6 ms·

Open Source All-in-One Wireless Development Board

87 points by kfihihc 12y ago

sjuut 12y ago
This looks really interesting for e.g. tracking devices
- scoot 12y ago
  There are plant of those available off-the-shelf from your favourite Chinese e-tailer (or eBay): http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=gps+tracker http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=gps+tracker
billLiu 12y ago
Cool
kumarski 12y ago
This turns your android into a the same type of shield. http://1sheeld.com http://1sheeld.com
- kfihihc 12y ago
  It diffrent from 1Sheeld, LinkIt includes GPS/GPRS and runs an RTOS. So, you can make it work outside.
  - kumarski 12y ago
    I see. Both look worth having.
biggy 12y ago
Marvel! Name it Hunger ¡ jajajaja
sounds 12y ago
Something to be careful about - MediaTek has a reputation of being very hard to work with. As long as you're not trying to do anything beyond what Seeed Studio has already provided for, not a problem. But if you run into something where you need MediaTek's help, you're out of luck. Just hope I can save you that little discovery.
- userbinator 12y ago
  I know that a lot of documentation and support can be obtained from various Chinese sites, at least for MTK's phone SoCs. It's absolutely true that trying to approach them "through the front door" will not yield anything worthwhile, but the culture has found other means. If this one becomes popular, I expect the same to happen. On the bright side, at least it's not Broadcom.
  - ausjke 12y ago
    I start laughing when I saw the last sentence, in all my designs I tried to avoid Broadcom as much as possible. Same as Marvell, you don't get anything other than a two-page brief before you sign a NDA, and if you're not a volume player, you normally don't get a chance to even sign the NDA. Marvell is getting slightly better with docs, but still light-year behind TI and Freescale, whose design docs are pretty much all publicly accessible.
    - swamp40 12y ago
      Broadcom seems to be easing up a bit with their introduction of their WICED (pronounced Wicked) line of Bluetooth Smart and Wifi wireless modules. - $20 dev board keyfob that connects to an iPhone our of the box. - lots of firmware source code examples - available iOS source code - free compiler toolchain and USB programming - open schematics and pcb files - open forum: http://community.broadcom.com/ http://community.broadcom.com/ As a designer, I know it's easy to have a bad experience with a particular manufacturer and then avoid them like the plague in the future. One time we designed in an Atmel TinyAVR into something, and as soon as we finished it went completely out-of-stock for 12 months. We had to throw the boards and firmware away and start from scratch again using a PIC. (We've never used another Atmel processor after that.) But I try to remember that it's just a bias in my mind, and personal biases don't always jibe with reality. Rationally, I understand that Atmel's not a bad company just because they had one supply chain glitch 7 years ago. So my advice is: try to keep an open mind.
radagast 12y ago
I recommend looking at the CELLv1 from SparqEE[1] if anyone is looking for a nice development board for RaspberryPi/Arduino. It supports 3G, not only GPRS as most of the other GSM boards available. I received mine a few weeks ago and have been having loads of fun working with it. [1] http://www.sparqee.com/portfolio/sparqee-cell/ http://www.sparqee.com/portfolio/sparqee-cell/
mikegioia 12y ago
I'm assuming not, but does anyone know if the wifi/gsm/baseband code is open source? What benefit would having the GPS/SOC hardware data sheets provide if the firmware code is closed?
- bravo22 12y ago
  For GSM the baseband code is always closed. It is often loaded into the module. Part of a modular approval for PTCRB (as well as FCC/CE) is that the end user can't change the power and radiation profile of the device. This is one reason why the source is closed. What you'd normally care about is the protocol to talk to that baseband. 9/10 for M2M applications it is the 3GPP AT Commands and PPP therefore you can pretty much use PPP dialer to talk to it.
  - mikegioia 12y ago
    Ahh I see. Thank you, you gave me a bunch of fun new things to google.
Wells_Tu 12y ago
LinkIt ONE integrates with 8 key features,ARM7 EJ-S™, GSM, GPRS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth BR/EDR/BLE, GPS, Audio codec, and SD card,which GPRS,GSM,Wifi functions can be used for IoT prototype,for wearables,BLE ,GPS,Audio are too important to without.I guess someone who have played Arduino can operate this board easily,now what I care is the software it supports.
- Wells_Tu 12y ago
  Perhaps the resources column in linkit one page(http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/LinkIt-ONE-p-2017.html http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/LinkIt-ONE-p-2017.html) show us something to get started

87 points by kfihihc 12y ago

sjuut 12y ago

This looks really interesting for e.g. tracking devices

scoot 12y ago
There are plant of those available off-the-shelf from your favourite Chinese e-tailer (or eBay): http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=gps+tracker http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=gps+tracker

billLiu 12y ago

Cool

kumarski 12y ago

This turns your android into a the same type of shield. http://1sheeld.com http://1sheeld.com

kfihihc 12y ago
It diffrent from 1Sheeld, LinkIt includes GPS/GPRS and runs an RTOS. So, you can make it work outside.
- kumarski 12y ago
  I see. Both look worth having.

biggy 12y ago

Marvel! Name it Hunger ¡ jajajaja

sounds 12y ago

Something to be careful about - MediaTek has a reputation of being very hard to work with. As long as you're not trying to do anything beyond what Seeed Studio has already provided for, not a problem. But if you run into something where you need MediaTek's help, you're out of luck. Just hope I can save you that little discovery.

userbinator 12y ago
I know that a lot of documentation and support can be obtained from various Chinese sites, at least for MTK's phone SoCs. It's absolutely true that trying to approach them "through the front door" will not yield anything worthwhile, but the culture has found other means. If this one becomes popular, I expect the same to happen. On the bright side, at least it's not Broadcom.
- ausjke 12y ago
  I start laughing when I saw the last sentence, in all my designs I tried to avoid Broadcom as much as possible. Same as Marvell, you don't get anything other than a two-page brief before you sign a NDA, and if you're not a volume player, you normally don't get a chance to even sign the NDA. Marvell is getting slightly better with docs, but still light-year behind TI and Freescale, whose design docs are pretty much all publicly accessible.
  - swamp40 12y ago
    Broadcom seems to be easing up a bit with their introduction of their WICED (pronounced Wicked) line of Bluetooth Smart and Wifi wireless modules. - $20 dev board keyfob that connects to an iPhone our of the box. - lots of firmware source code examples - available iOS source code - free compiler toolchain and USB programming - open schematics and pcb files - open forum: http://community.broadcom.com/ http://community.broadcom.com/ As a designer, I know it's easy to have a bad experience with a particular manufacturer and then avoid them like the plague in the future. One time we designed in an Atmel TinyAVR into something, and as soon as we finished it went completely out-of-stock for 12 months. We had to throw the boards and firmware away and start from scratch again using a PIC. (We've never used another Atmel processor after that.) But I try to remember that it's just a bias in my mind, and personal biases don't always jibe with reality. Rationally, I understand that Atmel's not a bad company just because they had one supply chain glitch 7 years ago. So my advice is: try to keep an open mind.

radagast 12y ago

I recommend looking at the CELLv1 from SparqEE[1] if anyone is looking for a nice development board for RaspberryPi/Arduino. It supports 3G, not only GPRS as most of the other GSM boards available. I received mine a few weeks ago and have been having loads of fun working with it. [1] http://www.sparqee.com/portfolio/sparqee-cell/ http://www.sparqee.com/portfolio/sparqee-cell/

mikegioia 12y ago

I'm assuming not, but does anyone know if the wifi/gsm/baseband code is open source? What benefit would having the GPS/SOC hardware data sheets provide if the firmware code is closed?

bravo22 12y ago
For GSM the baseband code is always closed. It is often loaded into the module. Part of a modular approval for PTCRB (as well as FCC/CE) is that the end user can't change the power and radiation profile of the device. This is one reason why the source is closed. What you'd normally care about is the protocol to talk to that baseband. 9/10 for M2M applications it is the 3GPP AT Commands and PPP therefore you can pretty much use PPP dialer to talk to it.
- mikegioia 12y ago
  Ahh I see. Thank you, you gave me a bunch of fun new things to google.

Wells_Tu 12y ago

LinkIt ONE integrates with 8 key features,ARM7 EJ-S™, GSM, GPRS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth BR/EDR/BLE, GPS, Audio codec, and SD card,which GPRS,GSM,Wifi functions can be used for IoT prototype,for wearables,BLE ,GPS,Audio are too important to without.I guess someone who have played Arduino can operate this board easily,now what I care is the software it supports.

Wells_Tu 12y ago
Perhaps the resources column in linkit one page(http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/LinkIt-ONE-p-2017.html http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/LinkIt-ONE-p-2017.html) show us something to get started