6 ms·

It's this now, but 3D printers, Meshtastic, and the ESP32 all seem likely to catch the ire of the administration if some deal is not done in the coming years.

by fidotron 10mo ago

It's this now, but 3D printers, Meshtastic, and the ESP32 all seem likely to catch the ire of the administration if some deal is not done in the coming years. I've been saying it for ages, but a decent easily available western equivalent to the ESP32 (meaning easy WiFi) needs to happen, and until it does there will be a giant hole in the middle of the entire maker universe, which increasingly acts as the prototyping stage for commercialized gadgetry.

brk 10mo ago
I agree on the need to create an ESP32 equivalent. But the ESP32 doesn't really correlate to DJI here. DJI collects a massive amount of telemetry data and terrain data, forces the average user to upload this data, and isn't exactly forthcoming about what is collected or how it is used. An ESP32 can, for the most part, be fully audited in what it is sending. Yes, the wireless drivers are binary blobs, but the developer has extensive control over the device, and it is easy to monitor/filter/firewall the data sent. 3D printers, as a general category, are also more similar to the ESP32 than to DJI.
- barbazoo 9mo ago
  > DJI collects a massive amount of telemetry data and terrain data At first I found it hard to believe that this is data they wouldn't get more reliably, more extensively from a satellite. But then I imagine, if you were a bad actor, you wouldn't want all the video, all the exact terrain data, etc, but maybe only that near certain points of interest like energy infrastructure, transportation, etc. So this, paired with satellite data is super powerful. Then again, for most of the US, Google street view exists so there's that, a lot of the data is already out there.
  - sroussey 9mo ago
    And China has its own satellites anyhow. I feel like blocking DJI is just politics of “we have have to do something, anything” and “hey look, we did things” even though those things are irrelevant.
  - brk 9mo ago
    You are right. Also, it's not just data from the US, it's data from around the world. It also comes in real-time or near real-time, so you gain insight into where drones are actively flying. If you've managed to fingerprint interesting users in some way, you now have stats on where they are, what they are deeming interesting to look at, and so on. You're also getting much better imagery and views of things you are not going to get from a satellite. This is not about recreating google maps data. The US banning DJI drones is really a necessity at this point. It's not a complete solution to the problems at hand, but there is no point in supporting China in this way.
RobotToaster 9mo ago
Bambu was made by a bunch of former DJI executives, and copied a lot of their dubious business practices.
- fidotron 9mo ago
  Indeed, but they also took the magic part of their product development philosophy of focusing on making the whole end-to-end process for users absolutely solid, which both companies do better than anyone else in those segments.
robomartin 9mo ago
> I've been saying it for ages, but a decent easily available western equivalent to the ESP32 (meaning easy WiFi) needs to happen - Texas Instruments SimpleLink CC32xx (CC3220 / CC3235) - TI CC3235MODA module - Renesas DA16200 - Microchip PIC32MZ-W1 - Microchip WFI32 module family - Silicon Labs SiWx917 / SiWG917 - Silicon Labs SiWx917Y module - Nordic Semiconductor nRF7001/7002 WiFi 6 IC - Use with nRF52, nRF53 or nRF91 series SoCs - STMicroelectronics STM32 with ST67W series pre-certified WiFi modules These solutions are priced well for commercial and industrial solutions at scale. If necessary one can use any cheap hobby solution for initial development and then port to an industrial-class SoC solution. We've done this a few times during pandemic era shortages; using the RP2040 to get through prototyping and development and then switching the design to an industrial-grade chip.
- bradfa 9mo ago
  What's missing from these parts which makes people reach for ESP32 by default instead? (I don't have any experience with ESP32.) The TI parts seem a bit expensive in small quantities, but the Microchip and SiliLabs parts are like $6-7 in single units from Digi-Key. Is it just that the dev kits are in the >$50 price range which puts people off compared to ESP32?
  - robomartin 9mo ago
    > The TI parts seem a bit expensive in small quantities, but the Microchip and SiliLabs parts are like $6-7 in single units from Digi-Key. Is it just that the dev kits are in the >$50 price range which puts people off compared to ESP32? It helps to separate hobbyist use from professional product development. The hobby market is driven by quick, cheap, and easy: low up-front cost, abundant tutorials, and inexpensive dev boards. In that context, ESP32 shines, and expensive dev kits can be a real psychological barrier. For commercial, industrial, or professional products, however, small-quantity pricing is often irrelevant. Sample or single-unit prices rarely reflect real production costs. Without getting into specifics, it’s common for the ratio between sample pricing and volume pricing to be 10× or more. A part that costs $20 in onesies can easily be a $2 part at scale. This doesn’t apply universally, but it does mean that judging a device’s suitability for mass production based on Digi-Key single-unit pricing is usually a mistake. There are also system-level considerations beyond the MCU’s line item price. For example, the RP2040 could be very inexpensive (around $0.50 in modest volumes when we used it), but that ignores the required external flash, which adds cost, board space, and supply-chain complexity. More importantly for many products, it offers no meaningful code security (the external flash can simply be read out—which can be a non-starter in commercial designs). Guaranteed long-term availability can be crucially important as well; with design support requirements in commercial/industrial settings often extending past ten year timelines. Tooling and ecosystem maturity also matter. At the time, the RP2040 toolchain was notably hostile to Windows, and Raspberry Pi support reflected that attitude. In reality, most product development (EE, MCAD, manufacturing, test, PLM/ERP) is Windows-centric. Asking an organization to bolt a Linux-only toolchain onto an otherwise Windows-based workflow just to save a dollar on an MCU is rarely a winning argument. So while cost absolutely matters, it’s often not the dominant factor in professional design. Security, tooling, vendor support, long-term availability, and integration into existing workflows frequently outweigh a few dollars of MCU price, particularly once production pricing enters the picture.
numpad0 9mo ago
SiLabs RS9116, Nordic nRF7002, TI CC3235, Dialog DA16200, ... They exist, they just don't ship to individual nobodies without NDAs and months of talks and supply commitments, therefore we might as well consider them nonexistent. And that's sinking the whole world into oblivion, and no one(sane) is doing anything about it. Chinese equivalents of Western products ship same day to mail drops at two digits below USD denominated global market manufacturing costs. That's their secret sauce. Or tried and true East Asian miracles strategy, of exploiting material independence to vacuum in foreign currency that are short of cost but are just trustless bundles of paper anyway. Economic competition is not possible when that's possible for them and nobody else - NOBODY else, not like "only for Asian backwater whatever failed state", but China, for now, specifically. I'm actually from Japan and, with goggles of a maker on, DJI behavior feels reminiscent of Sony until it sank. The tech is top notch, and prices make progressively less sense towards higher ends. That kills competitions by denying sales of high end products(IMO. I'm not a sane person).

brk 10mo ago

I agree on the need to create an ESP32 equivalent. But the ESP32 doesn't really correlate to DJI here. DJI collects a massive amount of telemetry data and terrain data, forces the average user to upload this data, and isn't exactly forthcoming about what is collected or how it is used. An ESP32 can, for the most part, be fully audited in what it is sending. Yes, the wireless drivers are binary blobs, but the developer has extensive control over the device, and it is easy to monitor/filter/firewall the data sent. 3D printers, as a general category, are also more similar to the ESP32 than to DJI.

barbazoo 9mo ago
> DJI collects a massive amount of telemetry data and terrain data At first I found it hard to believe that this is data they wouldn't get more reliably, more extensively from a satellite. But then I imagine, if you were a bad actor, you wouldn't want all the video, all the exact terrain data, etc, but maybe only that near certain points of interest like energy infrastructure, transportation, etc. So this, paired with satellite data is super powerful. Then again, for most of the US, Google street view exists so there's that, a lot of the data is already out there.
- sroussey 9mo ago
  And China has its own satellites anyhow. I feel like blocking DJI is just politics of “we have have to do something, anything” and “hey look, we did things” even though those things are irrelevant.
- brk 9mo ago
  You are right. Also, it's not just data from the US, it's data from around the world. It also comes in real-time or near real-time, so you gain insight into where drones are actively flying. If you've managed to fingerprint interesting users in some way, you now have stats on where they are, what they are deeming interesting to look at, and so on. You're also getting much better imagery and views of things you are not going to get from a satellite. This is not about recreating google maps data. The US banning DJI drones is really a necessity at this point. It's not a complete solution to the problems at hand, but there is no point in supporting China in this way.

RobotToaster 9mo ago

Bambu was made by a bunch of former DJI executives, and copied a lot of their dubious business practices.

fidotron 9mo ago
Indeed, but they also took the magic part of their product development philosophy of focusing on making the whole end-to-end process for users absolutely solid, which both companies do better than anyone else in those segments.

robomartin 9mo ago

> I've been saying it for ages, but a decent easily available western equivalent to the ESP32 (meaning easy WiFi) needs to happen - Texas Instruments SimpleLink CC32xx (CC3220 / CC3235) - TI CC3235MODA module - Renesas DA16200 - Microchip PIC32MZ-W1 - Microchip WFI32 module family - Silicon Labs SiWx917 / SiWG917 - Silicon Labs SiWx917Y module - Nordic Semiconductor nRF7001/7002 WiFi 6 IC - Use with nRF52, nRF53 or nRF91 series SoCs - STMicroelectronics STM32 with ST67W series pre-certified WiFi modules These solutions are priced well for commercial and industrial solutions at scale. If necessary one can use any cheap hobby solution for initial development and then port to an industrial-class SoC solution. We've done this a few times during pandemic era shortages; using the RP2040 to get through prototyping and development and then switching the design to an industrial-grade chip.

bradfa 9mo ago
What's missing from these parts which makes people reach for ESP32 by default instead? (I don't have any experience with ESP32.) The TI parts seem a bit expensive in small quantities, but the Microchip and SiliLabs parts are like $6-7 in single units from Digi-Key. Is it just that the dev kits are in the >$50 price range which puts people off compared to ESP32?
- robomartin 9mo ago
  > The TI parts seem a bit expensive in small quantities, but the Microchip and SiliLabs parts are like $6-7 in single units from Digi-Key. Is it just that the dev kits are in the >$50 price range which puts people off compared to ESP32? It helps to separate hobbyist use from professional product development. The hobby market is driven by quick, cheap, and easy: low up-front cost, abundant tutorials, and inexpensive dev boards. In that context, ESP32 shines, and expensive dev kits can be a real psychological barrier. For commercial, industrial, or professional products, however, small-quantity pricing is often irrelevant. Sample or single-unit prices rarely reflect real production costs. Without getting into specifics, it’s common for the ratio between sample pricing and volume pricing to be 10× or more. A part that costs $20 in onesies can easily be a $2 part at scale. This doesn’t apply universally, but it does mean that judging a device’s suitability for mass production based on Digi-Key single-unit pricing is usually a mistake. There are also system-level considerations beyond the MCU’s line item price. For example, the RP2040 could be very inexpensive (around $0.50 in modest volumes when we used it), but that ignores the required external flash, which adds cost, board space, and supply-chain complexity. More importantly for many products, it offers no meaningful code security (the external flash can simply be read out—which can be a non-starter in commercial designs). Guaranteed long-term availability can be crucially important as well; with design support requirements in commercial/industrial settings often extending past ten year timelines. Tooling and ecosystem maturity also matter. At the time, the RP2040 toolchain was notably hostile to Windows, and Raspberry Pi support reflected that attitude. In reality, most product development (EE, MCAD, manufacturing, test, PLM/ERP) is Windows-centric. Asking an organization to bolt a Linux-only toolchain onto an otherwise Windows-based workflow just to save a dollar on an MCU is rarely a winning argument. So while cost absolutely matters, it’s often not the dominant factor in professional design. Security, tooling, vendor support, long-term availability, and integration into existing workflows frequently outweigh a few dollars of MCU price, particularly once production pricing enters the picture.

numpad0 9mo ago

SiLabs RS9116, Nordic nRF7002, TI CC3235, Dialog DA16200, ... They exist, they just don't ship to individual nobodies without NDAs and months of talks and supply commitments, therefore we might as well consider them nonexistent. And that's sinking the whole world into oblivion, and no one(sane) is doing anything about it. Chinese equivalents of Western products ship same day to mail drops at two digits below USD denominated global market manufacturing costs. That's their secret sauce. Or tried and true East Asian miracles strategy, of exploiting material independence to vacuum in foreign currency that are short of cost but are just trustless bundles of paper anyway. Economic competition is not possible when that's possible for them and nobody else - NOBODY else, not like "only for Asian backwater whatever failed state", but China, for now, specifically. I'm actually from Japan and, with goggles of a maker on, DJI behavior feels reminiscent of Sony until it sank. The tech is top notch, and prices make progressively less sense towards higher ends. That kills competitions by denying sales of high end products(IMO. I'm not a sane person).