FOSDEM 2024: PineTime Talk • Hacker News Board

Re: FOSDEM 2024: PineTime Talk

#31

Post by pierat » Fri, Feb 23, 2024, 4:42 PM UTC

Almondsetat wrote: post #13

squarefoot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? They're extremely clear when some hardware is aimed at developers and code is not yet ready for users, which for example is the case of the PineNote. https://pine64.com/product/pinenote-developer-edition/

Their hardware is aimed at developers and yet none of their products has even a decent developing environment? It's not aimed at developers, it's aimed at hackers

So is the Flipper Zero. The difference is the Flipper actually fucking works out of the box. Pine shit usually doesn't.

And the refrain from Pine is "iTs a HaCkER dEViCe"... so we don't have to actually provide minimally functioning software or not have hardware faults that destroy hardware (read: pinephone pro usb +keyboard/battery usb = fry shit).

Pine could actually be top tier. But they chose to cobble the worst shit together, the rarest/weirdest chips that arent even in the linux kernel (read: gongkai stuff found only in shenzhen), and then act like it's great while it's 100% unsupported crap and MAYBE work in 5 years if anyone cares.

Re: FOSDEM 2024: PineTime Talk

#32

Post by mafuyu » Fri, Feb 23, 2024, 4:50 PM UTC

geokon wrote: post #14

From looking at the slides it looks like a really impressive project. But I can't help but feel like very low cost full-blown Linux devices are right around the corner. Ex: https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/02/08/licheerv-nano-low-co... If you can run full blown Debian on your wrist soon, why bother with this severely restricted device that are a pain in the ass to develop for?

As someone who’s worked on both embedded and Linux-based smartwatch firmware, yeah it’s mostly battery life. The nice part about developing for a lower power microcontroller is that you can basically aim to squeeze as much performance out of the chip as possible, and the power draw will still end up pretty good. On Linux devices, you need to an architecture early on for how you’re not going to blow your power budget immediately. Even stuff like entering/exiting suspend can be problematic in how many Joules it takes.

Re: FOSDEM 2024: PineTime Talk

#33

Post by spinningD20 » Fri, Feb 23, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

it took me two weeks to get the sealed pinetime working back when it launched. for some reason it would get stuck on the initial boot screen, and it would be in a state to where I couldn't update the firmware. eventually in a mindless "flap/spin it in a circle with my hand while I was thinking about work" I felt it vibrate and to my surprise, it booted for the first time ever.

It turned out, even with a firmware update months later applied to it, that whenever it gets rebooted, I have to do the above movement until it finally decides to boot, and it's random. Sometimes it takes a few spins/flicks, sometimes I'm doing it for minutes on end.

I confirmed this isn't a red herring by leaving it in its frozen state and motionless, and it would never recover, even 24hr later.

This was the second Pine purchase of mine, the first being the PinePhone Pro, which A) I couldn't get activated on AT&T (not Pine's fault with the 3g phase out and whitelist approach, but I digress), and when I used TMobile, I couldn't make a call with it without having audio problems or etc.

Look, I wanted to support them, and the idea of less expensive open hardware/software, even if it meant rough edges, but completely non functional for even the most basic usages... I might as well just build my own and understand all of the reasons why something doesn't work instead of spending days or months getting it to do what it said it would do on the tin out of the box.

Re: FOSDEM 2024: PineTime Talk

#34

Post by bArray » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 11:04 AM UTC

NewJazz wrote: post #4

pierat wrote: post #2

[flagged]

My latest couple gripes are: * revision 2 of the rock64 has an issue with running the ram at the highest speed, but there is no open source implementation of firmware for lower speed ram. So I can't run a full open source TF-A / U-Boot stack. * pinetab 2 has some noname WiFi chipset without any hope for mainline drivers, literally will need an out of tree module for the main networking of the device. Why didn't they…

> * pinetab 2 has some noname WiFi chipset without any hope for mainline drivers, literally will need an out of tree module for the main networking of the device. Why didn't they just use a replaceable e key m.2 module??

I was trying to push these guys towards modularity years ago. There is zero upgrade path and you are essentially buying what will become e-waste within 2 years of purchase.

Re: FOSDEM 2024: PineTime Talk

#35

Post by jhoho » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 8:30 PM UTC

spinningD20 wrote: post #33

it took me two weeks to get the sealed pinetime working back when it launched. for some reason it would get stuck on the initial boot screen, and it would be in a state to where I couldn't update the firmware. eventually in a mindless "flap/spin it in a circle with my hand while I was thinking about work" I felt it vibrate and to my surprise, it booted for the first time ever. It turned out, even with a firmware upda…

That pretty much sums up their early adopter experience.

The PineTime ecosystem is pretty neat nowadays, just try out InfiniTime: https://github.com/InfiniTimeOrg/InfiniTime