On Thu, 16 May 2024 10:56:43 -0700 (Seattle), Relf wrote:
rBowman:
I haven't seen much [censorship] other than the local city's subreddit
but then r/adafruit, r/banjo, and r/MicroPython etc don't trigger [...]
What are your adafruit plans ?
At the moment, I'm bouncing back and forth. I've been playing with
Arduino's for a number of years, using the classic Arduino IDE and C/C++.
I even have a Netduino:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netduino
That was interesting since it used the Cortex M-4 processor but the
project never took hold.
Next I looked at the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express. The Playground
was interesting since it could be programmed with CircuitPython, a fork of MicroPython and it has a lot of onboard sensors.
https://circuitpython.org/
https://micropython.org/
The two are similar although CircuitPython tends to have more drivers
built in. I'm currently using MicroPython with a Raspberry Pi Pico W. That
adds even more complexity since there isn't much in the way of sensors in
the Pico W so ICUs, light sensors, and so forth are external devices
controlled over I2C and other interfaces.
The Pico W can also be programmed with C/C++. When you get right down into
the dirt with tight timing it is more efficient than Python, going back to
the argument of 'when is python good enough'?
Going the other way from the Pico W is the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense.
https://store-usa.arduino.cc/products/arduino-nano-33-ble-sense
I picked a couple of those up for a MIT TinyML course. You can do some interesting things with TensorFlow Lite. That's another Cortex M-4 and is
built on the Mbed RTOS.
https://blog.arduino.cc/2019/07/31/why-we-chose-to-build-the-arduino- nano-33-ble-core-on-mbed-os/
And to add to the confusion you can also use MicroPython.
https://blog.arduino.cc/2021/08/24/power-of-python-for-arduino-nano- rp2040-connect-and-nano-33-ble/
That mentions the OpenMV IDE but I use VSCode with the MicroPythom plugin. There is also a PlatformIO plugin that can be used instead of the Arduino
IDE. The 2.0 version is better but still not up to VSCode.
So, that's what I'm playing with. The Playground is mostly a playground although there have been some interesting projects on adafruit that use
it. The Pico W is inexpensive but needs externals. The Sense is more
expensive but comes with a lot out of the box so it depends on the
project.
There are new devices being released constantly so it's a moving target.
Then, of course, there are the usual questions. Is this board/software
solution going to be supported going forward or will it die off like the Netuino? Adafruit appears to be healthy but it is a single source for some
of their products. Arduino Unos and so forth are available from a number
of vendors. Right now the RP2040 is the chip of choice and is used on many different board designs. What will the future bring?
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