TinyCircuits Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grimstone on March 22, 2017, 12:20:35 PM
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First and foremost, been a long time user and fan of Tinyduino as you guys have seen from my posts here. When a tiny form factor is desired, I look to you guys first. Recently, I dipped my toes into the darkside (Pi) due to the release of the Zero W. For $10, being able to get a processor, I/O pins, Wifi, USB, and Bluetooth, it is difficult not to least look at it. I was wondering if TinyCircuits had any plans to look at designing some more cost efficient boards in the area of Wifi and Bluetooth? Trying to add those in to a Tinyduino project quickly adds to the overall cost which makes me pause now with small size projects that may need multiple types of functionality.
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Hey- sorry about how long this has sat. We've been swamped with improving/producing Tiny Arcade and some other projects. We definitely recognize you as a fan :) and I appreciate your posts. This is a good topic for some discussion, plus we rarely get around to sharing what we're working on..
The Pi is definitely the dark side as far as I'm concerned :) Any of the small hardware shops like us of course can't directly compete. However right now our entry price for a processor board plus BLE or WiFi is pretty hefty compared to most. We are looking at what we can do for about $30:
1. NRF52 processor board. This is a duh, especially with much smaller modules available vs. the NRF51.
2. ESP8266 main board. ESP8266 support feels pretty mature now, but limited IO has slowed us down for a standard processor board. We can't compete with the $3 breakout boards as always, but I think we can make something tiny and unique that will make sense at a bit higher price. Hopefully we can look into ESP32 after that.
Plus new processor boards, helping our current BLE/WiFi options, especially when USB is needed:
3. We should finally have our 'TinyZero' out some time soon(the same Cortex M0+ as TinyScreen+, but in TinyDuino format) for less than $30
4. TinySeven(!) prototypes are on the way :)
Thanks,
Ben
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I kind of took your long silence on this post as the reply. I am glad to hear you are working at least more economical solution. As I have mentioned in other posts, using TinyDuino has great perks. The small form factor is one and also how easy the shields snap and work together. However, the dark is getting smaller and an economical board+BLE+WiFi is very tempting when communication between devices is needed. I just want to keep being able to go TinyDuino with my budget projects. Thanks for listening.