[HN Gopher] SDK update for Raspberry Pi Pico W unlocks Bluetooth...
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SDK update for Raspberry Pi Pico W unlocks Bluetooth support
Author : _Microft
Score : 148 points
Date : 2023-02-11 10:07 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| dgacmu wrote:
| For those looking to find this specifically, it's about 79% of
| the way to the bottom with sub-heading:
|
| > Bluetooth Support for Pico W (BETA) The support is currently
| available as a beta. More details will be forthcoming with the
| actual release. In the meantime, there are examples in pico-
| examples.
| rogerbinns wrote:
| > The Bluetooth API is provided by BTstack
|
| From https://github.com/bluekitchen/btstack
|
| | BTstack is free for non-commercial use. However, for
| commercial use, tell us a bit about your project to get a
| quote.
| efitz wrote:
| I was so excited until I read that. I'm working on an IoT
| device that I hope to sell and was going to build it around
| an RPi; I would love to switch from nano to pico but need
| better Bluetooth.
| gswdh wrote:
| [dead]
| tagyro wrote:
| The motto of Bluetooth is "It's going to work great ...next
| year!". I've had so many challenges working with it in my
| past projects (even writing my own firmware) that I now try
| to avoid it and go directly to wifi.
| philsnow wrote:
| Will you be able to source enough rpi modules? I guess your
| plan isn't just "buy them off the (online) shelves" because
| it's nigh-impossible to get more than a couple that way
| these days.
| Gabriel24 wrote:
| So go ahead and use Bluetooth on the Pico? Selling your IoT
| device is explicitly supported, you just have to get a
| license.
| efitz wrote:
| Yes, but at what cost per unit?
| ta988 wrote:
| See my other comment above, this will be allowed on RP2040.
| ta988 wrote:
| (edited, did a bit of research after complaining)
|
| "It will be licensed by us for more permissive use on RP2040
| (like cyw43-driver)"
|
| Seen on https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk/issues/1164
| yencabulator wrote:
| What does that mean, though? Wouldn't they need an open
| source license for everything in BTStack except non-RP2040
| drivers? There's a daemon, there's a "libusb", etc. This
| sounds like it'd require open sourcing practically all of
| BTStack, not just one driver?
| nulld3v wrote:
| There's really not that much. "libusb" is just the port
| of BTStack to the libusb API.
| yencabulator wrote:
| I'm just curious about the backstory; did the RPi
| foundation pay BTStack to be ok with this sudden open
| sourcing?
| nirav72 wrote:
| The pico is an amazing little board. Im using it with micro-
| python and HID library to simulate subtle mouse movements every
| 120 seconds to prevent RDP session to remote server from closing
| due to lack of activity. Now with bluetooth support, I can just
| hopefully toggle it on or off or disable. Instead of removing the
| usb cable from the notebook.
| mouse_ wrote:
| bluetooth mouse jiggler sounds like a potentially revolutionary
| concept
| [deleted]
| winter_blue wrote:
| I'm not impressed by it. It's got 264 _kilobytes_ of RAM. That
| 's so low, that you can't run Linux or BSD on it. I guess you'd
| need some DOS-like OS for it.
|
| This chip sells for $8.45 which is ridiculously high for what
| it offers[1].
|
| The price of $0.80 per chip non-W is impressively low however,
| I'll admit. [2] But once you throw shipping and other costs in,
| how much will it actually cost?
|
| The Pi Zero 2 W at $15 is far far better than this chip. [3]
|
| [1] https://www.pishop.ca/product/raspberry-pi-pico-w/
|
| [2] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-direct-buy-
| rp2...
|
| [3] https://www.microcenter.com/product/486575/raspberry-pi-
| zero...
| sosborn wrote:
| This is apples and oranges. Microcontrollers aren't meant to
| be SBCs.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>That's so low, that you can't run Linux or BSD on it. I
| guess you'd need some DOS-like OS for it.
|
| Absolutely no offence, but I think you are absolutely, 100%
| missing the point of microcontrollers, like by a nautical
| mile. It's the kind of chip that you'd have inside a
| humidifier and it controls the fan turning on or off
| depending on the read from the humidity sensor. It absolutely
| doesn't need to run a full OS, and in fact it would be a
| detriment to it and its abilities.
|
| I have several Pico Ws around the house acting as sensor
| boards and I wouldn't replace them with Zero Ws even if they
| were free - it's just a worse board for that kind of job.
| winter_blue wrote:
| Did you pay circa $8.45 for each of your Pico Ws?
|
| My problem is the price point. At that price point, you can
| get a full power chip. The Pico W should be selling for
| $0.90 so, if it were to be good value.
| gambiting wrote:
| I paid PS5.90 each.
|
| >>At that price point, you can get a full power chip.
|
| You see, this is the problem right here - you got it in
| your head that this isn't a "full power chip", whatever
| that even means. It's as "full power" as any
| microcontroller that has ever existed.
|
| Once again ,it isn't meant to run an OS. The price is
| more than justified by the rich development environment
| with plenty of support(both official and community
| driven) as well as good connectivity options implemented
| directly on the board. The closest thing I can think of
| is a cheap ESP8266 board like a D6 Mini, but cheap
| chinese clones of that sell for PS4 on ebay, barely any
| cheaper than the Pico W - an official D6 board is about
| PS12, so not only it costs more - it actually offers less
| functionality and power.
|
| If you know what this chip is for and what it's competing
| against, you'd see that in fact the value here is
| outstanding.
| avmich wrote:
| While we don't yet have a Unix for Pico - correct me if I'm
| wrong - we have this -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34446251 - a small
| RetroBSD clone for an ARM, a Cortex-M0 one.
|
| DOS-like OS is also possible... RetroBSD creator is
| apparently looking into it:
| https://vak.dreamwidth.org/982612.html
| bratao wrote:
| You can't use autohotkey?
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Thanks, TIL: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoHotkey
| VLM wrote:
| > I can just hopefully toggle it on or off or disable
|
| I used an accelerometer. Just a funny UI idea, flip it upright
| to jiggle the mouse.
|
| I used a different board of course, although you could add an
| generic accelerometer to a Pico W pretty easily.
| Eduard wrote:
| Here is the Bluetooth Mouse HID sample demo from the Bluetooth
| stack which the Pico W is using, Bluekitchen:
|
| https://github.com/bluekitchen/btstack/tree/master/example/h...
| nirav72 wrote:
| Perfect. This might be what I'm looking for to get started.
| thank you!
| incanus77 wrote:
| I'm happy to see a built-in I2C responder library, even if it is
| an incorporation of the most popular community one. I'm working
| on a board with a bare RP2040 as a responder and currently my
| firmware is in MicroPython, which at best has a polling, third-
| party responder library. I've already decided to now move the
| firmware to the C SDK and this seems like good timing.
| benj111 wrote:
| I don't understand why they didn't use something like an esp for
| the wireless. That seems to be more open. Is it a cost thing. Or
| is the esp equally closed but has a front end that isn't?
| mmoskal wrote:
| If you have ESP (most of them anyways) you don't really need
| the RP2040 anymore - you can run all your code on the ESP. Also
| there are all that geopolitical concerns about Chinese
| networking gear coming with more than you asked for.
| ajb wrote:
| The wireless chip they used is a cypress chip but the design
| was by Broadcom, who sold it to Cypress (now owned by
| Infinion). A lot of the Pi team are ex-Broadcom and probably
| have a good working relationship with the team that make that
| chip. That will give them good confidence that any issues can
| be sorted out because they can get the attention of the right
| people. It's related to the chips which they use on the
| original Pi line
|
| RF in general is pretty closed. Last I heard the ESP low level
| drivers for wifi and BT were closed source (but that was a few
| years back). There is a lot of resistance to opening RF, partly
| to please incumbents but partly because of concerns that
| completely open RF would cause a radio spectrum "tragedy of the
| commons" - BT and wifi protocols need each tranceiver to behave
| in order to share the spectrum, if people could easily tweak
| it, people could easily take the spectrum at the expense of
| their neighbours. (for example, see https://fsfe.org/activities
| /radiodirective/radiodirective.en...)
| benj111 wrote:
| Surely the pi foundation is big enough now to be able to get
| through the front door of any chip maker.
|
| I'd like to see them using that clout to get (more) open
| hardware.
|
| Protecting against tragedy of the commons through obscurity?
| Seems misguided. You could make the same claims about
| software, or SDR. And it isn't As if the Pico is high
| powered...
| robert_foss wrote:
| Having worked with creating drivers for Qualcomm (but not
| worked at Qcom) I can't stress enough how important is to
| have connections with people who are familiar with the
| hardware or have access to documentation.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes, between Broadcom and Arm, Raspberry Pi is very much a
| product of the Cambridge (UK) microcosm.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| That tragedy of commons thing is why any consumer product
| where you could modify the radio transmitter firmware would
| loose its FCC certification, making it illegal to sell in the
| US.
|
| That almost ended the sale of openwrt (or other open
| firmware) compatible wifi routers in the US. The compromise
| that was reached was that radio firmware would be signed
| blobs that would not be user modifiable, but that everything
| else could be modifiable while retaining the FCC
| certification.
|
| I sure wish we could teach no tricks to the very capable RF
| hardware in many things. But things like the FCC and NDA's
| from IP vendors make that hard.
| ac29 wrote:
| > That tragedy of commons thing is why any consumer product
| where you could modify the radio transmitter firmware would
| loose its FCC certification, making it illegal to sell in
| the US.
|
| This is not true. FCC equipment approvals have both a
| frequency range and power level. What the FCC tried to
| clarify is that devices should not be able to be "easily
| modified" to operate outside of these approved parameters,
| which has always been true since way before radios had
| anything that could be considered software or firmware. For
| example, it would be against the rules to sell a radio
| certified for 1W power output that had a 5W power amplifier
| inside that could be enabled by removing a screw or
| something.
|
| Firmware modification, in general, is not against FCC
| rules. For example, new firmware that lowered maximum power
| would be permissible (or firmware changes that did not
| affect the emissions of the device at all).
|
| Here is the specific document from the FCC:
| https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2339685/fcc-
| software-...
| codetrotter wrote:
| That's a big W for the Pico W. If you know what I mean. :smirk:
| jenadine wrote:
| And I am still waiting for the WiFi support in the Rust rp-rs
| crates
| mvniekerk wrote:
| For Embassy-Rs there is this: https://github.com/embassy-
| rs/cyw43
|
| I've tested it myself and it works great. Plus async Rust on
| embedded is nice.
| grawp wrote:
| I'm still waiting for the AP mode :(
| levpopov wrote:
| I love RP2040 (especially how circuit designer and firmware dev
| friendly it is) and even tried building my own MCU with it[1]
|
| However I don't _quite_ see the Bluetooth use case - RP2040 is
| not really a low power chip, making it pretty hard to use for a
| battery-powered IoT application. You 'd need a pretty giant
| battery pack to make it last a long time.
|
| Nordic's nrf52 is an order of magnitude better for a typical
| "sleep-burst transmit-sleep" cycle, and can be suspended to <5uA
| current. Pico W is $6, Seeed has a $10 nrf52 MCU, or you could
| get a "just hook up USB and power" bare module for $5-6.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/levpopov/status/1623376630378008576
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| One use case would be a little desktop robot for an educational
| setting. The motors of a robot use orders of magnitude more
| power than the CPU so it needs big batteries anyway.
|
| I can also imagine applications where the device has wall power
| but you want to connect to it with a phone. Like a piece of
| wall art you want to be able to turn on and off remotely.
| packetlost wrote:
| There are a _lot_ of IOT applications that do rely on battery
| power. Regardless, this is nice for people whose MCU /embedded
| experience is limited to pre-existing firmwares and the Arduino
| ecosystem.
| regularfry wrote:
| I've got a bunch of ESP32's piggy-backing on USB chargers
| around the house doing BLE and wifi stuff. The things they're
| talking to are battery powered, but I want them plugged in to
| the mains. I could easily see myself using the Pico W in that
| job.
| mmoskal wrote:
| nit: MCU is Micro Controller Unit, so for example rp2040
| itself. What you mean is "board".
|
| Completely right on the power consumption though. The NRF52 is
| also quite good at limiting power consumption while it's
| running and automatically disabling peripherals while not used
| (you typically do that with disabling clocks on other chips).
| It also has the sanest hardware registers I've seen (looks like
| they were actually designed with software in mind).
| levpopov wrote:
| Yes, thanks for the correction! In DIY keyboard community a
| microcontroller breakout board is often referred to as MCU
| which makes things confusing.
| makomk wrote:
| There's also a fully open source Bluetooth stack for the Nordic
| chips (Apache nimBLE) compared to the non-commercial use only
| but with some vague and possibly not yet available exception
| for the RP2040 license of the BTstack used here. (This seems to
| have been enabled by the radio hardware being fully documented,
| which is very unusual for Bluetooth chips.)
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(page generated 2023-02-11 23:01 UTC)