- A game store.
- Two joysticks, D-Pad, 4 buttons, 2 Triggers.
- 720p Touchscreen.
- AirPlay-like ability to play on my TV screen, or on a computer screen via a macOS/Windows/Linux app.
- SD card storage.
- WiFi.
- Ideally, Swift toolchain with a high-quality games SDK :-) (or at least Unity support.)
Don't need a camera. Don't need "apps" like browsers and media players or whatnot. Got 'em on the phone. Probably don't require Bluetooth either. Not sure about a microphone — may be needed for multiplayer chat.
The price point would need to be cheaper than any other handheld and most smartphones.. I wonder if the tech is there to make and sell something like this for less than a 100 bucks?
I still have the wish to build a board for a Raspberry Pi or similar that, through the GPIO pins would be able to drive an Apple II as its console (using the keyboard and 80-column display) by directly reading from and writing to the 6502's address space. A tiny bit of firmware could initialize it as a normal Apple II peripheral and, with the right software running on the Pi, it'd be possible to emulate a number of different cards in software.
If I could lay my hands on an Apple ///, which had a color-capable text mode, it'd be even more usable.
My real wish, however, is to be able to actually work from the Apple II :-)
I've actually moved a tiny bit on from where I started. I have a 40 x 4 monochrome display working with an rpi, correctly displaying keyboard input. Just working on scrolling now which obviously requires actually remembering what is typed (I'm adapting Antirez's Kilo editor).
I posted a reply on an online forum earlier today where I said that 90% of Arduinos, etc. are sitting in someone's desk drawer gathering dust and the other 10% are doing some very trivial task. Then I felt I was being too negative, so I deleted the post.
You can make C.H.I.P into an airplay receiver (or DLNA) . This was the cheapest option I was able to figure out for doing this, and while I'd use e.g. a Chromecast audio if I could, it can't replicate the functionality I want. Namely, to use my phone as a remote control for my home audio system, not a streaming source.
I've also made some nice, tactile (e.g. big switches and clicky knobs) electronics for simple things like kitchen timers, etc. with Arduino style boards.
It sounds like you shouldn't buy any more of them, though. If you're not inspired to make something, more boards certainly won't help that.
Learning and prototyping are key uses. Both scenarios are not about end products, but can lead to great outcomes in the future. Especially if the users are young people that end up building things like satellites that can warn you about upcoming hurricane or pinpoint your location on the GPS smartphone map and other great inventions of humanity.
The software world metaphor: It is like your first programming manual that has examples and maybe even projects - they are not to be 'used' but 'learnt' from.
Same feeling here... I hardly get excited with all the pointless/because-I-can projects based on these boards. It's fun, OK, but that's all.
Anyway I use Arduino a lot to teach electronics in high school - really useful there - and a Cubieboard (think RPi with SATA and decent eth) as webserver (small sites via home DSL).
While not as big as security and media devices that were already mentioned, seems like a lot of effort is going into DIY 3D printers and CNC machines. Having a lot of those kind of machines around could enable the rise of guilds that produce a lot of useful things.
Write a driver to offload interrupt processing of your Ethernet stack or something like that to them. Let's you get more done. Alternatively, the monitor the health or security status of your system with recovery option.
Got a Pi controlling my Christmas decorations (Overkill? Yeah. But I wanted to easily push updates to the patterns so why not ssh into my decorations). Got one to play media from network (built in DLNA player on that tv isn't great) and runs livestreamer for me to get my Twitch fix. One is also the base for my home automation with a number of radios attached so I can control zigbee and 433mhz stuff. Heard of people use them as honey pots, Larry Pesce seems to have an addiction to them.
I was working on a project called TwitchPlaysKitten as I had a new kitten and thought it would be funny. A few Servos with cat toys attached to them connected to a Pi and a webcam and allow twitch chat to control the kitty toys. But Twitch shot me down talking something about Terms of Service and staff saying "you trust twitch chat with physical control of items in your home? Are you fucking nuts???" Screw you twitch, it was going to be glorious :-p.
Got plenty of ATMega's dotted around the house. Started with them with the Arduino and the ATMega168 and progressed from there. Used them in stuff like energy monitoring using Current Transformers, more Christmas decorations (My mom wanted some new lights for her tree and she has saw my decorations the year before and roped me into to knocking her up a set) based of a ATTiny. Also used them to repair failed electronics.
Programming AVRs can be done many ways. One of the go to methods is SPI programming and making your own programmer is cheap. You can make a SPI programmer from an Ardunio or use the SPI port on a raspberry pi and a modified version of AVRDude to use true SPI of the Pi instead of bit banging it and getting faster programming times.
Got a few esp's dotted around as I liked the built in wifi, slapped one in my cat flap so I can easily see if the cat is outside or just asleep under the bed upstairs, also lets me set timers and override the cat flap functionality from my phone/desktop without having to go over to the cat flap, clean the labelling around the manual dial to see with direction is which option (Sureflap Dual Scan cat flap - https://sureflap.com/en-gb/pet-doors/dualscan-microchip-cat-... it's based of a Pic16f iirc).
Which leads me onto Microchip. Fell in love with the PIC's some time around the PS1 era. It completely had noting to do with someone releasing code that allowed a PIC to convince the PS1 it was booting a valid game, honest guv... But mainly use Microchip for their other components until the rapidfire mods for the 360/PS3 kicked off.
I personally use AVR more often then PICs simply because I fell love using using gcc and avrdude and programming newer PIC's required getting a PicKit3 and at at the time there wasn't any clones of them and I was broke. Until then we could program them using a simple homemade serial or parallel programmer which suited my broke ass's budget. But I have to love Microchips sample program, they have a generous sample program where they will give hobbyists and students freebies (ATM it's 12 parts per month iirc).
Also having a love affair with Nordic Semi's NRF51's atm but that is mainly cause I wanted to teach myself ARM.
So what's the point of the wall of text? To say that I'll prob get a couple when they become readily available because I'm sure I will find or make a use for them, even if it's just to play with them to see if they could be useful in the future.
I can see your point where you say that for you they end up just living in a box gathering dust but some of us can just come up with ideas to use these. It's not for everyone but I'll happily "waste" an evening wiring some WS2812's to a ATMega32u4 and write some C and C# (my current goto language for hacking things together on Windows) just because I want to put some lights in my PC case and I wasn't happy with anything I found on the market - https://youtu.be/IhsALOwoszk (yeah, I know. I'm 33 going on 14...).
Considering the fact that they missed delivery date of the previous one by at least 150% (I am still waiting) announcing new one with "Available Dec 2016" sounds like tasteless joke.
My CHIP still not delivered. They re-scheduled 3 times the delivery. The last was 3 Oct. Today I received the "happy" news this will be shipped at the beginning of Nov. The initial shipment was June when I ordered in March.
I've got mine. the pocketchip ts pretty fun. installed python and idle and messed around. quake 3 would not run. but I played the shit out of nethack like I never have before.
I haven't figured out what exactly I want to do with it but it's been fun so far having a little midget debian box with a tiny screen. It forces you to use the console more which is healthy. like eating your vegetables.
I've already borked the OS like 3 times messing with packages and trying to see what window managers run... So at least flashing it is easy with the chrome app.
My only complaint so far is that the video drivers suck.
If the new ones are only $16 and they have the video driver sorted sign me up.
Also do yourself a favor and make sure to change the default passwords ASAP because it's just 'chip/chip' for everything.
I order the original CHIP at end of May, and I still haven't received it today, it was supposed to ship by June. They kept getting delayed. Latest update is that the shipping is for November. Can't help but suspect they are doing this on purpose to wait for price drop on the components to sustain the business.
"Powered by a chip you can actually buy" - lets hope so.
Assuming thats a reference to the rpi Zero which, as of November, has been out a full year and still must be bought one at a time. Seems like we'll never be able to build more than one or two of something based on the zero.
Do wish nextthing would rebrand it because its impossible to Google "chip" and hope to find anything related to this. How about "NESOC" - pronounced "knee sock" and short for nextthing SOC?
How is it optimized for SMT? It seems like the PCB that you mounted it to would need to have a hole or milled pocket in it to accommodate the backside thickness of the CHIP. Not sure how feasible a pocket is, but a hole would mean you then lose all your layers/backside in that area.
Seems like a good enough prototyping kit for open source hardware.
I wonder why the 'no-price-scaling' per unit for bulk orders is considered a feature though.
Great hardware, but do you really want to run a full Linux system on low-end IoT devices? That's what made the recent massive DDOS attack possible - lots of little machines with way too much network-side functionality.
...Now if only we unwashed, non-kickstarter-using masses could actually buy a chip+pocketchip. I'd pay good money for it, but with orders this backed up, I'm not putting money in for a ticket to a waiting list that may never end.
There's a post[1] on their forum for more detail. TL;DR they are announce 2 new hardware
* GR8 - a 14mm x 14mm System-in-Package, combines 1GHz R8 SoC with 256MB of DDR3 memory - $6 - available in any quantity in December 2016
* C.H.I.P. Pro - GR8 + 512MB NAND + WiFi/BT + ..., 76% smaller than C.H.I.P. - $16 - available in volume December 2016 and Dev Kits are on sale today for $49 shipping in December 2016
Having some hobby project with CHIP and loving it, but I have to say this naming of Pro sounds misleading, I'd rather call it Air :)
Seems this is not the same form factor or pins as the CHIP.
So it can't be swapped out to upgrade PocketCHIP, etc. They seem to be missing an opportunity here to create a standard. Pity, I had assumed that was the goal.
(Of course, maybe there was a good reason to throw away the first attempt at a standard..)
[+] [-] platz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IgorPartola|9 years ago|reply
Arduino et al: need to have buttons do more complicated things than buttons can actually do: slowly change light colors, actuate things, CNC, etc.
ESP8266: sensors and remote controls for switches and such. Anything Arduino does above, except the button is now on a network and not necessarily physical.
I have the same problem, but at the same time I have found some use cases. For example an Arduino to remember the height settings for my sitting/standing desk project. Or an ESP8266-based garage door opener on the cheap.
I do think that a lot of the not-Arduino hardware a la teensy is not really that relevant to me. I don't want to study hardware. I want to build shit, and in most cases a Wemos D1 Mini is actually what I need. But there are cases where things like that can be really nice. The MSP430 for example is a really low power chip.
Basically if you don't know what to do with the stuff, donate it to a local hackerspace. Or find a project idea, then dig into the box-o-stuff.
[+] [-] stop1234|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analog31|9 years ago|reply
Disclosure: This stuff happens to be my hobby and profession, and I have extensive experience with embedded systems and microprocessor based electronics design.
The smaller boards have been infinitely useful to me. I do a lot of development, using Teensy boards to create peripherals that I can connect via USB to either a PC or a RPi. These peripherals control things like sensors, motors, etc. The microcontroller code serves as a sort of hardware abstraction layer, letting me test and talk to my gadgets via a terminal program.
Admittedly, the RPi's have been less useful. Because my gadgets talk via USB, it's easy to configure my systems so that I can do my higher level software development on either a PC or a RPi. The same software, in Python, runs on both systems with no code changes. So I tend to use the more "comfortable" system for development, and that's the Windows system with its big screen and quick response.
Bill Gates claims to have predicted that more people would be interested in developing software than hardware, and when the software runs on any platform, it gets harder for the lower performance hardware to justify its existence. Most of my projects are finished to my satisfaction without ever completing the final step of transferring them to a RPi to run autonomously.
Maybe the problem is that cross platform portability ultimately makes platforms less important.
[+] [-] erickhill|9 years ago|reply
I think it all has to do with the creativity and/or niche (in my case, a passionate hobby) designers like you can fill.
[+] [-] staticelf|9 years ago|reply
But now I want to build video surveillance and control it all with my rpi. Though, I live in an apartment so there is not a super large need which makes me prioritize other stuff since I don't really need it.
Another thing I want to do is an app that connect to different lights in my house so when my alarm goes off in the morning I want it to light up the hallway so that I can wake up. I live in Sweden so here it's dark as fuck most of the year at 06:00-07:00.
[+] [-] samch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kriro|9 years ago|reply
I'll try my hand at tomatoes and maybe chilli peppers. The initial goal was to grow as much as I can which goes into home cooked chilli :)
[+] [-] iamflimflam1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|9 years ago|reply
think of those things as hobby computers and Intel/amd/arm as the huge inaccessible ivory tower mainframes. you know how you have zero access to any device on your laptop or phone? those things will eventually solve that. but they are hobbyist grade for now.
[+] [-] Razengan|9 years ago|reply
WHY do we not have a good open-source gaming handheld based on one of these yet?
Smartphones have all but killed the traditional physical-buttons Game Boy/DS/Vita model. Gaming on glass sucks, but people generally don't want to carry around another device in addition to their phone. I'm looking forward to the Nintendo NX, but I'm afraid a proprietary platform won't be able to bring handhelds back again — it will just be too limited and locked-down.
Here's my wish/suggestion list for a modern handheld, for those of you that can build these things:
- Open-Source OS. (Android?)
- Bundled with emulators for all classic systems (C64/GB/NES/SNES/etc.) out of the box.
- A game store.
- Two joysticks, D-Pad, 4 buttons, 2 Triggers.
- 720p Touchscreen.
- AirPlay-like ability to play on my TV screen, or on a computer screen via a macOS/Windows/Linux app.
- SD card storage.
- WiFi.
- Ideally, Swift toolchain with a high-quality games SDK :-) (or at least Unity support.)
Don't need a camera. Don't need "apps" like browsers and media players or whatnot. Got 'em on the phone. Probably don't require Bluetooth either. Not sure about a microphone — may be needed for multiplayer chat.
The price point would need to be cheaper than any other handheld and most smartphones.. I wonder if the tech is there to make and sell something like this for less than a 100 bucks?
[+] [-] wiz21c|9 years ago|reply
Since I had no infrared camera, I had to use a light which most probably scared the rodent :-)
So, I had a few pictures of nothing and no more rodent.
So in some way, the rpi did help :-)
[+] [-] rbanffy|9 years ago|reply
If I could lay my hands on an Apple ///, which had a color-capable text mode, it'd be even more usable.
My real wish, however, is to be able to actually work from the Apple II :-)
[+] [-] scandox|9 years ago|reply
I've actually moved a tiny bit on from where I started. I have a 40 x 4 monochrome display working with an rpi, correctly displaying keyboard input. Just working on scrolling now which obviously requires actually remembering what is typed (I'm adapting Antirez's Kilo editor).
[+] [-] HeyLaughingBoy|9 years ago|reply
I posted a reply on an online forum earlier today where I said that 90% of Arduinos, etc. are sitting in someone's desk drawer gathering dust and the other 10% are doing some very trivial task. Then I felt I was being too negative, so I deleted the post.
At least now I feel somewhat vindicated :-)
[+] [-] Obi_Juan_Kenobi|9 years ago|reply
I've also made some nice, tactile (e.g. big switches and clicky knobs) electronics for simple things like kitchen timers, etc. with Arduino style boards.
It sounds like you shouldn't buy any more of them, though. If you're not inspired to make something, more boards certainly won't help that.
[+] [-] btreecat|9 years ago|reply
https://gitlab.com/btreecat/bbq_probe
[+] [-] tomek_zemla|9 years ago|reply
The software world metaphor: It is like your first programming manual that has examples and maybe even projects - they are not to be 'used' but 'learnt' from.
[+] [-] clappski|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riskable|9 years ago|reply
No wifi? Limited use (but still useful!). Make yourself a cool flashlight or something.
Wifi? The possibilities are limitless! They're basically tiny servers.
Even if it doesn't run Linux little wifi devices are loads of fun for making stuff like this:
https://youtu.be/Aakw0DQF6go
[+] [-] geppetto|9 years ago|reply
Anyway I use Arduino a lot to teach electronics in high school - really useful there - and a Cubieboard (think RPi with SATA and decent eth) as webserver (small sites via home DSL).
[+] [-] geomark|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gravypod|9 years ago|reply
For gaming I use steam streaming.
The only down side is finding a working build of the distro I use for the RPi.
[+] [-] Crosseye_Jack|9 years ago|reply
I was working on a project called TwitchPlaysKitten as I had a new kitten and thought it would be funny. A few Servos with cat toys attached to them connected to a Pi and a webcam and allow twitch chat to control the kitty toys. But Twitch shot me down talking something about Terms of Service and staff saying "you trust twitch chat with physical control of items in your home? Are you fucking nuts???" Screw you twitch, it was going to be glorious :-p.
Got plenty of ATMega's dotted around the house. Started with them with the Arduino and the ATMega168 and progressed from there. Used them in stuff like energy monitoring using Current Transformers, more Christmas decorations (My mom wanted some new lights for her tree and she has saw my decorations the year before and roped me into to knocking her up a set) based of a ATTiny. Also used them to repair failed electronics.
Programming AVRs can be done many ways. One of the go to methods is SPI programming and making your own programmer is cheap. You can make a SPI programmer from an Ardunio or use the SPI port on a raspberry pi and a modified version of AVRDude to use true SPI of the Pi instead of bit banging it and getting faster programming times.
Got a few esp's dotted around as I liked the built in wifi, slapped one in my cat flap so I can easily see if the cat is outside or just asleep under the bed upstairs, also lets me set timers and override the cat flap functionality from my phone/desktop without having to go over to the cat flap, clean the labelling around the manual dial to see with direction is which option (Sureflap Dual Scan cat flap - https://sureflap.com/en-gb/pet-doors/dualscan-microchip-cat-... it's based of a Pic16f iirc).
Which leads me onto Microchip. Fell in love with the PIC's some time around the PS1 era. It completely had noting to do with someone releasing code that allowed a PIC to convince the PS1 it was booting a valid game, honest guv... But mainly use Microchip for their other components until the rapidfire mods for the 360/PS3 kicked off.
I personally use AVR more often then PICs simply because I fell love using using gcc and avrdude and programming newer PIC's required getting a PicKit3 and at at the time there wasn't any clones of them and I was broke. Until then we could program them using a simple homemade serial or parallel programmer which suited my broke ass's budget. But I have to love Microchips sample program, they have a generous sample program where they will give hobbyists and students freebies (ATM it's 12 parts per month iirc).
Also having a love affair with Nordic Semi's NRF51's atm but that is mainly cause I wanted to teach myself ARM.
So what's the point of the wall of text? To say that I'll prob get a couple when they become readily available because I'm sure I will find or make a use for them, even if it's just to play with them to see if they could be useful in the future.
I can see your point where you say that for you they end up just living in a box gathering dust but some of us can just come up with ideas to use these. It's not for everyone but I'll happily "waste" an evening wiring some WS2812's to a ATMega32u4 and write some C and C# (my current goto language for hacking things together on Windows) just because I want to put some lights in my PC case and I wasn't happy with anything I found on the market - https://youtu.be/IhsALOwoszk (yeah, I know. I'm 33 going on 14...).
EDIT: Cleaned up some of the typos.
[+] [-] fit2rule|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mynameislegion|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Marazan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syngrog66|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gbajson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aquarin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnarbarian|9 years ago|reply
I haven't figured out what exactly I want to do with it but it's been fun so far having a little midget debian box with a tiny screen. It forces you to use the console more which is healthy. like eating your vegetables.
I've already borked the OS like 3 times messing with packages and trying to see what window managers run... So at least flashing it is easy with the chrome app.
My only complaint so far is that the video drivers suck.
If the new ones are only $16 and they have the video driver sorted sign me up.
Also do yourself a favor and make sure to change the default passwords ASAP because it's just 'chip/chip' for everything.
[+] [-] andycjw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgleason_3|9 years ago|reply
Assuming thats a reference to the rpi Zero which, as of November, has been out a full year and still must be bought one at a time. Seems like we'll never be able to build more than one or two of something based on the zero.
Do wish nextthing would rebrand it because its impossible to Google "chip" and hope to find anything related to this. How about "NESOC" - pronounced "knee sock" and short for nextthing SOC?
[+] [-] durkie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenOfYugen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cuonic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcaster|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcw303|9 years ago|reply
I wonder if the Chip Pro shipping in December will have any impact on my order.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
Linux just has too much attack surface.
[+] [-] qwertyuiop924|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmontra|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbierwagen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freewizard|9 years ago|reply
* GR8 - a 14mm x 14mm System-in-Package, combines 1GHz R8 SoC with 256MB of DDR3 memory - $6 - available in any quantity in December 2016
* C.H.I.P. Pro - GR8 + 512MB NAND + WiFi/BT + ..., 76% smaller than C.H.I.P. - $16 - available in volume December 2016 and Dev Kits are on sale today for $49 shipping in December 2016
Having some hobby project with CHIP and loving it, but I have to say this naming of Pro sounds misleading, I'd rather call it Air :)
[1] https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/c-h-i-p-shipping-update-three-new...
[+] [-] djvdorp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeyh|9 years ago|reply
(Of course, maybe there was a good reason to throw away the first attempt at a standard..)
[+] [-] chapingt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wiradikusuma|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gambiting|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LAMike|9 years ago|reply