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There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

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Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#71

Post by sudosysgen »

jakear wrote: post #57
Reichhardt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The first thing to abandon is certainly vax card verifications. I know a handful of anti-vax folks and without fail every single one has printed out a fake vax cards on their home printer and gotten past any and all vax verifiers they encounter. It’s security theater at its most extreme, akin to requiring all websites to display a “your payment is processed securely” message on their payment page. Consider: if you ha…

That's honestly pretty weird to me. If as a government you're going to be requiring vaccination proofs, why not go all the way and get cryptographically secure certificates encoded into a QR code?

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#72

Post by sydthrowaway »

Reichhardt wrote: post #47
ip26 wrote: post #22

This is depressing. Single use disposable. Full of copper, gold, tungsten, halfnium. Will leach poison into the ground. Some of the most advanced technology of our age. Use it once, toss it in the trash. Meanwhile the paper versions work just fine.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is true. Omicron is milder than the flu

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#74

Post by justinc8687 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #71
jakear wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first thing to abandon is certainly vax card verifications. I know a handful of anti-vax folks and without fail every single one has printed out a fake vax cards on their home printer and gotten past any and all vax verifiers they encounter. It’s security theater at its most extreme, akin to requiring all websites to display a “your payment is processed securely” message on their payment page. Consider: if you ha…

That's honestly pretty weird to me. If as a government you're going to be requiring vaccination proofs, why not go all the way and get cryptographically secure certificates encoded into a QR code?

You mean like Europe and much of the rest of the world? "Freedom" or something?

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#75

Post by AlotOfReading »

coupdejarnac wrote: post #63
AlotOfReading wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want bargain basement processors with connectivity, Qualcomm is still selling many of the old CSR chips. The low end chips went for <$0.50 in volume and the power consumption was often barely worth measuring. We used to chuck them into products every time every time I lost an argument with the hardware team about whether 10-15 cents of BOM cost is worth 3 months of painful bringup.

Are you using fcc approved modules with the csr chips or the bare chips? I'd be interested in a really cheap bluetooth capable microcontroller. I plan to use the nrf52805 for my next product due to the low cost.

Sorry if that came across as an endorsement. I'd go with the nordic modules instead because the documentation and support will be much better. The development costs of weird, cheap wireless chips isn't worth chasing marginal BOM optimizations. Just don't go to the other extreme and spend $40 on an Intel SoC for your wireless thermometer like I've seen others do.

I haven't worked with CSR modules since I left that job around 2017, but the latest vendor toolchains for some chips were still on GCC 3 (~2005) at that time. We were taking bare reels and doing certification ourselves if it matters though.

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#76

Post by sudosysgen »

justinc8687 wrote: post #74
sudosysgen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's honestly pretty weird to me. If as a government you're going to be requiring vaccination proofs, why not go all the way and get cryptographically secure certificates encoded into a QR code?

You mean like Europe and much of the rest of the world? "Freedom" or something?

Yes, that is what I mean. I dont think the freedom argument makes sense since you already have to carry your Vax card with ID, so if you're going to be a bit authoritarian why not just do it right?

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#77

Post by Lamad123 »

ip26 wrote: post #22

This is depressing. Single use disposable. Full of copper, gold, tungsten, halfnium. Will leach poison into the ground. Some of the most advanced technology of our age. Use it once, toss it in the trash. Meanwhile the paper versions work just fine.

And they are crying about semiconductor shortage, and blah blah...

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#78

Post by thebigman433 »

Reichhardt wrote: post #47
ip26 wrote: post #22

This is depressing. Single use disposable. Full of copper, gold, tungsten, halfnium. Will leach poison into the ground. Some of the most advanced technology of our age. Use it once, toss it in the trash. Meanwhile the paper versions work just fine.

Quoted post unavailable.

1. What powerful political and economic interests WANT those things to stay in place? They are mostly bad for both politics AND economics.

2. Its crazy to me that one of the things coming out of all of this is that we should get rid of quarantining. I wish the conclusion people came to was "wow, we should definitely have people quarantine when theyre sick instead of going to work and getting coworkers sick"

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#79

Post by justinc8687 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #76
justinc8687 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like Europe and much of the rest of the world? "Freedom" or something?

Yes, that is what I mean. I dont think the freedom argument makes sense since you already have to carry your Vax card with ID, so if you're going to be a bit authoritarian why not just do it right?

I think the argument (which to be clear, I don't agree with) is that there isn't a big federal database of vaccinations. Now mind you, if people understood how the EU QR codes work (public/private key), they'd realize this wasn't an issue, but if people are staunchly anti-vax / anti-science, this is probably a big ask...

Re: There's an ARM Cortex-M4 with Bluetooth inside a Covid test kit

#80

Post by gst »

bobsmooth wrote: post #5

The chip is $4. The test is much more expensive than that.

The expensive price of the tests is actually a whole different problem. For the last tests that I bought at Walgreens (InteliSwab) I paid around $25 for two tests.

Meanwhile I'm currently in Europe and as a consumer I can buy Antigen tests for around 3 Euro per test (would be less than 2 Euro if bought in bulk). As far as I know those prices are not subsidized.

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