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It makes sense for the user but then you've just killed a lot of products you've convinced users to buy. It's ridiculus when you consider how many redundant com

by asdff 3y ago

It makes sense for the user but then you've just killed a lot of products you've convinced users to buy. It's ridiculus when you consider how many redundant computers people have in their homes. Smart TV. Watch. Laptops. Desktops. Phones. Even cars. In a perfect world you'd just have a central server that all of these dummy screens just tap into perhaps, either a handheld dock or a little thing in your closet. However, that would stop us from spending a grip on all these different product lines, all the different redundant things. Garmin has made a brand of themselves doing this. Every sport activity, there's a running watch, a golf watch, a whatever the hell watch, a gps this, a gps that, a bike computer, whatever, all bespoke and siloed for a few activities, when really they could just sell you a single slab that connects to a gps and could do whatever. But then, they'd only be selling you one product and not dozens.

jodrellblank 3y ago
> "redundant computers people have in their homes. Smart TV. Watch. Laptops. Desktops. Phones. Even cars. In a perfect world you'd just have a central server that all of these dummy screens just tap into perhaps" This is a nonsense, how is my phone going to tap into a central server at my home to do the image processing of taking a filtered video while on holiday? Stream MBit/sec over international cellular networking at my cost? Why would I want my car to tap into a handheld dock which I have to remember to bring with me and means my home computer is unusable by anyone else for the duration of my journey? How is my watch benefitting by having a long range wireless radio constantly running instead of a low power internal processor?
vel0city 3y ago
Maybe there's a lot of different devices because there's a lot of different ergonomics for the different tasks, all of which are improved with different kinds of computing devices? Like, if all I want is a running watch, I really don't care about it having a heavily rugged design like I might for some kind of hiking watch. I probably also don't care about connectivity to bike sensors. I probably also don't need a large satellite antenna on it. Nor do I need a big display and a mount for it and the ability to attach a sonar fish finder on it. I just want it a small and light as possible while still tracking heartrate, maybe connect to a wireless chest band, and an average quality GPS to follow my tracks. But at the same time, if I'm on a boat and trying to look at charts and trying to find the fish, I don't necessarily care about it being small and light, I want it to be pretty big, and it needs to plug into the sonar fish finder and depth sensors on the boat.
- asdff 3y ago
  Ergonomic considerations still don't mean you need to buy a dozen plus separate computers just to have all those forms.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    But the ergonomics defines the needs for those computing devices. I want that running watch to be pretty tiny, so it can only have a tiny battery. It doesn't have much of a display, so it doesn't need much graphics capabilities. Since it's barely interfacing with other devices it doesn't need a lot of peripheral support. It's not really going to load a lot of data files and doesn't need much RAM. That fish finder is going to run a high resolution display as it's main duty so it needs a decent GPU. It's probably going to be connected to the boat's 12V system, so it doesn't need to be concerned with power usage. It's going to do a lot of reads from data files and need to hold chart data and overlay other information. It needs a lot of connectivity options for all the accessories I'm going to hook up to it. In the end the needs for the compute are pretty different based on the different tasks. I don't want an ESP32 as a desktop and my watch doesn't need dual 3080's and 128GB of RAM.

by asdff 3y ago

jodrellblank 3y ago

> "redundant computers people have in their homes. Smart TV. Watch. Laptops. Desktops. Phones. Even cars. In a perfect world you'd just have a central server that all of these dummy screens just tap into perhaps" This is a nonsense, how is my phone going to tap into a central server at my home to do the image processing of taking a filtered video while on holiday? Stream MBit/sec over international cellular networking at my cost? Why would I want my car to tap into a handheld dock which I have to remember to bring with me and means my home computer is unusable by anyone else for the duration of my journey? How is my watch benefitting by having a long range wireless radio constantly running instead of a low power internal processor?

vel0city 3y ago

Maybe there's a lot of different devices because there's a lot of different ergonomics for the different tasks, all of which are improved with different kinds of computing devices? Like, if all I want is a running watch, I really don't care about it having a heavily rugged design like I might for some kind of hiking watch. I probably also don't care about connectivity to bike sensors. I probably also don't need a large satellite antenna on it. Nor do I need a big display and a mount for it and the ability to attach a sonar fish finder on it. I just want it a small and light as possible while still tracking heartrate, maybe connect to a wireless chest band, and an average quality GPS to follow my tracks. But at the same time, if I'm on a boat and trying to look at charts and trying to find the fish, I don't necessarily care about it being small and light, I want it to be pretty big, and it needs to plug into the sonar fish finder and depth sensors on the boat.

asdff 3y ago
Ergonomic considerations still don't mean you need to buy a dozen plus separate computers just to have all those forms.
- vel0city 3y ago
  But the ergonomics defines the needs for those computing devices. I want that running watch to be pretty tiny, so it can only have a tiny battery. It doesn't have much of a display, so it doesn't need much graphics capabilities. Since it's barely interfacing with other devices it doesn't need a lot of peripheral support. It's not really going to load a lot of data files and doesn't need much RAM. That fish finder is going to run a high resolution display as it's main duty so it needs a decent GPU. It's probably going to be connected to the boat's 12V system, so it doesn't need to be concerned with power usage. It's going to do a lot of reads from data files and need to hold chart data and overlay other information. It needs a lot of connectivity options for all the accessories I'm going to hook up to it. In the end the needs for the compute are pretty different based on the different tasks. I don't want an ESP32 as a desktop and my watch doesn't need dual 3080's and 128GB of RAM.