Hands-on with the PocketBeagle: a $25 Linux computer with lots of I/O pins

Re:Hands-on with the PocketBeagle: a $25 Linux computer with... by jstanley on Monday December 04, 2017 @06:26AM (#15843117)

> What kinds of use-cases do people have in mind for this board? The 1GHz processor and 512MB RAM seem a bit like overkill for everything I can come up with.

You don't have to use all of the CPU or RAM capabilities. The use cases appropriate for this board include all potential use cases for an equivalent board with less CPU or RAM. I don't think it's fair to knock it for being too capable.

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Re:Hands-on with the PocketBeagle: a $25 Linux computer with... by jacknews on Monday December 04, 2017 @06:30AM (#15843126)

But you do have to use the full price, and power/energy requirements of the board, so I think it's a valid question; where is this balance of price/power/capability useful?

Development/prototyping is an obvious one of course.

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Re:Hands-on with the PocketBeagle: a $25 Linux computer with... by icegreentea2 on Monday December 04, 2017 @07:38AM (#15843380)

I agree - this doesn't make sense for many types of mobile-type applications.

But you'd really consider this for really anything that has substantial direct user interface requirements (ie has an actual GUI + full keyboard and maybe even touchscreen interaction).

Or maybe you might use this somewhere where you're not super BOM cost or power constrained, with fuzzy requirements, and limited developer resources. Using this class of hardware opens up using 'standard' Linux tools which can potentially bring great savings in terms of: portability, availability of developer resources, ease of development. There may be applications where a 5-10x increase in BOM cost in exchange for not having to hire an embedded guy might be worth it.

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