$9 computer with wifi built in


 
Yeah! Joel sent me a link to that yesterday. Not only is it smaller, it has built-in Wifi and 4GB of flash making it roughly equivalent to a $25 Pi, $10 wifi dongle, and $8 SD card. Smokin' Hardware, Inc backed their project at the $150 level to get access to pre-production units for evaluation!
 
I've never been hot on the "make it smaller" issue, IMHO the HM is already plenty small and sometimes when things get too small they are harder to use. But the price point and fact that it has WiFi and flash memory built in at that price seems really attractive. I'm gonna throw down to get one of the smaller packages because it looks like something fun to play with.
 
Yeah I'd agree that the 4.2 HeaterMeter is pretty small, it could be a little smaller for my tastes but I also think it always needs enough heft to not be pushed around by the probe cords too much. That said, this design is nicer in that it has sockets for its GPIO, which means you can use cheap pinheader to interface rather than a somewhat rare 2x13 socket connector that costs $1.50 each. Along the same lines, you can just drop interconnects where you need to interface instead of sucking up a 0.4"x1.5" space for a solid connector. Also this thing doesn't try to monopolize all the board edge, which is almost moot because you don't need access to the ports if there's wifi built in and no ethernet.

We see a lot of these tiny boards come and go, but I like that this one isn't so small it is difficult to work with and has virtually everything that's needed to be a HeaterMeter apart from the HeaterMeter board. I'd have to convert HeaterMeter over to Debian rather than OpenWrt I think though because otherwise there will be a process the user has to go through to replace the embedded flash image which won't be easy.
 
I'm wondering if a USB thumb drive could be used to flash the OS, seems that might be easier than converting over the whole OS? Then again, having the HM run on Debian might open doors for other options in both software and hardware..
 
I backed it at $59 because even if it doesn't get used for this project, it'll be a kickass handheld computer for my daughter in a year. The Pocket Chip looks like a very intriguing GameBoy emulation device.
 
OpenWRT is great in a small footprint. Having it run a debian variant would really open flood gates in terms of WIFI support, plus so many other utils.
 
Nice that they added the HDMI adapter to as a new level with the Pocket CHIP and CHIP. I've switched mine so I can either have it be portable or have it running behind anything HDMI.
 
I think that they've shipped! :-D I'm told I should have one by the end of the week, but I am out of town next weekend as well so I won't get a chance to mess with it until the week after that. I'm really not sure about how functional it will be, because it doesn't appear to have wifi or bluetooth support in source code. I also haven't managed to get NAND support into OpenWrt for this target, which will be a requirement for this device.
 
Yeah and it works (in that it boots when I flash their firmware on it). There's a LOT of work to do to make it work on HeaterMeter though, so don't expect anything any time soon.
 
Yeah it is pretty dang small. Looks like they've converted over to using the the other CPU on the bottom and the giant flash chip up top, eh? Both of my earlier models have the module with all 3 on top.
 
Yeah & it doesn't look like either of the hardware revisions they've got posted. V2 has 3 mounting holes & the battery connector by the microUSB port (and vertical). Mine has 1 mounting hole, the battery connector is edge mounted horizontally on the other end of U14.
Small, but possibly major differences.
I wonder what a daughter board would do to the wifi/bluetooth reception? I wish they had stuck that on the bottom or added an external antenna connector (pipe dream for $9)

I did get it set up last night, only had a minor issue with keyboards (had a USB & a bluetooth that didn't work, logitech wireless worked fine).

I'm going to see if I can get the i2c & GPIO up & running in node.js or else I'll wait for the python library.
 
have you guys seen this one?

https://www.adafruit.com/categories/777

I just ordered a feather Huzzah and an OLED. ESP8266 Wifi and the oled is 128x32, which will work nicely for 4 lines of text, or some basic graphics. It looks incredibly small too. It may be small enough to mount inside a damper. It will need an ADC chip since it only has one analog pin.

I don't know enough about OpenWrt to get that running on here, but I'm going to see if I can design a simple daughter board, and maybe use adafruit.io as a dashboard. not as cheap as a CHIP, but it looks promising and I'm still waiting on my CHIP.
 
Aristotle Allen said:
have you guys seen this one?

https://www.adafruit.com/categories/777

I just ordered a feather Huzzah and an OLED. ESP8266 Wifi and the oled is 128x32, which will work nicely for 4 lines of text, or some basic graphics. It looks incredibly small too. It may be small enough to mount inside a damper. It will need an ADC chip since it only has one analog pin.

I don't know enough about OpenWrt to get that running on here, but I'm going to see if I can design a simple daughter board, and maybe use adafruit.io as a dashboard. not as cheap as a CHIP, but it looks promising and I'm still waiting on my CHIP.
Click to expand...

See here:

http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?630...ter-Module-(wifi-with-no-Pi-Linkmeter-needed)
 
Bryan Mayland said:
Yeah and it works (in that it boots when I flash their firmware on it). There's a LOT of work to do to make it work on HeaterMeter though, so don't expect anything any time soon.
Click to expand...

Hey Bryan ... I'm brand new to HM and this forum, but really want to grab a HM and RD3 for my Vision. Oddly enough, I'm awaiting delivery of a couple of Chips within the next week or so. Have you made any progress on this front. I can always fall back to a Rasp format, but would love to take advantage of the Chip if possible.

Thanks in advance!
 
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