SparkFun Works to Build the Edison Ecosystem (Video)

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SparkFun Works to Build the Edison Ecosystem (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on Monday September 15, 2014 @09:21AM from the more-tiny-electronics-for-makers-and-builders-to-make-and-build-with dept.

Edison is an Intel creation aimed squarely at the maker and prototype markets. It's smaller than an Arduino, has built-in wi-fi, and is designed to be used in embedded applications. SparkFun is "an online retail store that sells the bits and pieces to make your electronics projects possible." They're partnering with Intel to sell the Edison and all kinds of add-ons for it. Open source? Sure. Right down to the schematics. David Stillman, star of today's video, works for SparkFun. He talks about "a gajillion" things you can do with an Edison, up to and including the creation of an image-recognition system for your next homemade drone. (Alternate Video Link)

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edison? by hjf · 2014-09-15 09:28 · Score: 1, Funny

Edison? boooo everyone knows Tesla was much better! The man almost invented wireless power! It's Edison's fault we have to use power cords! I read that in a factoid image so it MUST BE TRUE!
1. Re:edison? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-15 09:49 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Edison is a good name for an Intel product :
  Crushing competitors using dubious commercial methods, stealing other's ideas...
2. Re:edison? by Em+Adespoton · 2014-09-15 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  Did you know, AC can actually kill people! Think of electric chair!
  Thanks for the imagery... I'm now thinking of Anonymous Cowards running around killing people (and elephants) with electric chairs....
3. Re:edison? by ChunderDownunder · 2014-09-15 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Elephants, too. Edison, you sadistic bastard!
  RIP Topsy.
Power Consumption by Rob+Riggs · 2014-09-15 09:45 · Score: 2

All those bells and whistles come at a cost. The Edison draws about 10x as much power as an Arduino. Much more capable to be sure, but at a cost.

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1. Re:Power Consumption by nedwidek · 2014-09-15 10:27 · Score: 2
  
  Thanks for the link. I knew power would not be a pretty issue, but the other one that came to mind was whether you could count on instruction timing. That article confirms that you can't. The WS2811 and other such chips expect pretty tight timing. Simple to do with Arduino, just use the asm macro to directly do a string of NOP and then bit operators directly on the port register you've connected your data line to.
  Now if you're doing something that you need a beast like this for, you can hook up an Arduino or two and just use i2c to communicate. (Then again, in many cases a Due would be good enough).
  
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2. Re:Power Consumption by viperidaenz · 2014-09-15 10:32 · Score: 1
  
  Probably because it's a 500MHz, dual core 64bit CPU with another 100MHz 32bit CPU along side it with 1GB of RAM, not an 8bit MCU?
3. Re:Power Consumption by viperidaenz · 2014-09-15 10:34 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's not a 32-bit processor, it's 64-bit.
  Well.. technically there is a 32-bit processor, but that's in addition to the dual core 64-bit processor.
4. Re:Power Consumption by viperidaenz · 2014-09-15 10:40 · Score: 2
  
  That's why you run the OS (like linux) on the Atom CPU and do your real time interfacing on the Quark CPU that's designed to run an RTOS.
  Just like how the BeagleBone Black has an ARM CPU and a little PRU
  by the way, if you need to do precise timing, you should probably be using a hardware timer. That way you can sleep the device or change the clock to save power instead of burning up power at full speed in a NOP.
5. Re:Power Consumption by AchilleTalon · 2014-09-15 12:01 · Score: 1
  
  Mod parent up as informative. He is absolutely right. This is a dual core 64-bit processor, not a 32-bit processor as many are saying.
  
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6. Re:Power Consumption by confused+one · 2014-09-15 12:05 · Score: 1
  
  Because of the architecture, you have to implement a timer using the processor's built in precision timer/counter. There's one there... You can get sub-microsecond control resolution if you implement it right. The risk is that if you're running a multitasking operating system your timer might get interrupted. Of course, another way to go is to have a secondary I/O processor handle the task and act as the interface -- this is very common when dealing with Intel processor platforms.
7. Re:Power Consumption by AmiMoJo · 2014-09-15 14:59 · Score: 1
  
  I'm really struggling to think of applications for this. There isn't much connectivity and it isn't very low power, so both micro server and low power node applications are out. For prototyping you will probably want an ARM board to ensure long term availability and low cost.
  
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8. Re:Power Consumption by cr0nj0b · 2014-09-15 15:36 · Score: 1
  
  plus a wifi radio and a Bluetooth radio
9. Re:Power Consumption by viperidaenz · 2014-09-16 07:16 · Score: 1
  
  Hang on a minute, it uses about the same amount of power as a Raspberry Pi.
  It's a crap load more powerful.
  It's to be expected though, it's a power optimised 22nm CPU.
Ah yes, Intel by Mister+Liberty · 2014-09-15 10:08 · Score: 1

Why is it that I'm having qualms about Intel?
1. Re:Ah yes, Intel by viperidaenz · 2014-09-15 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe most Americans aren't qualified and are just a little too stupid to work in their facilities?
  How's that for PR?
Edison missing a lot by SethJohnson · 2014-09-15 11:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

Ok. I have mostly been working with Beaglebone and looked at this video to see what I might be missing with Edison. The shill in the video promotes Edison by saying it has all these things built in-- wifi and bluetooth.

From this video, it's clear the board is missing USB and any kind of normal power connector. Oh, and removable storage? And ethernet?

This device screams of a scheme to dump atom processors after the market disappeared for netbooks and intel was left with a few million chips on their hands. I'll stick with ARM and the larger ecosystem that has grown around the Beaglebone Black and Rpi, thank you.

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1. Re:Edison missing a lot by confused+one · 2014-09-15 12:07 · Score: 1
  
  Intel is selling an awful lot of Atoms, for a processor who's market supposedly disappeared. FYI, they're embedded in all kinds of equipment.
2. Re:Edison missing a lot by AchilleTalon · 2014-09-15 13:20 · Score: 1
  
  Because it was cheaper to put them right there instead as a stackable option. Stackable options are justified when you have to plug something into it. BT and WiFi do not need anything in extra. For the BT interface, it is really cheap in quantity and surely doesn't add more than 1$ to the board.while a stackable board will cost much more than that.
  
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  Hop!
3. Re:Edison missing a lot by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-15 14:22 · Score: 1
  
  It's also missing video output. For all its bells and whistles, it should at least have some kind of video output, even if it's via a header.
  
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4. Re:Edison missing a lot by thegarbz · 2014-09-15 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  The Edison is a system on a chip designed to go on a board. The chip itself naively supports a wide votlage range, SD cards. The official breakout board supports USB and USB OTG, and has a DC input jack for power.
5. Re:Edison missing a lot by thegarbz · 2014-09-15 14:53 · Score: 1
  
  This is one thing I disagree with. For a small embedded chip targeting arduino et al. settling for a specific form of video output is something I do NOT want. I greatly prefer having a chip that can interface with a video driver of some description. For 99% of the uses for this tiny thing there will not be a display with a standard video input. It will be run via a parallel interface, or SPI, or I2C, or god forbid UART, all of which the chip supports.
  Even popular displays for the Beaglebone, and RPi don't use the display capabilities but rather hook to the I/O connectors and communicate with one of the more typical methods.
  If you want a display, add one using an interface of your choice.
6. Re:Edison missing a lot by cr0nj0b · 2014-09-15 15:38 · Score: 1
  
  plus routing RF is not for the new at board routing, antenna, and component selection.
7. Re:Edison missing a lot by cr0nj0b · 2014-09-15 15:39 · Score: 1
  
  Not everything needs video out. Especially in embedded applications. For example, does you router have video out? how about your toaster?
8. Re:Edison missing a lot by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-15 17:47 · Score: 1
  
  I think Intel really missed the boat with this thing. Originally it was just "look guise we put a x86 computer in an SD card" but now they actually want to try to sell it to people. They got too wrapped up in keeping it small when they should've made it BB/RPi sized, with equivalent features. The tiny connectors are totally hobbyist unfriendly, you will be forced to buy 3rd party boards to do anything at all with this platform.
9. Re:Edison missing a lot by fnj · 2014-09-15 19:23 · Score: 1
  
  It's also missing video output.
  [Places head in hands, moaning] Not this shit again. This product is not a toy for snotty-nose video game zombies. It is a serious embedded building block. My biggest gripe with the Beaglebone is that it wastes all those transistors and current drain on the video coprocessor and HDMI connector.
  Why would a remote sensor or drone component, for example, need a freaking VIDEO OUTPUT?
10. Re:Edison missing a lot by fnj · 2014-09-15 19:33 · Score: 1
  
  The breakout board's still missing Ethernet though, which puts a bit of a hamper on our plans (we require an Ethernet link as we ban internal WiFi use as it's a secure facility). Perhaps an Arduino shield would work but it wouldn't be elegant.
  I too was bummed that there was no ethernet (I freaking HATE WiFi), but I understand why.
  There could, and I'm sure there will, be a stackable ethernet block, and damned if I can see why that is an inelegant solution. There already is a dot-matrix OLED block. Just the RJ-45 connector alone would far outweigh the whole rest of the module. It's actually pretty amusing to contemplate a tiny weightless stamp waving around on the end of a gigantic stiff RJ-45 anyway. It's high time for a new micro cable and connector option spec for ethernet.
11. Re:Edison missing a lot by fnj · 2014-09-15 19:40 · Score: 1
  
  I think Intel really missed the boat with this thing. Originally it was just "look guise we put a x86 computer in an SD card" but now they actually want to try to sell it to people. They got too wrapped up in keeping it small when they should've made it BB/RPi sized, with equivalent features. The tiny connectors are totally hobbyist unfriendly, you will be forced to buy 3rd party boards to do anything at all with this platform.
  It must suck to be utterly unimaginative. Instead of just making nothing more than a dreary me-too, copying an already excellent product that doesn't need to be copied (the Beaglebone, not the Raspberry Pi), Intel has surprised a lot of people by proving they can fundamentally innovate. Everybody else is looking pretty stupid right now, because ARM is the obvious choice for something this tiny, but not a single one did a goddam thing to make it happen. Intel proved ARM is not the only way for tiny and power-sipping.
12. Re:Edison missing a lot by dave420 · 2014-09-16 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  Here's a start:
  
  The Diamondville and Pineview Atom is used in the HP Mini Series, aigo MID Asus N10, Lenovo IdeaPad S10, Acer Aspire One & Packard Bell's "dot" (ZG5), recent ASUS Eee PC systems, Sony VAIO M-series, AMtek Elego, Dell Inspiron Mini Series, Gigabyte M912, LG X Series, Samsung NC10, Sylvania g Netbook Meso, Toshiba NB series (100, 200, 205, 255, 300, 500, 505), MSI Wind PC netbooks, RedFox Wizbook 1020i, Sony Vaio X Series, Zenith Z-Book, a range of Aleutia desktops, Magic W3 and the Archos.The Pineview line is also used in multiple AAC devices for the disabled individual who is unable to speak and the AAC device assists the user in everyday communication with dedicated speech software.
  No need to get all whiny about it. No-one's going to take away your precious ARM.
Weight? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-15 11:09 · Score: 1

Anyone know the weight? The BT comm is SUPER nice, I could have used this earlier this summer for a project.
Not ARM? by RogueWarrior65 · 2014-09-15 14:56 · Score: 1

AFAIK, Edison isn't an ARM architecture. Not sure if that's going to be a long-term problem but what they do have going for them is the integrated wireless functionality. This has been a personal beef of mine for embedded single-board computers. Wifi was always an afterthought. You had to use a goofy USB dongle which doesn't lend itself well to a rough-service product. Technologic Systems TS-4900 addresses this in spades. I do want to know how long the Edison takes to boot because anything more than 10 seconds on a product with no display makes people think it's not working. And to be a true appliance, an actual power switch to turn it off without a graceful shutdown is essential.
1. Re:Not ARM? by cr0nj0b · 2014-09-15 15:44 · Score: 1
  
  since there is no bios, I doubt this will take very long to boot at all. In fact boot time will mostly be determined by how many services you are starting at bootup. Yocto linux. I imagine most applications of this device will start ssh, maybe a web server, or an otherwise custom developed service for the specific application. The bootloader may have a few seconds delay to allow you to interrupt it and change params.
  How long doe it take to load a kernel and initrd from flash, unpack and execute?
2. Re:Not ARM? by fnj · 2014-09-15 19:51 · Score: 1
  
  How long it takes to boot depends on what software it runs. If you choose to code in straight C or C++, it will "boot" in the blink of an eye. If you boot suitably pared-down embedded linux, I suppose it might take a second or so. There is no BIOS, which is the usual time-waster.
3. Re:Not ARM? by RogueWarrior65 · 2014-09-16 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  Well, having used a few different Technologic products, they can boot in around 2 seconds. In practice though, once you incorporate services such as USB, boot time increases quite a bit. Their 7350 board will boot to a shell with USB in around 6 seconds. If you want full Debian, that takes well over 30 seconds. The 4900 board which uses Yocto will come up with USB and Wifi connected to a network in about 10 seconds. They're using a Freescale processor on that one. Pretty nice product.
  Of course, another factor is what file system you're using. If you're using something like Ext2 and you don't gracefully shut down, you might be forced into an fsck on the next reboot which can take who knows how long. If you don't have any sort of status display for the boot sequence, that's a problem.
Re:I hope Sparkfun don't take a hit on this. by fnj · 2014-09-15 19:44 · Score: 1

Odds are, Edison will sink without trace. I'd rather it didn't take one of my favorite suppliers with it.
That is a peculiarly dour way of looking at it. For my own part, I am impressed as hell that Sparkfun landed this coup. I happen to think Edison will be one of the standout innovations of the decade.
Re:I hope Sparkfun don't take a hit on this. by fnj · 2014-09-16 04:44 · Score: 1

What makes it so?
Embedded X86? Many have done this before Intel. Few still are around because X86 isn't a compelling instruction set for this sort of thing. It's very much NOT efficient- and you don't need Windows these days on most of the stuff (which is the reason you did X86, you had a DOS/OS2/Windows application you were just simply insisting had to be embedded...).
Quite simply put, it might be dour, but the parent poster's closer to the truth than you're probably ever willing to admit. Is it better than the AVR solution Arduino's fielding? Yes. Is it better than much of any of the ARM solutions in the space? Depends. If you're talking an RPi in a non-display context, it's a push. The ecosystem's more "there" with RPi. The Edison's more powerful at the price of much higher power consumption (which, folks, CAN nuke your use of the Edison from orbit...) It isn't really in the same space as the BBB, BananaPI, pcDuino, and others- and they trounce the Edison in many of the applications in the space.
I consider it a bit of a coup for SparkFun, yes. But I think they're not going to be having the grand time of things that you're claiming they will. It's a niche within what is honestly a niche market to begin with. If you don't "need" X86 instruction set support, you're going to find a better answer with any of a number of ARM (and with Imagination Tech pushing MIPS again, MIPS...) boards out there that will be cheaper, at the same performance with a better envelope, etc.
This isn't a win for many. It's only really a win for SparkFun since I'm sure Intel showered them with MONEY and they moved to the new location on the north side of town as opposed to being over by Spine in Boulder to accomodate the new fabrication capabilities they needed to do this stuff in the first place.
You appear to have taken no trouble to acquire any knowledge at all of the subject, but are nevertheless willing to spout nonsense. Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone are both gigantic compared to Edison. They are not addressing the same segment. Arduino is absolutely collossal compared to Edison, but again it is in still a third completely different segment. At present there are zero modules that are comparable to Edison. It has its segment all to itself. That will certaimly change, but what can never change is that Intel's Edison got there first, and in stellar fashion.
Edison has a bit more processing power than Raspberry Pi and is quite close to Beaglebone, but that is not the point. The point is that it is far tinier. The fact that you can get the processing power, plus ample RAM and flash, plus WiFi, plus Bluetooth, all in the size of a GODDAM POSTAGE STAMP is a freaking amazing breakthrough.
Obviously this has nothing whatsoever to do with the x86 instruction set, and everything to do with basic capabilities vs size and cost. Don't you get it? You program in C or C++. It doesn't matter a damn what the instruction set is. What matters is the power drain, and that is entirely competitive with ARM. You're completely full of bull about the power consumption.
All Edison is doing is leveraging Intel's expertise and process technology, and it is doing a capital job of that.