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There's Beaglebone, Raspberry Pi, and also now Tessel that do that. The previous two have had node.js support for ages but I think have been lacking any kind of

There's Beaglebone, Raspberry Pi, and also now Tessel that do that. The previous two have had node.js support for ages but I think have been lacking any kind of real advertising because they're more general purpose. All of those appear to be fully-fledged computers though, and Espruino's not really aiming to compete with them. Instead, you get to use JavaScript on a very small, low-power microcontroller than will sensibly run off a small battery for days on end. Some people will want one thing, some will want another - and hopefully they can both coexist. If we get it right they'll both help each other and we can end up with a large library of JavaScript code for embedded devices :)

hershel 13y ago
>> sensibly run off a small battery for days on end. Could you please offer more details? what kind of application, what kind of battery and estimated power consumption ?
- zokier 13y ago
  Quick back of the envelope calculation shows about two days (~50 hours) on 2xAA alkaline batteries when running the micro-controller on full power (~50mA current consumption according to the datasheet). Of course aggressive power management (ie putting the mcu to sleep) could significantly extend the battery life. According to the datasheet the current consumption at sleep can be as low as 0.5mA, full two orders of magnitude difference. The standby current is in microampere range. In comparison BBB consumes "210-460mA @5V", which would correspond to 1-3 hours on 2xAA alkalines (assuming ideal voltage converter).
- gfwilliams 13y ago
  Sorry for the late reply.... At the moment I've got the KickStarter board down to 4mA when idle (as it can sleep) - when executing code I think it's around 40mA. Hopefully by release time I'll have sorted out a few glitches and got it down to under 1mA idle (in the range zokier noted). Note that with something like 'setInterval(doStuff, 1000)' the processor will be idle for 99% of the time. Running off a li-ion battery from an old Nokia phone (700mAh) you could then expect Espruino to run for almost a month. Using the battery out of my Galaxy S3 (2100mAh) it'd run for almost 3 months.

hershel 13y ago

>> sensibly run off a small battery for days on end. Could you please offer more details? what kind of application, what kind of battery and estimated power consumption ?

zokier 13y ago
Quick back of the envelope calculation shows about two days (~50 hours) on 2xAA alkaline batteries when running the micro-controller on full power (~50mA current consumption according to the datasheet). Of course aggressive power management (ie putting the mcu to sleep) could significantly extend the battery life. According to the datasheet the current consumption at sleep can be as low as 0.5mA, full two orders of magnitude difference. The standby current is in microampere range. In comparison BBB consumes "210-460mA @5V", which would correspond to 1-3 hours on 2xAA alkalines (assuming ideal voltage converter).
gfwilliams 13y ago
Sorry for the late reply.... At the moment I've got the KickStarter board down to 4mA when idle (as it can sleep) - when executing code I think it's around 40mA. Hopefully by release time I'll have sorted out a few glitches and got it down to under 1mA idle (in the range zokier noted). Note that with something like 'setInterval(doStuff, 1000)' the processor will be idle for 99% of the time. Running off a li-ion battery from an old Nokia phone (700mAh) you could then expect Espruino to run for almost a month. Using the battery out of my Galaxy S3 (2100mAh) it'd run for almost 3 months.