Hey I was trying to reach out to sales@deviceplane.com and keep getting:
550 5.1.1 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
Is there a better way to reach out?
Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
21–30 of 68 posts
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#22Hey I was trying to reach out to sales@deviceplane.com and keep getting: 550 5.1.1 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable Is there a better way to reach out?
Sorry about that! Must have gotten lost in the .io -> .com transition.
We'll dig into this fix, but until then you email us at founders@deviceplane.com.
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#23"For smaller devices, the Yocto project is popular. While it's good for building custom Linux installations, it has downsides for delivering applications. It's hard to understand, can take hours to compile, and solves only a portion of the problems present in device management."
This hits home. I work at a company that builds sensor systems. We started using Yocto before my time in the company but we lived the above sentence for the last couple years before migrating to Ubuntu. We also happen to be scoping out a configuration management tool for this year. I will definitely be checking out Deviceplane in the coming days.
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#24Hey I was trying to reach out to sales@deviceplane.com and keep getting: 550 5.1.1 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable Is there a better way to reach out?
Sorry about that! Must have gotten lost in the .io -> .com transition. We'll dig into this fix, but until then you email us at founders@deviceplane.com.
No worries, sent to that address. Some public questions though.
We are looking at launching a product on the nvidia jetson and you mentioned that running a third party OS is an uphill battle? Can you go into the pros and cons of BalenaOS vs the default for many of these single board computers?
One of the big issues we have had is that on BalenaOS you are forced to use NetworkManger which caused us weeks of work to code around it's many short comings.
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#25Somewhat interesting and will keep an eye on it, but the "current ecosystem" paragraph seems to both miss some options and confuse some things. E.g. yocto isn't an update solution, but is presented as contrast to some options for bigger systems, and no of the more advanced competitors for updates, both software and services, aren't mentioned at all - but those are what you need to convince me you're better as. (And yes, the space certainly can use some more options trying new things!)
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#26Somewhat interesting and will keep an eye on it, but the "current ecosystem" paragraph seems to both miss some options and confuse some things. E.g. yocto isn't an update solution, but is presented as contrast to some options for bigger systems, and no of the more advanced competitors for updates, both software and services, aren't mentioned at all - but those are what you need to convince me you're better as. (And y…
True, Yocto is not technically an update solution! We explained it as such to try and keep our post a little shorter, but perhaps we oversimplified a bit too much there. What we probably meant to say is "the Yocto ecosystem".
We mention Yocto and internal tooling rather than other competitors because they're what we hear most often. We would have loved to include more discussion about why were better than other solutions, but it would have made our post a little unwieldy.
I have a comparison between us and Balena here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22173350.
What other tools did you have in mind? It'd be great to discuss this more!
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#27"For smaller devices, the Yocto project is popular. While it's good for building custom Linux installations, it has downsides for delivering applications. It's hard to understand, can take hours to compile, and solves only a portion of the problems present in device management." This hits home. I work at a company that builds sensor systems. We started using Yocto before my time in the company but we lived the above…
Can you elaborate on this? How do you make use of Ubuntu in this way and why was it hard to use Yocto? For the usual embedded Linux workflows I'm used to, it seems like building on top of Ubuntu would necessitate re-implementing Yocto features.
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#28I've worked with both Josh and Cyrus at DevicePlane and can say I'm really looking forward to what these folks deliver. Really great engineering talent all around working on a solution to a non-obvious but hard problem that exists. I can't wait to get the time to sit down and play with it!
I'd echo this. I've worked with Cyrus previously and he's one of the most effective engineers I've ever partnered with. Great team behind this!
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#29Somewhat interesting and will keep an eye on it, but the "current ecosystem" paragraph seems to both miss some options and confuse some things. E.g. yocto isn't an update solution, but is presented as contrast to some options for bigger systems, and no of the more advanced competitors for updates, both software and services, aren't mentioned at all - but those are what you need to convince me you're better as. (And y…
True, Yocto is not technically an update solution! We explained it as such to try and keep our post a little shorter, but perhaps we oversimplified a bit too much there. What we probably meant to say is "the Yocto ecosystem". We mention Yocto and internal tooling rather than other competitors because they're what we hear most often. We would have loved to include more discussion about why were better than other solut…
It'd be great to hear a comparison of when you'd want to use Deviceplane vs something like mender.io or updatehub.io. I'm a great fan of the A/B dual image update strategy because it's simple, atomic and resilient to errors or loss of power during an update. Does Deviceplane still provide some of those assurances or would I want to use Deviceplane in conjunction with something like Mender?
I deploy updates on IoT devices that are unattended and can only afford minimal downtime. If an interrupted update (due to loss of network connectivity or power) caused a device to be unreachable/unupdateable it would be bad. I'd also be concerned with using DevicePlane as it's presented because I'd have no way of updating the device's kernel version that I first deploy with.
Re: Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux
#30What about Balena? How are you different or the same?
Great question! We're in the same space as Balena and tackling some of the same problems, but with a different approach. Here are some of the big ways we defer from Balena (though these points really just scratch the surface). Balena ties you into their ecosystem a bit too much. They require you to use BalenaOS which means they only support a fixed number of devices. In contrast, Deviceplane can be used with any Linu…
Great description! I evaluated balena for one of my Nvidia Jetson demos and I wanted it to work so bad, but it didn't support the jetson xavier.