6 ms·

Lower barrier of entry for people interested in playing around with hardware development. No breadboards and wires, only pluggable modules. Javascript instead

by noodle 12y ago

Lower barrier of entry for people interested in playing around with hardware development. No breadboards and wires, only pluggable modules. Javascript instead of C.

kasbah 12y ago
No Linux, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on whom you talk to.
- Joeboy 12y ago
  You don't have to run Linux (or any OS) on the pi either.
joshvm 12y ago
I think for many people cost is the most important factor. People who bought the RPi did so because it was so cheap that it was practically an impulse purchase. Disregarding the actual device price, the other issue here is the expensive module pricing. Let's face it, if you're buying this because you want to do things the simple way then you're going to be buying modules. Ambient light + MicroSD card? That'll be $50 please. Too many electronics outfits shaft consumers like this and too many electronics hobbyists put up with it.
- antsar 12y ago
  Taking into account the value of one's time, maybe paying $50 for a pair of modules rather than taking the time to discover how to build them from scratch is a worthwhile spend? Enough hobbyists seem to think so, based on the success of these businesses.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  The volume cost of parts that make smartphones, remote controls, wifi dongles, etc so darn cheap for the average consumer do not scale downward when you're only making 100 or 1000 of something.
  - joshvm 12y ago
    It contains a grand total of three components, the only one costs anything is the SD slot. At 100 units, they're about 50c each. The other components cost nothing, relatively, you can buy a thousand resistors for a dollar. The board itself would cost under a dollar to make at anything above 10 units. Total cost is about $2 if we're stretching. I ran a quote for an assembly house, and for 100 boards it would cost around $200 or $2 a board - so now it's $4. Standard markup is 3 times the build cost or about $12-15. Yet it costs $25. That doesn't include international shipping, by the way. Economy of scale certainly works when you're making 100. Even Seeed Studio do assembly nowadays, and you don't even need to carry the stock as the components are in their Open Part Library.
EpicEng 12y ago
So...people who want to play around with hardware development without actually learning anything about hardware development? How is that helpful? Why not just learn what you need to learn and do it right the first time?
- jonknee 12y ago
  I assume you're using a computer you made yourself from materials you mined out of the Earth? Running software you programmed in hardware of your own design? Higher level abstractions in computing are of obvious value. Many more people know Javascript than know HDL, an assembly variant or even C. It's pretty obvious why this would be helpful. If you know a little bit of Javascript you can get out of the browser and have physical stuff happen. Pretty neat hack if you ask me.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    Yiur first paragraph is simply absurd, so I'll ignore it. So what is one to do once they have designed a system using this platform? Do you want to turn it into a product? Great! Go redesign the entire thing from the ground up because what you made is a toy. It can't be manufactured at a reasonable cost. The code will have to be completely rewritten. The hardware has to be completely re-specced. What a waste of time. There are plenty of micro platforms our there these days that require relatively little knowledge of hardware,yet at least resemble something you may actually see in the real world. Use those. That said, I could see myself being proven wrong here,which is fine. It would only take some enthusiastic person who already knows JavaScript and has some revolutionary idea to-do do so. My opinion is that you don't need to sit on mountains of abstraction at all times. No abstraction I'd perfect and we already have enough people in this industry who don't really understand what the hell they're doing. Learning something new isn't a bad thing.
    - noodle 12y ago
      Dude. You need to get some perspective on this. People are not going to buy a Tessel to build a production-grade hardware project. It is for hobbyists.
retroencabulato 12y ago
I really don't see how that homepage example is any simpler than Arduino. http://playground.arduino.cc/ComponentLib/Servo http://playground.arduino.cc/ComponentLib/Servo

by noodle 12y ago

Lower barrier of entry for people interested in playing around with hardware development. No breadboards and wires, only pluggable modules. Javascript instead of C.

kasbah 12y ago

No Linux, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on whom you talk to.

Joeboy 12y ago
You don't have to run Linux (or any OS) on the pi either.

joshvm 12y ago

I think for many people cost is the most important factor. People who bought the RPi did so because it was so cheap that it was practically an impulse purchase. Disregarding the actual device price, the other issue here is the expensive module pricing. Let's face it, if you're buying this because you want to do things the simple way then you're going to be buying modules. Ambient light + MicroSD card? That'll be $50 please. Too many electronics outfits shaft consumers like this and too many electronics hobbyists put up with it.

antsar 12y ago
Taking into account the value of one's time, maybe paying $50 for a pair of modules rather than taking the time to discover how to build them from scratch is a worthwhile spend? Enough hobbyists seem to think so, based on the success of these businesses.
joezydeco 12y ago
The volume cost of parts that make smartphones, remote controls, wifi dongles, etc so darn cheap for the average consumer do not scale downward when you're only making 100 or 1000 of something.
- joshvm 12y ago
  It contains a grand total of three components, the only one costs anything is the SD slot. At 100 units, they're about 50c each. The other components cost nothing, relatively, you can buy a thousand resistors for a dollar. The board itself would cost under a dollar to make at anything above 10 units. Total cost is about $2 if we're stretching. I ran a quote for an assembly house, and for 100 boards it would cost around $200 or $2 a board - so now it's $4. Standard markup is 3 times the build cost or about $12-15. Yet it costs $25. That doesn't include international shipping, by the way. Economy of scale certainly works when you're making 100. Even Seeed Studio do assembly nowadays, and you don't even need to carry the stock as the components are in their Open Part Library.

EpicEng 12y ago

So...people who want to play around with hardware development without actually learning anything about hardware development? How is that helpful? Why not just learn what you need to learn and do it right the first time?

jonknee 12y ago
I assume you're using a computer you made yourself from materials you mined out of the Earth? Running software you programmed in hardware of your own design? Higher level abstractions in computing are of obvious value. Many more people know Javascript than know HDL, an assembly variant or even C. It's pretty obvious why this would be helpful. If you know a little bit of Javascript you can get out of the browser and have physical stuff happen. Pretty neat hack if you ask me.
- EpicEng 12y ago
  Yiur first paragraph is simply absurd, so I'll ignore it. So what is one to do once they have designed a system using this platform? Do you want to turn it into a product? Great! Go redesign the entire thing from the ground up because what you made is a toy. It can't be manufactured at a reasonable cost. The code will have to be completely rewritten. The hardware has to be completely re-specced. What a waste of time. There are plenty of micro platforms our there these days that require relatively little knowledge of hardware,yet at least resemble something you may actually see in the real world. Use those. That said, I could see myself being proven wrong here,which is fine. It would only take some enthusiastic person who already knows JavaScript and has some revolutionary idea to-do do so. My opinion is that you don't need to sit on mountains of abstraction at all times. No abstraction I'd perfect and we already have enough people in this industry who don't really understand what the hell they're doing. Learning something new isn't a bad thing.
  - noodle 12y ago
    Dude. You need to get some perspective on this. People are not going to buy a Tessel to build a production-grade hardware project. It is for hobbyists.

retroencabulato 12y ago

I really don't see how that homepage example is any simpler than Arduino. http://playground.arduino.cc/ComponentLib/Servo http://playground.arduino.cc/ComponentLib/Servo