4 ms·

Have you tried ESP32 and ESP-IDF (FreeRTOS?). I'd be interested in your take on that after using Zephyr :-)

by bborud 2y ago

DannyBee 2y ago
I have tried ESP32 a bunch, ESP-IDF itself less. I mainly used ESP32 through platformio (which used the arduino compatibility layer of ESP-IDF), and then through the rust support. I did use ESP-IDF directly for one project, but only for a small time. For that application, it was just way too high power and too finicky (it was easy to crash it by doing normal things - admittedly, it could be that there are just a lot of crappy ESP32 boards out there) I did find ESP-IDF a lot nicer than either platformio, or the rust support, for sure. It was nice having regular old cmake and stuff that just worked for you, without worrying about it. For a simple app, i would use it over zephyr, no issue. But zephyr's abstractions have bought me stuff. For example, I have learned how to make zephyr's MCU management subsystem do OTA over bluetooth across any device that supports mcuboot (IE everything). So like, i don't worry about needing to use each manufacturer's OTA support. It also works with nuttx if i ever go that way. It's hard to give stuff like that up for my use cases. I can walk near my gate transmitter/receiver, or near a machine, or near anything else i've built, and using the same tools, make sure the device is working and update the device with an image, without needing to worry about or keep 75 types of OTA tools and keys around :) (I could make it work over wifi or lora or ... easily too, but i don't really need to). These devices do not all use the same SOC - the gate transmitter is a very low power sleep device (small battery will last about 21 years at current rate). The gate receiver is not. The embedded sensors on machines are yet a different SOC (nordic), with other types needing a little more power being higher power STM's. There is even an NXP device around somewhere from when i was experimenting with LVGL. It is possible to make this kind of thing work with freertos (they have a 3 year old not-updated labs project to support mcumgr, for example). But i don't want to have to combine my own pieces, etc. This, of course, is basically the point of FreeRTOS, so it's not a surprise i don't go that way :) ESP-IDF obviously provides it's own OTA layer, though it leaves transmitting data and management to you. I did build an OTA over bluetooth impl that worked pretty well (updates at about 50-200k/s) before i moved entirely to the zephyr one.
- dayjaby 2y ago
  Do you by chance have an example repo with mcu management working? I always struggled with that in Zephyr :)

Have you tried ESP32 and ESP-IDF (FreeRTOS?). I'd be interested in your take on that after using Zephyr :-)

by bborud 2y ago

Have you tried ESP32 and ESP-IDF (FreeRTOS?). I'd be interested in your take on that after using Zephyr :-)

I have tried ESP32 a bunch, ESP-IDF itself less. I mainly used ESP32 through platformio (which used the arduino compatibility layer of ESP-IDF), and then through the rust support. I did use ESP-IDF directly for one project, but only for a small time. For that application, it was just way too high power and too finicky (it was easy to crash it by doing normal things - admittedly, it could be that there are just a lot of crappy ESP32 boards out there) I did find ESP-IDF a lot nicer than either platformio, or the rust support, for sure. It was nice having regular old cmake and stuff that just worked for you, without worrying about it. For a simple app, i would use it over zephyr, no issue. But zephyr's abstractions have bought me stuff. For example, I have learned how to make zephyr's MCU management subsystem do OTA over bluetooth across any device that supports mcuboot (IE everything). So like, i don't worry about needing to use each manufacturer's OTA support. It also works with nuttx if i ever go that way. It's hard to give stuff like that up for my use cases. I can walk near my gate transmitter/receiver, or near a machine, or near anything else i've built, and using the same tools, make sure the device is working and update the device with an image, without needing to worry about or keep 75 types of OTA tools and keys around :) (I could make it work over wifi or lora or ... easily too, but i don't really need to). These devices do not all use the same SOC - the gate transmitter is a very low power sleep device (small battery will last about 21 years at current rate). The gate receiver is not. The embedded sensors on machines are yet a different SOC (nordic), with other types needing a little more power being higher power STM's. There is even an NXP device around somewhere from when i was experimenting with LVGL. It is possible to make this kind of thing work with freertos (they have a 3 year old not-updated labs project to support mcumgr, for example). But i don't want to have to combine my own pieces, etc. This, of course, is basically the point of FreeRTOS, so it's not a surprise i don't go that way :) ESP-IDF obviously provides it's own OTA layer, though it leaves transmitting data and management to you. I did build an OTA over bluetooth impl that worked pretty well (updates at about 50-200k/s) before i moved entirely to the zephyr one.

dayjaby 2y ago
Do you by chance have an example repo with mcu management working? I always struggled with that in Zephyr :)