Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

neutis.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 123 posts

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#71

Post by nrp »

Hasz wrote: post #53

No idea why anyone would want to use this. There's dozens of SBCs with 2x better specs than a Pi, but the Pi is arguably the most dominant board out there. For makers (for anyone really), documentation is king. Working code, lots of examples, and good forums make the SBC, not the hardware. As for the other group, "hardware startups": Why on earth would you lock yourself into another startup for the brains of your new…

It's a niche, but I can see real value in this for small runs (In the event Neutis is at risk of folding or you want to go to larger scale production, you can put the time and effort into dropping the Allwinner SoC and SoM peripherals straight onto your design.

I have a couple of projects in mind that could use this, where I was otherwise considering the C.H.I.P. Pro or going through the effort of integrating a SoC.

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#72

Post by fomojola »

Teever wrote: post #60
tty7 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so? $49 is way too expensive for this. i can get a x86 from ebay way more cheaper than this. who would even bother, the rpi zero is $5.

I've never seen a rpi zero for $5 in my country. At least $11 and then there's shipping. and limits of one per customer.

(Anecdata) If you happen to be in Cambridge Massachusetts go to MicroCenter and ask: I have 5 that have all been bought at $5 ($10 for the Pi Zero W, which is still incredible to me).

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#73

Post by berbec »

Teever wrote: post #60
tty7 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so? $49 is way too expensive for this. i can get a x86 from ebay way more cheaper than this. who would even bother, the rpi zero is $5.

I've never seen a rpi zero for $5 in my country. At least $11 and then there's shipping. and limits of one per customer.

I've bought multiple Pi Zero Ws for $5 at my local microcenter. The first one is $5 but the second one is $15. I just would pick one up on lunch every couple days. I have four in my house. $20

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#74

Post by hoffs »

voltagex_ wrote: post #65
tty7 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so? $49 is way too expensive for this. i can get a x86 from ebay way more cheaper than this. who would even bother, the rpi zero is $5.

I'll PayPal you $5 if you can show me a receipt for a purchased Pi Zero for $5.

https://imgur.com/gallery/myVny my PayPal is masle.com@gmail.com. Thanks!

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#75

Post by berbec »

tmuir wrote: post #34
rubatuga wrote: post #13

I could see this costing $30, but $49 is quite a stretch. What are your main advantages over Orange Pi Zero [1] which costs $8.49? I can only see the DDR3 rated to -25 and the secure enclave. 1. http://www.orangepi.org/orangepizero/

There is also the Nano Pi Neo 2 [1]. $18 for Allwinner H5, 512MB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet. Haven't used the Neo2 yet. But its predecessor, Nano Pi Neo is $10, has excellent Armbian support, and is on par with a RPi3. [1] http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&p...

I have a Neo2 seedbox. It runs great. Rock solid. Pulls 900mb/second over gbe. Barely hits 5% cpu running dozens of torrents, over a VPN it handles, saving everything over NFS. Size of a damn oreo. The OLED kit is great. Easy library and you can write text or 1bpp images to it. Refresh rate 0.3Hz is a bit annoying but it looks cool as hell. Nice undocumented feature: the microusb and full-size usb ports have the +5v and ground wires bridged, so you can power it from an A-A cable. I like this because the A cable is the same side as the ethernet and looks cleaner. [1]

1: http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&p...

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#76

Post by berbec »

ivereninov wrote: post #25
osivertsson wrote: post #10

I think this looks good! I also think the price is reasonable, and the linked page also mentions volume discounts. Extended temp range, long-term supply, CE & FCC certification, BSP with OTA upgrade support, manufacturing tool, and best of all: "we rely on Neutis ourselves in our line of Reach M+ and Reach RS+ RTK GNSS receivers". What WiFi+BT chip is used? Webpage mentions Debian briefly. How good is that support to…

Thanks! Wireless module is AP6212A, which is based on BCM43430. It has very mature software support. I will ask team about Debian tomorrow, can you get in touch with us directly so that we can keep this conversation going? You can find the contact email on Neutis website.

Crazy question, does monitor mode work on the wifi? That chipset reminds me of my HTC Wildfire S - aka Mr Robot Phone [1]

1: https://bcmon.blogspot.com/?m=1

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#77

Post by hoistbypetard »

voltagex_ wrote: post #65
tty7 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so? $49 is way too expensive for this. i can get a x86 from ebay way more cheaper than this. who would even bother, the rpi zero is $5.

I'll PayPal you $5 if you can show me a receipt for a purchased Pi Zero for $5.

My local Microcenter has Pi zero[0] and Pi zero W[1] in stock for $5 each.

They will only sell you one of each per visit at that price.

Last time I bought a Pi Zero from them, I paid $0.99 for it.[2] Once again, they would only sell one per visit at that price when they were running that sale.

You aren't going to get enough for any kind of production run at that price, but they're not exactly unobtanium.

[0](http://www.microcenter.com/product/486575/Zero_W) [1](http://www.microcenter.com/product/486498/Zero_v13_Developme...) [2](https://i.imgur.com/uLf8bi8.png)

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#78

Post by fake-name »

tmuir wrote: post #37
ivereninov wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from temperature range and secure chip which you already mentioned there is also a 8GB eMMC, different processor (H2->H5), more RAM, more peripherals available. Neutis is not competing with Orange Pi as the applications are different, it is meant to be a part of a product, so it has all peripherals available on board-to-board connectors.

But you are marketing this to "Makers". The Orange Pi, Raspberry Pi, and other single board computers, are maker-friendly, because of their adherence to the standard of 0.1" headers, USB or wall wart power, and a large community of users to drive support and development. Makers largely don't care about import duties to China, or FCC certifications, or manufacturing tools, or barcodes, or Yocto, or secure enclave chip…

> But you are marketing this to "Makers".

I don't get that from their page at all. At minimum, it seems like they're marketing it to "Makers" who are trying to make an actual product, at which point they do have to care.

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#79

Post by beagle3 »

madez wrote: post #47

It claims to run on mainline Linux but mainline Linux does not yet support CPUFreq, hardware crypto, HDMI, nor the GPU for the Allwinner H5. http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort

It says "based on mainline linux", not "running on mainline linux". They probably have non-upstreamed patches.

Re: Tiny quad-core system-on-module for makers and hardware startups

#80

Post by bschwindHN »

megy wrote: post #63
SlowBro wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESP32 sounds like it meets your needs, but it won't run Linux. It will run MicroPython though.

I will have a look, thanks!

I will second the ESP32. It's sub $4 in most places, has a dual core processor, BLE, WiFi, hardware PWM and I2C, and much more.

Also their C SDK environment is quite pleasant to work in.

Post reply on HN