On Thursday 19. January 2017 06.24.35 H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: > Hi, > someone notified me about this project: > > https://hackaday.io/project/19035-zerophone-a-raspberry-pi-smartphone/log/5 > 1839-project-description-and-frequently-asked-questions > > What do you think?
That people are perhaps too obsessed with Raspberry Pi devices, even though claims are made about Pi Zero availability involving a site which presumably pays out a jackpot if all three vendor stock indicators show "in stock". Currently, only one shows "in stock". The Pi Zero may be cheap and relatively powerful but there appears to be some more work required to replace the proprietary "firmware" with Free Software, with such work apparently being done by the community, not officially. It's also a product that exists on a seemingly discretionary basis, but I guess that finding another single-board computer and reworking everything else is all part of the "fun". (I also get infuriated when people just point others to eBay for sourcing of random components from random vendors.) As for the device itself, I think it's an interesting take on older, simpler phone designs, reminding me of my Nokia 5110 which I did dismantle (and then reassemble) last year in order to take some photos. The Pi Zero might not add too much to the device thickness, presumably being the middle board in the second device in the picture showing four different things, despite the pictures showing the Pi Zero separately in a bulky enclosure for no really good reason. I don't really understand why the ATmega328P is needed when the SoC might have a chance of doing the keypad scanning, but perhaps that is an easier option than doing lower-level things in Raspbian. I'd also be concerned about power consumption, mostly around the SoC, and what kind of batteries one might end up using. There's far too much usage of Li-Poly pouches for everything in the electronics hobbyist world that is arguably storing up trouble for everybody down the line. But it's nice that the designer is trying to do everything in the open and to emphasise Free Software. And I like the way that the physical aspects of the device like the keypad design are freely available. Such things are often overlooked in favour of the more exciting SoC-related elements of a design, but here there is an opportunity for people like me to learn from these things. Anyway, I shouldn't be one to criticise given that I'm not at this level when it comes to designing hardware. But I do think that more sustainable choices could be made with regard to the SoC solution. I see that the Pyra employs a modular approach with its own CPU board that could be used with devices such as this, and I guess that one of the EOMA family of products would be aimed at something like this as well. It would be interesting to see such avenues pursued. Paul _______________________________________________ Community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/community http://www.tinkerphones.org
