12 ms·

It’s all about the software & documentation. There’s lots of “competitors” to esp32, pretty much none of them except STM have the software for developers, whic

It’s all about the software & documentation. There’s lots of “competitors” to esp32, pretty much none of them except STM have the software for developers, which makes their offerings close to useless. The only way to gain critical mass is relentless deep commitment to developer tools/libraries and documentation. In many cases these competitors actually try to hide their documentation and keep secret how their chips work. I’d be interested to hear if there’s other chip vendors with software/documentation as impressive as Espressif but I haven’t heard any, except as I said STM.

londons_explore 6y ago
It just means it isn't made for hobbyists... Hardware companies don't care about the lack of good software - they just pay some embedded code monkey a lowish salary to 'just make it work'.
- ducktective 6y ago
  "embedded code monkey" Is this really the case? :(
  - AlotOfReading 6y ago
    It's a pretty uncharitable description, but yeah. There are only two types of companies that do this though: companies where they're working at such a scale that spending a few extra months to years of developer time doesn't make a dent compared to the BOM savings. You're more likely to get vendor support by name recognition at these kinds of companies, so it's not as bad as the hobbyist experience. The second kind is where either the project or the company can't afford the capital outlay for better documented chips (or support packages). Stay the heck away from these if you value your sanity or know your own worth.
    - ducktective 6y ago
      Is it even possible to make as much as the hype fields (webdev, data science, ML) in embedded? Is there opportunities for startups in HW sector?
      - londons_explore 6y ago
        Sadly no - apart from a very tiny number of silicon valley companies, everyone else in embedded tech seems to pay the people who write verilog and assembly the same as the people who make the schematics and the mechanical designs. That's sometimes only 40% of what people who write python and nodejs get in the same city...
        elcritch 6y ago
        I think that's partly due to market forces and the value produced per developer. A few Webdev's can write software that enables an entire web company in a few months. Due to the poor state of embedded development ecosystem the same is not true in hardware, compounded by the time/effort required to workaround bugs in the hardware plus working in error prone C. Then embedded developers/companies don't share workarounds via open source, so every team must spend time working around already solved issues. Personally, I'm using the ESP32 largely because of the open-source SDK, that didn't require an NDA or some crappy IDE, then I ported Nim to it. But normally it might take 2-3x more embedded devs to create products with comparable profits to similar devs in pure software
      - AlotOfReading 6y ago
        If you're doing automation of some kind in the bay, embedded has roughly comparable payscales to other dev jobs. Beyond that, no. You'll generally be paid slightly less than webdevs (but still far more than most engineers make).
        pjbk 6y ago
        In my humble experience, slightly less ≈ 30% to 40% less.
nrp 6y ago
Bouffalo apparently has been giving Pine64 the necessary documentation access to make their initiative for a full open software stack workable: https://www.pine64.org/2020/10/28/nutcracker-challenge-blob-free-wifi-ble/ https://www.pine64.org/2020/10/28/nutcracker-challenge-blob-... Edit: a better reference is Bouffalo’s GitHub org showing the docs and mostly open code: https://github.com/bouffalolab https://github.com/bouffalolab
- rasz 6y ago
  Not full. I managed to squeeze, like blood from stone, from Bouffalo a statement about absolutely no way they are open sourcing their radio interface.
snvzz 6y ago
>stm gd32v is a stm32 (peripherals, memory map) clone, except using risc-v rather than arm.
- phkahler 6y ago
  That is going to put a dent in ARMs revenue. Even if that particular chip isn't a big seller, it means ST now has a drop-in replacement for ARM in their other SoCs. Soon people will realize that ISA is often irrelevant, but the peripherals, libraries, and tools are.
  - ducktective 6y ago
    I'm not so sure. About ISA there is this : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24958423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24958423
    - snvzz 6y ago
      Any ISA can be dissected, but ultimately RISC-V's got the mindshare and the license.
    - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
      There's no solution, only tradeoffs.
    - brucehoult 6y ago
      That's one opinion. Another ARM engineer who contributed one heck of a lot more to ARM's success (designed ARM7TDMI, Thumb, Thumb2) says RISC-V is great. See at 51 minutes in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sh097Dk5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sh097Dk5k
  - ckocagil 6y ago
    That's not ST, it's by the Chinese company GigaDevice that makes (decent) clones of the STM32 series. Your point still stands though.
baybal2 6y ago
RISC-V so far is a turndown for a design, speaking honestly. ARM have by faaaaar the best tooling in the industry, which are more open, than not, and the baseline is made on GNU toolchain, only with more fancy debug tools being paid/locked down. RISC-V did not yet benefit from its openness for as long as tooling go. However, RISC-V would still be infinitely better than Cadence, and them wanting $100k for a basic (and terrible) debugger with coresight-like functionality.
canada_dry 6y ago
> gain critical mass is relentless deep commitment to developer tools/libraries and documentation Which seems (IMHO) why the likes of Texas Instruments has failed. They've made a few attempts at jumping on the IoT bandwagon over the last decade and should have been in a perfect position to capitalize on the huge uptake but it just didn't fit their profit margin goals I'm guessing.
- rasz 6y ago
  Nah, problem with TI was their ridiculous $20-30 price point for a microcontroller with build in Wifi.
IgorPartola 6y ago
This. If it doesn’t work with the Arduino IDE/platformio, I would rather not use it. What these manufacturers should do is invest in integrating with these SDKs instead of creating their own. And they should document everything to the level that IPFS is documented (just an example of excellent documentation that comes to mind). Do those two things and you got a winner even if the device itself isn’t technically the superior choice.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Because, to be frank, Arduino is a bit of a toy platform. It is really good for beginners and for hobbyists to make embedded devices available to a wider audience, but nobody in their right mind would build an actual product on top of Arduino.
  - EmpirePhoenix 6y ago
    Well prusa did with their printers
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      They would be one of an exceedingly small minority, then.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        Almost every consumer 3D printer out there runs on top of Arduino. Sure that’s a small market compared to all electronics. But it’s still a big market in absolute terms.
        mbushey 6y ago
        This was true three years ago. Plenty of 3D printers are now using ARM. The Monoprice MP Mini Delta has been out about two years now with a price of $175 US. Marlin 2.0 has support for ARM, I think it would be accurate to say "Almost every consumer 3D printer out there runs on top of Marlin", although there are a few alternatives like Smoothie.

londons_explore 6y ago

It just means it isn't made for hobbyists... Hardware companies don't care about the lack of good software - they just pay some embedded code monkey a lowish salary to 'just make it work'.

ducktective 6y ago
"embedded code monkey" Is this really the case? :(
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  It's a pretty uncharitable description, but yeah. There are only two types of companies that do this though: companies where they're working at such a scale that spending a few extra months to years of developer time doesn't make a dent compared to the BOM savings. You're more likely to get vendor support by name recognition at these kinds of companies, so it's not as bad as the hobbyist experience. The second kind is where either the project or the company can't afford the capital outlay for better documented chips (or support packages). Stay the heck away from these if you value your sanity or know your own worth.
  - ducktective 6y ago
    Is it even possible to make as much as the hype fields (webdev, data science, ML) in embedded? Is there opportunities for startups in HW sector?
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      Sadly no - apart from a very tiny number of silicon valley companies, everyone else in embedded tech seems to pay the people who write verilog and assembly the same as the people who make the schematics and the mechanical designs. That's sometimes only 40% of what people who write python and nodejs get in the same city...
      - elcritch 6y ago
        I think that's partly due to market forces and the value produced per developer. A few Webdev's can write software that enables an entire web company in a few months. Due to the poor state of embedded development ecosystem the same is not true in hardware, compounded by the time/effort required to workaround bugs in the hardware plus working in error prone C. Then embedded developers/companies don't share workarounds via open source, so every team must spend time working around already solved issues. Personally, I'm using the ESP32 largely because of the open-source SDK, that didn't require an NDA or some crappy IDE, then I ported Nim to it. But normally it might take 2-3x more embedded devs to create products with comparable profits to similar devs in pure software
    - AlotOfReading 6y ago
      If you're doing automation of some kind in the bay, embedded has roughly comparable payscales to other dev jobs. Beyond that, no. You'll generally be paid slightly less than webdevs (but still far more than most engineers make).
      - pjbk 6y ago
        In my humble experience, slightly less ≈ 30% to 40% less.

nrp 6y ago

Bouffalo apparently has been giving Pine64 the necessary documentation access to make their initiative for a full open software stack workable: https://www.pine64.org/2020/10/28/nutcracker-challenge-blob-free-wifi-ble/ https://www.pine64.org/2020/10/28/nutcracker-challenge-blob-... Edit: a better reference is Bouffalo’s GitHub org showing the docs and mostly open code: https://github.com/bouffalolab https://github.com/bouffalolab

rasz 6y ago
Not full. I managed to squeeze, like blood from stone, from Bouffalo a statement about absolutely no way they are open sourcing their radio interface.

snvzz 6y ago

>stm gd32v is a stm32 (peripherals, memory map) clone, except using risc-v rather than arm.

phkahler 6y ago
That is going to put a dent in ARMs revenue. Even if that particular chip isn't a big seller, it means ST now has a drop-in replacement for ARM in their other SoCs. Soon people will realize that ISA is often irrelevant, but the peripherals, libraries, and tools are.
- ducktective 6y ago
  I'm not so sure. About ISA there is this : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24958423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24958423
  - snvzz 6y ago
    Any ISA can be dissected, but ultimately RISC-V's got the mindshare and the license.
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    There's no solution, only tradeoffs.
  - brucehoult 6y ago
    That's one opinion. Another ARM engineer who contributed one heck of a lot more to ARM's success (designed ARM7TDMI, Thumb, Thumb2) says RISC-V is great. See at 51 minutes in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sh097Dk5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sh097Dk5k
- ckocagil 6y ago
  That's not ST, it's by the Chinese company GigaDevice that makes (decent) clones of the STM32 series. Your point still stands though.

baybal2 6y ago

RISC-V so far is a turndown for a design, speaking honestly. ARM have by faaaaar the best tooling in the industry, which are more open, than not, and the baseline is made on GNU toolchain, only with more fancy debug tools being paid/locked down. RISC-V did not yet benefit from its openness for as long as tooling go. However, RISC-V would still be infinitely better than Cadence, and them wanting $100k for a basic (and terrible) debugger with coresight-like functionality.

canada_dry 6y ago

> gain critical mass is relentless deep commitment to developer tools/libraries and documentation Which seems (IMHO) why the likes of Texas Instruments has failed. They've made a few attempts at jumping on the IoT bandwagon over the last decade and should have been in a perfect position to capitalize on the huge uptake but it just didn't fit their profit margin goals I'm guessing.

rasz 6y ago
Nah, problem with TI was their ridiculous $20-30 price point for a microcontroller with build in Wifi.

IgorPartola 6y ago

This. If it doesn’t work with the Arduino IDE/platformio, I would rather not use it. What these manufacturers should do is invest in integrating with these SDKs instead of creating their own. And they should document everything to the level that IPFS is documented (just an example of excellent documentation that comes to mind). Do those two things and you got a winner even if the device itself isn’t technically the superior choice.

user-the-name 6y ago
Because, to be frank, Arduino is a bit of a toy platform. It is really good for beginners and for hobbyists to make embedded devices available to a wider audience, but nobody in their right mind would build an actual product on top of Arduino.
- EmpirePhoenix 6y ago
  Well prusa did with their printers
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    They would be one of an exceedingly small minority, then.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      Almost every consumer 3D printer out there runs on top of Arduino. Sure that’s a small market compared to all electronics. But it’s still a big market in absolute terms.
      - mbushey 6y ago
        This was true three years ago. Plenty of 3D printers are now using ARM. The Monoprice MP Mini Delta has been out about two years now with a price of $175 US. Marlin 2.0 has support for ARM, I think it would be accurate to say "Almost every consumer 3D printer out there runs on top of Marlin", although there are a few alternatives like Smoothie.