I looked into ESP32, M5 Stack, Arduino, etc. but as someone without experience it's very confusing. Which parts go together? Which case fits? Does that have a battery? All of this can be found out if you study the specs but it's not intuitive.
If all you want is tinker with a device, this device here is optimal.
For the people saying you can build this yourself: Yes. You can also build your own guitar from invidual parts and it will be cheaper than a store bought guitar. (I have done this). Is it super fun to build? Yes. Can everyone do it? No.
For £160 you can buy three JC1060P470, 7 inch proto-tablet systems with the same P4+C5 stack, with GPIO, ethernet in some models.
I get that the expense here is miniaturising and integration, but even at half the RRP, I'd be wincing. The maker market knows how to work out a napkin-BOM, and knows that this is a lot of money for what you're getting.
Is this similar to a Flipper Zero? It seems some of the capabilities are there but maybe not all even though you could add anything with the extensions it seems.
Hardware is hard and I applaud every effort to make it easier for tinkerers to build atop a platform. I've been away from it for a long time but how does the RPi system stack up in comparison? With all the hats available and the variety of cases, it shouldn't be too difficult to match the aesthetics, power consumption and exploit all the pluggable peripherals. What are the blind spots?
Their main selling point is that "most projects die in the setup: a screen, buttons, power and sensors to wire up before you can even begin". With their product, you get plug-and-play blocks for everything. But that idea has been tried many times before. It's Aduino "shields", Beaglebone "capes", an entire ecosystem of Raspberry Pi accessories, etc.
Maybe it'll take off this time around, especially if they can make it cute enough, but at nearly $200 for the base device, I think they're gonna face an uphill battle. I still wish them well.
Very long-time lurker here; I made an account specifically to say what I am about to say:
I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else.
Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu.
I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.
It seems a bit expensive for what it is. I think this would be really cool for a younger hacker just getting started in the kind of scene this project is aimed at, though
I think it's great!
I looked into ESP32, M5 Stack, Arduino, etc. but as someone without experience it's very confusing. Which parts go together? Which case fits? Does that have a battery? All of this can be found out if you study the specs but it's not intuitive.
If all you want is tinker with a device, this device here is optimal.
For the people saying you can build this yourself: Yes. You can also build your own guitar from invidual parts and it will be cheaper than a store bought guitar. (I have done this). Is it super fun to build? Yes. Can everyone do it? No.
For £160 you can buy three JC1060P470, 7 inch proto-tablet systems with the same P4+C5 stack, with GPIO, ethernet in some models.
I get that the expense here is miniaturising and integration, but even at half the RRP, I'd be wincing. The maker market knows how to work out a napkin-BOM, and knows that this is a lot of money for what you're getting.
Is this similar to a Flipper Zero? It seems some of the capabilities are there but maybe not all even though you could add anything with the extensions it seems.
Why would you use this compared to the M5 stack which kind of does the same thing? This just looks like it's packaged in a "cuter" sense.
I understand the rationale, but it looks like they decided to go the Sisyphean route on this.
ESP32-C5 ~$10
ESP32-P4 ~$5
Display ~$10
Case is maybe 90 cents (let's round to $1) if you print out of ABS.
The rest of the components? Let's say another $15 worst case.
~$41 or around that much? Sure, but definitely not ~$193.
Hardware is hard and I applaud every effort to make it easier for tinkerers to build atop a platform. I've been away from it for a long time but how does the RPi system stack up in comparison? With all the hats available and the variety of cases, it shouldn't be too difficult to match the aesthetics, power consumption and exploit all the pluggable peripherals. What are the blind spots?
It's nice but should be half as much.
Their main selling point is that "most projects die in the setup: a screen, buttons, power and sensors to wire up before you can even begin". With their product, you get plug-and-play blocks for everything. But that idea has been tried many times before. It's Aduino "shields", Beaglebone "capes", an entire ecosystem of Raspberry Pi accessories, etc.
Maybe it'll take off this time around, especially if they can make it cute enough, but at nearly $200 for the base device, I think they're gonna face an uphill battle. I still wish them well.
Wow, Kode with K. How shitty for us Germans. https://www.dict.cc/?s=kot
Very long-time lurker here; I made an account specifically to say what I am about to say:
I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else.
Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu.
I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.
Regarding M5, this has similar size but runs Linux and is cheaper: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/m5stack/cardputerzero
So refreshing to see a page that is simple and yet cool. Too tired of 100% claude designed websites in hn
Price is too steep. Cardputer is 30 bucks.
It seems a bit expensive for what it is. I think this would be really cool for a younger hacker just getting started in the kind of scene this project is aimed at, though
> Built-in speaker and microphone
No audio module? Audio is a great introduction to signal processing and programming overall.
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