9 ms·

Twilio Acquires Electric Imp

87 points by dsalzman 6y ago

karmicthreat 6y ago
I guess I didn't realize Electric Imp was something people were still using for products. Does make sense for Twilio's API and service lineup though.
- duskwuff 6y ago
  Same here. I remember hearing about their SD-form-factor product, like, 5 or 10 years ago. Then cheap wireless microcontrollers like the ESP8266 came onto the market and made them irrelevant.
  - squarefoot 6y ago
    They had that SD to WiFi card which was interesting to have say a non connected camera send directly photos to a server through an access point. An ESP8266 or ESP32 might probably accomplish the same by implementing SD card emulation on some of its GPIOs. But the form factor would be much less convenient.
    - duskwuff 6y ago
      Are you sure that was an Electric Imp product? I'm pretty sure those were from other companies, like Eye-Fi (and later others).
      - squarefoot 6y ago
        You're right, thanks for pointing out. They made a SD looking MCU board with WiFi, but that didn't work as SD emulator they just used the connector because it was cheap and ubiquitous. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/electric-imp-breakout-hookup-guide https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/electric-imp-breakout-h...
- dsalzman 6y ago
  They moved out of their SD card format and into the software stack a few years ago. With Twilio’s recent launch of their esim product for IoT it seems like they are building up a full stack IoT platform.
mellosouls 6y ago
Completely OT but these announcements for acquisitions, new releases etc: Why are they always excited? We are really excited that Electric Imp is now part of the Twilio family. : Now that Twilio and Electric Imp have joined forces, we’re more excited than ever to see what you build. I get professional pride; it just always seems a bit overdone and insincere when it's phrased like that - though I'm sure in some cases (and no doubt this one) the participants really do feel excited.
- apengwin 6y ago
  Imagine: We're actually pretty ambivalent that we've acquired Electirc Imp. Is this important news? Not sure, but we'll find out together.
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    Ha. I was more thinking "We are pleased to announce..." is sufficient.
    - conception 6y ago
      Being professional isn’t cool anymore.
  - objektif 6y ago
    I like this one. I would add "We most likely overpaid by a lot."
- vadym909 6y ago
  Its an American cultural norm- which often seems 'fake' or 'posing' to Europeans, S.Americans or Asians who are little more reserved and stingy expressing such levels of sentiment. It was a shock to me when I started interviewing for jobs- and an American friend told me, its very important in the US, when interviewing to say "I'm really excited (more than you really are) about the opportunity to work at XYZ." The truth could be you hate the company or are ambivalent- but if you don't say you are absolutely excited- the assumption is you are not interested and therefore will be passed over for someone who is 'truly excited'.
dynamite-ready 6y ago
Congratulations to Electric Imp. I can recall a senior engineer giving a talk at an Erlang meetup years ago (5+), where he described the tech. An interesting combination of Erlang servers and embedded Squirrel VM clients, iirc. The talk stayed in my mind long afterwards. Really explained the tech choices well, and I admired both the pragmatism and the innovation. I learnt a lot from that talk, and have been rooting for them ever since. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXntCtVH68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXntCtVH68 As for the actual product, I don't yet have many (if any) IoT devices in my home. And if I did, I wouldn't be buying them based on Twilio or Electric Imp's name. But I can see there being a land grab for IoT tech supply and infrastructure, which Electric Imp clearly has a high value approach to. So this is a 'random' acquisition that makes a lot of sense to me. Could develop into something quite big actually.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rasz 6y ago
Electric Imp - fits the 'someone elses computer' definition pretty well. Products build around their stack become useless locked up garbage after manufacturers stops paying bills(bankruptcy etc) https://hackaday.com/2019/10/08/teardown-quirky-egg-minder/#comment-6185512 https://hackaday.com/2019/10/08/teardown-quirky-egg-minder/#... TLDR: doorstop
mattbee 6y ago
Oh that was Hugo Fiennes' company! He wrote the definitive BBS software for Acorns, then designed the Empeg Linux MP3 player for cars (in like 99), and the iPhone 1 hardware. applause
- fiveguys94 6y ago
  Aww thanks! There may be argument about the BBS software being "definitive", but it was certainly used to run some of the most popular Acorn BBSes - there were installs with 16 dial-in modems in Hong Kong, for example. It has also been decades since I wrote a terminal emulator... simpler times! As with most things the empeg was a team effort as were all the iPhones I worked on at Apple (the first one through to the 4S) and the Nest... lots of amazing engineers doing incredible work, and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to work with them. Ditto for Electric Imp, which was a fresh look at the problem of exchanging data between the cloud and the real world. I grew up in rural Somerset in the UK and never imagined I'd get to work at Apple and be wrangling power budgets with Wendell Sander. Almost everything in life revolves around being at the right place at the right time and being willing to take risks.

87 points by dsalzman 6y ago

I guess I didn't realize Electric Imp was something people were still using for products. Does make sense for Twilio's API and service lineup though.

duskwuff 6y ago
Same here. I remember hearing about their SD-form-factor product, like, 5 or 10 years ago. Then cheap wireless microcontrollers like the ESP8266 came onto the market and made them irrelevant.
- squarefoot 6y ago
  They had that SD to WiFi card which was interesting to have say a non connected camera send directly photos to a server through an access point. An ESP8266 or ESP32 might probably accomplish the same by implementing SD card emulation on some of its GPIOs. But the form factor would be much less convenient.
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    Are you sure that was an Electric Imp product? I'm pretty sure those were from other companies, like Eye-Fi (and later others).
    - squarefoot 6y ago
      You're right, thanks for pointing out. They made a SD looking MCU board with WiFi, but that didn't work as SD emulator they just used the connector because it was cheap and ubiquitous. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/electric-imp-breakout-hookup-guide https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/electric-imp-breakout-h...
dsalzman 6y ago
They moved out of their SD card format and into the software stack a few years ago. With Twilio’s recent launch of their esim product for IoT it seems like they are building up a full stack IoT platform.

mellosouls 6y ago

Completely OT but these announcements for acquisitions, new releases etc: Why are they always excited? We are really excited that Electric Imp is now part of the Twilio family. : Now that Twilio and Electric Imp have joined forces, we’re more excited than ever to see what you build. I get professional pride; it just always seems a bit overdone and insincere when it's phrased like that - though I'm sure in some cases (and no doubt this one) the participants really do feel excited.

apengwin 6y ago
Imagine: We're actually pretty ambivalent that we've acquired Electirc Imp. Is this important news? Not sure, but we'll find out together.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  Ha. I was more thinking "We are pleased to announce..." is sufficient.
  - conception 6y ago
    Being professional isn’t cool anymore.
- objektif 6y ago
  I like this one. I would add "We most likely overpaid by a lot."
vadym909 6y ago
Its an American cultural norm- which often seems 'fake' or 'posing' to Europeans, S.Americans or Asians who are little more reserved and stingy expressing such levels of sentiment. It was a shock to me when I started interviewing for jobs- and an American friend told me, its very important in the US, when interviewing to say "I'm really excited (more than you really are) about the opportunity to work at XYZ." The truth could be you hate the company or are ambivalent- but if you don't say you are absolutely excited- the assumption is you are not interested and therefore will be passed over for someone who is 'truly excited'.

dynamite-ready 6y ago

Congratulations to Electric Imp. I can recall a senior engineer giving a talk at an Erlang meetup years ago (5+), where he described the tech. An interesting combination of Erlang servers and embedded Squirrel VM clients, iirc. The talk stayed in my mind long afterwards. Really explained the tech choices well, and I admired both the pragmatism and the innovation. I learnt a lot from that talk, and have been rooting for them ever since. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXntCtVH68 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXntCtVH68 As for the actual product, I don't yet have many (if any) IoT devices in my home. And if I did, I wouldn't be buying them based on Twilio or Electric Imp's name. But I can see there being a land grab for IoT tech supply and infrastructure, which Electric Imp clearly has a high value approach to. So this is a 'random' acquisition that makes a lot of sense to me. Could develop into something quite big actually.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rasz 6y ago

Electric Imp - fits the 'someone elses computer' definition pretty well. Products build around their stack become useless locked up garbage after manufacturers stops paying bills(bankruptcy etc) https://hackaday.com/2019/10/08/teardown-quirky-egg-minder/#comment-6185512 https://hackaday.com/2019/10/08/teardown-quirky-egg-minder/#... TLDR: doorstop

mattbee 6y ago

Oh that was Hugo Fiennes' company! He wrote the definitive BBS software for Acorns, then designed the Empeg Linux MP3 player for cars (in like 99), and the iPhone 1 hardware. applause

fiveguys94 6y ago
Aww thanks! There may be argument about the BBS software being "definitive", but it was certainly used to run some of the most popular Acorn BBSes - there were installs with 16 dial-in modems in Hong Kong, for example. It has also been decades since I wrote a terminal emulator... simpler times! As with most things the empeg was a team effort as were all the iPhones I worked on at Apple (the first one through to the 4S) and the Nest... lots of amazing engineers doing incredible work, and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to work with them. Ditto for Electric Imp, which was a fresh look at the problem of exchanging data between the cloud and the real world. I grew up in rural Somerset in the UK and never imagined I'd get to work at Apple and be wrangling power budgets with Wendell Sander. Almost everything in life revolves around being at the right place at the right time and being willing to take risks.