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What do you want to build? It seems like you want to work with embedded systems. So there are two design considerations: wireless or non-wireless. dummy non-wir

by lien 15y ago

What do you want to build? It seems like you want to work with embedded systems. So there are two design considerations: wireless or non-wireless. dummy non-wireless things are that interesting, so i guess you're going to want to design a wireless device. GainSpan designs Wi-Fi modules and the whole software ecosystem. You could prototype things pretty quickly as they already design the whole chip-level firmware and application-level software that goes into building a prototype. what's really neat about GainSpan chips/systems/software is that they built everything from ground up, so their software is optimized for the embedded space. Sure you could take an ARM-core and design the whole circuit board, and etc, but why would you want to do that? once you get started, you will then probably realize that to differentiate your prototype is the software and not the hardware. if your wireless device can't perform the correct provisioning mechanism to communicate with the router, you're going to have to spend a lot of time on that too. well, anyway, I have to disclose that I used to work for a Wi-Fi chip company before we got acquired and I still sometimes do consulting at GainSpan. check out the website and get an evaluation kit to start tinkering. the EVK is fairly inexpensive and it'll help you understand the design process. best lien

willpower101 15y ago
Thanks I'll definitely take a look at GainSpan. Yeah I don't necessarily want to build everything from the ground up if the components have already been built. Here's an example though. Lets take the fitbit as a very basic example. Mainly it's a well written piece software that needs to interact with multiple sensors: gps, gyroscope, heart rate monitor, probably temperature. Now, I can grab a gyro and an arduino project to read and utilize data from that gyro, as well as all the other components... Separately. But I'm not sure where to go from there in order to turn all that into a single embedded system. It's possible I'm just repeating myself and you've already answered my question, lol. Maybe I just haven't gotten my hands dirty enough yet.
- lien 15y ago
  well, arduino can only take you so far and is limited in where you could go. I've known arduino as a prototyping platform only and there's very little you can go after that. I'd start with the EVK because it has the temperature and light sensor on the board built in. GainSpan did a demo recently to control the board over an iPhone. This is something you can only do with Wi-Fi. Well, once the prototype is done, you should be able to buy the module and look into the module datasheet to develop your own products. Also, note that GainSpan modules currently work with Freescale MCUs so you get access to their customer support team as well. (Basically you could turn on the ARM core in the GainSpan chip or use an external MCU.)

by lien 15y ago

willpower101 15y ago

Thanks I'll definitely take a look at GainSpan. Yeah I don't necessarily want to build everything from the ground up if the components have already been built. Here's an example though. Lets take the fitbit as a very basic example. Mainly it's a well written piece software that needs to interact with multiple sensors: gps, gyroscope, heart rate monitor, probably temperature. Now, I can grab a gyro and an arduino project to read and utilize data from that gyro, as well as all the other components... Separately. But I'm not sure where to go from there in order to turn all that into a single embedded system. It's possible I'm just repeating myself and you've already answered my question, lol. Maybe I just haven't gotten my hands dirty enough yet.

lien 15y ago
well, arduino can only take you so far and is limited in where you could go. I've known arduino as a prototyping platform only and there's very little you can go after that. I'd start with the EVK because it has the temperature and light sensor on the board built in. GainSpan did a demo recently to control the board over an iPhone. This is something you can only do with Wi-Fi. Well, once the prototype is done, you should be able to buy the module and look into the module datasheet to develop your own products. Also, note that GainSpan modules currently work with Freescale MCUs so you get access to their customer support team as well. (Basically you could turn on the ARM core in the GainSpan chip or use an external MCU.)