High Tide Aquatics

‘Tis the (fire) season - Air Quality monitor build

PCB's are in!!

IMG_7500.jpg
 
Looked a bit at the whole ESP32 thing and ....
Sometimes I wonder if the whole "IOT" concept will crumble under the sheer mass of different options.
Growing up on Basic with no internet in existence makes it hard to keep up.
Maybe I will stick with an Arduino and a blinking LED.

(Actually I have been using Particle. I really like the cloud update from anywhere concept)
 
rygh said:
Looked a bit at the whole ESP32 thing and ....
Sometimes I wonder if the whole "IOT" concept will crumble under the sheer mass of different options.
Growing up on Basic with no internet in existence makes it hard to keep up.
Maybe I will stick with an Arduino and a blinking LED.

(Actually I have been using Particle. I really like the cloud update from anywhere concept)
Click to expand...
Yeah the DIY IOT space is a deep dark hole. ESP32 also has an over the air update feature :)
 
thesassyindian said:
Yeah the DIY IOT space is a deep dark hole. ESP32 also has an over the air update feature :)
Click to expand...

Yes, but things like ElagantOTA are only part of it. That just eliminates the physical cable for upload.
The key feature from Particle is not so much over the air update as it is being highly integrated with the cloud.
I like building on the cloud, from any computer, anywhere, then having it upload seamlessly on its own from there.
Plus the tools to (kindof) debug through the cloud as well. No port forwarding, worrying about networks, etc.

---

But there is a rather fundamental issue with the hobbyist microcontrollers.

With a true microcontroller setup, you have total control over the micro from the host machine.
Not just upload, but a full IDE, with a real JTAG port for real low level debug.
There is no boot loader. You install and run real OS and code directly.
You have access to full internal hardware breakpoints and traces.
Something hard core industrial design people use.

But the arduino/particle/ESP32/etc are this weird boot loader thing, with simple serial IO for load and debug.
I see how it is much simpler to get started, and much easier to decouple a shared tool set from each hardware device.
But in the end, it is a bit of a hack.
 
rygh said:
Yes, but things like ElagantOTA are only part of it. That just eliminates the physical cable for upload.
The key feature from Particle is not so much over the air update as it is being highly integrated with the cloud.
I like building on the cloud, from any computer, anywhere, then having it upload seamlessly on its own from there.
Plus the tools to (kindof) debug through the cloud as well. No port forwarding, worrying about networks, etc.

---

But there is a rather fundamental issue with the hobbyist microcontrollers.

With a true microcontroller setup, you have total control over the micro from the host machine.
Not just upload, but a full IDE, with a real JTAG port for real low level debug.
There is no boot loader. You install and run real OS and code directly.
You have access to full internal hardware breakpoints and traces.
Something hard core industrial design people use.

But the arduino/particle/ESP32/etc are this weird boot loader thing, with simple serial IO for load and debug.
I see how it is much simpler to get started, and much easier to decouple a shared tool set from each hardware device.
But in the end, it is a bit of a hack.
Click to expand...
Yeah I have used Particke before, when it was called "Spark" but I left that ecosystem for exactly the features you listed above :p

I wanted full access the CPU core without the memory and CPU overheads that come with cloud compiling etc. Once you include a lot of 3rd party libraries, maintaining all of them can get tricky.

The Arduino IDE compatibility for ESP32 is also quite a low bar for new hobbyists, and there's no arguing about the sheer number of Arduino compatible libraries that exist.
 
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