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Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

unihiker.com

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Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#101

Post by anigbrowl »

oneplane wrote: post #50
theamk wrote: post #17

My usual question for small cheap boards is: what will happen to OS support in 3 years? Is it using regular distro or is this a custom fork which will likely be never updated? The website says: > The UNIHIKER comes with a Linux operating system based on Debian and various built-in features, which will be upgraded from time to time. ... don't expect OS upgrades here. If you want to play with it for a while then put it…

It's dead on arrival; currently runs Debian 10 with custom patches and binary blobs. It's an RK3308 so not entirely impossible to run on a normal distro, but you'd have to bring your own firmware and device tree etc.

This is designed as an embeddable component for learning, prototyping, and OEMs. A lot of people here are just sniffily dismissing it as 'DOA' when what they mean is 'I would not want to maintain this.'

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#102

Post by anigbrowl »

shadowpho wrote: post #92
spicyjpeg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ESP32s belong to a completely different category of processors, they are microcontrollers optimized first and foremost for cost and power efficiency rather than raw performance or the ability to run Linux. The Rockchip SoC used here, on the other hand, is more akin to what you would find in a cheap Android tablet or set-top box: it has Cortex-A cores, a proper GPU and can use far more memory than the mere hundred…

One small addition... > they are microcontrollers optimized first and foremost for cost and power efficiency ESP32 is only optimized for cost. Other wireless MCU are significantly lower power... they are just more expensive (and tend to have worse docs then ESP32).

ESP32 is great for low power apps, you can switch off most of the chip subsystems, rely on watchdog timers etc.

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#103

Post by anigbrowl »

darkwater wrote: post #14

Unrelated but trying the HN wisdom here: any suggestion for a cheap touchscreen with a CPU attached and a battery that can be used as a control panel for Home Assistant? Yeah, probably some Android tablet but something that actually works well for this job and costs as less as possible? I cannot power it properly where I want to put it so it needs battery and then I can charge it as needed. Suggestions?

m5stack.com

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#104

Post by jedberg »

This seems like a somewhat related place to ask this: Does anyone know where I can get a 3" round screen?

I have a Star Wars clock from the 1970s that has a ton of empty space in the base. I want to put a small computer in it and replace the 3" clock face with a round screen, so it can show the time and maybe some fun Star Wars animations.

But I just don't know how to find a 3" round screen without buying 1000 of them from China.

How do I get just one 3" screen that I can attach to a Raspberry Pi or equivalent linux computer?

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#106

Post by ytjohn »

dmitrygr wrote: post #62

The “documentation” page is a joke. I cannot eve find if the touch screen is resistive or capacitive. I see no schematics, making bring up if your own OS in it unlikely. I see no data sheets either. Just another piece of e-trash waiting to end up on a landfill..

Nothing special, it's touchable.

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#107

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jedberg wrote: post #104

This seems like a somewhat related place to ask this: Does anyone know where I can get a 3" round screen? I have a Star Wars clock from the 1970s that has a ton of empty space in the base. I want to put a small computer in it and replace the 3" clock face with a round screen, so it can show the time and maybe some fun Star Wars animations. But I just don't know how to find a 3" round screen without buying 1000 of the…

LilyGo has an ESP32 with an attached round TFT screen that's (I think) 2.8" diameter. You can buy single units on Amazon.

One of the demo applications is a clock, but it shouldn't be difficult to load a bitmap.

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#108

Post by oneplane »

anigbrowl wrote: post #101
oneplane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dead on arrival; currently runs Debian 10 with custom patches and binary blobs. It's an RK3308 so not entirely impossible to run on a normal distro, but you'd have to bring your own firmware and device tree etc.

This is designed as an embeddable component for learning, prototyping, and OEMs. A lot of people here are just sniffily dismissing it as 'DOA' when what they mean is 'I would not want to maintain this.'

No, it's DOA. Embeddable components need support too. As do OEMs and prototyping scenarios.

It is presented as a viable commercial product, but it actually is an old SoC with no ecosystem. If anything, it teaches people not to use this type of thing.

The only way it would not be e-waste is if it had a future, and it doesn't and that's why it's bad. At this price point there are so many community and commercial alternatives that do have an ecosystem and support it's just pointless and most likely an attempt to dump overstocked Rockchip parts. Even an ancient i.MX 6 is a better choice.

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#109

Post by MisterTea »

oneplane wrote: post #52

As usual, looks good on papier but no ecosystem and the current stack that it comes with is dead on arrival. Boards need to come with mainstream distro support or with an ecosystem (or both), otherwise it will just die. And with internet connected devices, you can't set-and-forget, so it needs to have live support. Edit: a RockPi S (same SoC) can be had for $35 and a touch LCD for $11... Granted, it doesn't come with…

> As usual, looks good on papier but no ecosystem and the current stack that it comes with is dead on arrival.

There is no standard Arm ecosystem to boot on which is the real issue - every board needs a custom kernel and booting.

I blame Arm for never cooking up a PC like spec that defines hardware configuration, firmware and booting. This is why x86 is going to stick around for a while - its dead simple to bootstrap a random x86 machine (well, almost).

Re: Unihiker, an $80 single-board PC with 2.8“ touchscreen, quad-core ARM Cortex-A35

#110

Post by gadgetoid »

jedberg wrote: post #104

This seems like a somewhat related place to ask this: Does anyone know where I can get a 3" round screen? I have a Star Wars clock from the 1970s that has a ton of empty space in the base. I want to put a small computer in it and replace the 3" clock face with a round screen, so it can show the time and maybe some fun Star Wars animations. But I just don't know how to find a 3" round screen without buying 1000 of the…

Our (Pi compatible) HyperPixel Round is just shy of 3” if you count the thick, black border around the edges. Actual screen is 2.1” but diameter is 71.8mm.
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