4 ms·

I'm not sure if it will end up being the case, but I would like to hope that open firmware and/or hardware will become a big thing in the next decade. Open sour

I'm not sure if it will end up being the case, but I would like to hope that open firmware and/or hardware will become a big thing in the next decade. Open source software has been such a game changer, and it would be amazing if we could realise the same benefits in the embedded/hardware sphere.

tmaly 5y ago
I cannot imagine people having mini fabs at their house like that have 3d printers. But, the technology could reach the point where making an ASIC could be dirt cheap. Imagine being able to get your own chip created at a micro fab for dirt cheap?
Maxburn 5y ago
Me too, I recently started using OpenWRT and I'm blown away. Also used pfSense for years.
imglorp 5y ago
There is a mountain of gatekeeping at the CPU, motherboard, and firmware levels that benefits only governments and manufacturers. It will need to be routed around or tunneled through at each layer.
axegon_ 5y ago
I second this and for several major reasons: 1. Prices are down(yes, lower down your guns). I'm not talking about CPUs or GPUs but embedded products. It's absolutely mind blowing that you can get the computational power of a mid-90's computer with the size of a coin for just a few bucks. Same goes for sensors, transceivers, motors and communication modules. 2. 3D printing has come a long way, also dirt cheap and easily accessible to people and is yet another game changer for prototyping. Essentially you can have a functional part in your hands in a day. 3. With works towards lowering carbon footprint(further amplified by inflation), smart devices with low footprint will become more popular-anything which will lower costs. It may sound counter intuitive at first glance but you can imagine how a smart home/office/factory/store/restaurant/anything could be more efficient if power consumption is managed in the most efficient way possible and likely far better than you ever could. 4. Open firmware and hardware is going to be a game changer in another area which seemed completely out of reach just a few years ago - space exploration. Even there, the prices have dropped massively. And there's one more thing when it comes to space exploration: I know that people are really on both extremes when it comes to opinions on Elon Musk but here are my thoughts: ignore what he says and pay attention to what he does. I'm not entirely sure that he's right on electric cars and I suspect that he might not be on the winning side if synthetic fuels become widely available. The one thing which makes me sway towards them are the billions Porsche is pouring into research in that area and credit where it's due: they have been right throughout the entirety of the automotive history. 5. Industrial purposes. Again looking at what Elon Musk is doing - I think he is giving us a glimpse of what Industrial revolution 2.0 might look like. And again something which was further fueled by the pandemic. The one thing that I see truly missing in the picture is cheap, fast and easy way to make PCB prototypes - that is still an expensive and complicated endeavor. Or at least I am not aware of a cheap and efficient way to do this. I've personally gone as far as trying to figure out a way to use conductive paint for that purpose. With 0 success so far I'm afraid.
- xchaotic 5y ago
  This is definitely an area that is going to grow. I think most of the initial growth will be in the low-end, cheap, disposable projects - stuff for managing your home (IoT), for example where you want as much control over the whole stack as possible. The current IoT hype has blown over a little, but the need to control various things around you in an intelligent and safe way is still an unsolved problem, worth exploring further.
  - axegon_ 5y ago
    > The current IoT hype has blown over a little I don't think it ever picked up: It was trying to solve a problem which didn't exist at the time. In the mid 2010's when they started popping up, the economy was growing and most of climate change, lowering carbon footprints and all that was seen as "Greta Thunberg's pretentious and delusional world" to working class citizens. And for the most part that still would have been the case if it wasn't for covid and the accompanying inflation. I don't think average Joe has learned a lesson from it or realizing how fragile our economy is. Almost like enforced necessity: "hey my electric bill is 4 times what it used to be" opens a new market. The ecosystem however was(and sadly still is) appalling: You get a hama wifi enabled light bulb, you need to download their app to set it up. You buy a Phillips one a few months later and you need to download yet another app to set it up. Not to mention the absolute hell that are both google home and alexa. Worst of all is that there are no efforts to open source alternatives(home assistant technically relies on either google or amazon). Privacy aside, their interfacing options are equally annoying. I do have a few wifi enabled light bulbs and I turn them on for my dog when I'm not at home through google and it is just as messy as it was on day one.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  How cheap do you want PCBs to be? They're already at the point where shipping costs dominate the price. https://jlcpcb.com/ https://jlcpcb.com/
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If you 3D print your own, you don't have to pay the shipping ;-)

tmaly 5y ago

I cannot imagine people having mini fabs at their house like that have 3d printers. But, the technology could reach the point where making an ASIC could be dirt cheap. Imagine being able to get your own chip created at a micro fab for dirt cheap?

Maxburn 5y ago

Me too, I recently started using OpenWRT and I'm blown away. Also used pfSense for years.

imglorp 5y ago

There is a mountain of gatekeeping at the CPU, motherboard, and firmware levels that benefits only governments and manufacturers. It will need to be routed around or tunneled through at each layer.

axegon_ 5y ago

I second this and for several major reasons: 1. Prices are down(yes, lower down your guns). I'm not talking about CPUs or GPUs but embedded products. It's absolutely mind blowing that you can get the computational power of a mid-90's computer with the size of a coin for just a few bucks. Same goes for sensors, transceivers, motors and communication modules. 2. 3D printing has come a long way, also dirt cheap and easily accessible to people and is yet another game changer for prototyping. Essentially you can have a functional part in your hands in a day. 3. With works towards lowering carbon footprint(further amplified by inflation), smart devices with low footprint will become more popular-anything which will lower costs. It may sound counter intuitive at first glance but you can imagine how a smart home/office/factory/store/restaurant/anything could be more efficient if power consumption is managed in the most efficient way possible and likely far better than you ever could. 4. Open firmware and hardware is going to be a game changer in another area which seemed completely out of reach just a few years ago - space exploration. Even there, the prices have dropped massively. And there's one more thing when it comes to space exploration: I know that people are really on both extremes when it comes to opinions on Elon Musk but here are my thoughts: ignore what he says and pay attention to what he does. I'm not entirely sure that he's right on electric cars and I suspect that he might not be on the winning side if synthetic fuels become widely available. The one thing which makes me sway towards them are the billions Porsche is pouring into research in that area and credit where it's due: they have been right throughout the entirety of the automotive history. 5. Industrial purposes. Again looking at what Elon Musk is doing - I think he is giving us a glimpse of what Industrial revolution 2.0 might look like. And again something which was further fueled by the pandemic. The one thing that I see truly missing in the picture is cheap, fast and easy way to make PCB prototypes - that is still an expensive and complicated endeavor. Or at least I am not aware of a cheap and efficient way to do this. I've personally gone as far as trying to figure out a way to use conductive paint for that purpose. With 0 success so far I'm afraid.

xchaotic 5y ago
This is definitely an area that is going to grow. I think most of the initial growth will be in the low-end, cheap, disposable projects - stuff for managing your home (IoT), for example where you want as much control over the whole stack as possible. The current IoT hype has blown over a little, but the need to control various things around you in an intelligent and safe way is still an unsolved problem, worth exploring further.
- axegon_ 5y ago
  > The current IoT hype has blown over a little I don't think it ever picked up: It was trying to solve a problem which didn't exist at the time. In the mid 2010's when they started popping up, the economy was growing and most of climate change, lowering carbon footprints and all that was seen as "Greta Thunberg's pretentious and delusional world" to working class citizens. And for the most part that still would have been the case if it wasn't for covid and the accompanying inflation. I don't think average Joe has learned a lesson from it or realizing how fragile our economy is. Almost like enforced necessity: "hey my electric bill is 4 times what it used to be" opens a new market. The ecosystem however was(and sadly still is) appalling: You get a hama wifi enabled light bulb, you need to download their app to set it up. You buy a Phillips one a few months later and you need to download yet another app to set it up. Not to mention the absolute hell that are both google home and alexa. Worst of all is that there are no efforts to open source alternatives(home assistant technically relies on either google or amazon). Privacy aside, their interfacing options are equally annoying. I do have a few wifi enabled light bulbs and I turn them on for my dog when I'm not at home through google and it is just as messy as it was on day one.
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
How cheap do you want PCBs to be? They're already at the point where shipping costs dominate the price. https://jlcpcb.com/ https://jlcpcb.com/
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  If you 3D print your own, you don't have to pay the shipping ;-)