For £160 you can buy three JC1060P470, 7 inch proto-tablet systems with the same P4+C5 stack, with GPIO, ethernet in some models.
I get that the expense here is miniaturising and integration, but even at half the RRP, I'd be wincing. The maker market knows how to work out a napkin-BOM, and knows that this is a lot of money for what you're getting.
Is this similar to a Flipper Zero? It seems some of the capabilities are there but maybe not all even though you could add anything with the extensions it seems.
For me the fact that it has NFC built-in makes it perfect for my usecase. I looked at the M5 and friends but having to add an extra add-on box with a cable was a nonstarter for me.
I don't get why the maker market complains so much about the idea of businesses selling products at a healthy markup. Just because you know how the sausage was made doesn't mean that the logic of operating a business is any different to how it works in the consumer world.
If you're skilled and motivated enough to make it yourself, you might save some money. You'd loose a lot of time though and that's worth something too (perhaps a lot more).
Hardware is hard and I applaud every effort to make it easier for tinkerers to build atop a platform. I've been away from it for a long time but how does the RPi system stack up in comparison? With all the hats available and the variety of cases, it shouldn't be too difficult to match the aesthetics, power consumption and exploit all the pluggable peripherals. What are the blind spots?
Their main selling point is that "most projects die in the setup: a screen, buttons, power and sensors to wire up before you can even begin". With their product, you get plug-and-play blocks for everything. But that idea has been tried many times before. It's Aduino "shields", Beaglebone "capes", an entire ecosystem of Raspberry Pi accessories, etc.
Maybe it'll take off this time around, especially if they can make it cute enough, but at nearly $200 for the base device, I think they're gonna face an uphill battle. I still wish them well.
No, it starkly contrasts the RPi ecosystem because it has an "all in one" main unit, which works without shields, cables, extra cases, etc. It's approximately as self-contained as a mobile phone. But on top of that it offers GPIO pins.
Very long-time lurker here; I made an account specifically to say what I am about to say:
I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else.
Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu.
I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.
There can be other valid usecases than yours where the price is not an issue.
And surely you are aware of the challenges of supply+demand and the issue of using offshore labor... that means most products made ethically and at low volumes are inherently going to be expensive.
This has NFC built-in which is something I've been looking for for a long time, there are no other ready-made programmable devices on the market you can buy that have a screen, touch, NFC and a battery, that I know of, so it's perfect for me, and the price is not a concern.
I'm an NFC enthusiast as well! Technically the flipper zero meets your criteria, but I'm guessing there's something else about it that doesn't quite meet up to your needs. When you say programmable, although the Flipper zero is "programmable", it's more like apps and you don't have full control over the device, which could be a limiting factor for whatever you're doing.
For £160 you can buy three JC1060P470, 7 inch proto-tablet systems with the same P4+C5 stack, with GPIO, ethernet in some models.
I get that the expense here is miniaturising and integration, but even at half the RRP, I'd be wincing. The maker market knows how to work out a napkin-BOM, and knows that this is a lot of money for what you're getting.
Is this similar to a Flipper Zero? It seems some of the capabilities are there but maybe not all even though you could add anything with the extensions it seems.
Why would you use this compared to the M5 stack which kind of does the same thing? This just looks like it's packaged in a "cuter" sense.
If it takes cute packaging to get people into it, so be it. This seems like a great project. The more the merrier
For me the fact that it has NFC built-in makes it perfect for my usecase. I looked at the M5 and friends but having to add an extra add-on box with a cable was a nonstarter for me.
I understand the rationale, but it looks like they decided to go the Sisyphean route on this.
ESP32-C5 ~$10
ESP32-P4 ~$5
Display ~$10
Case is maybe 90 cents (let's round to $1) if you print out of ABS.
The rest of the components? Let's say another $15 worst case.
~$41 or around that much? Sure, but definitely not ~$193.
What about design, build, marketing etc.?
I don't get why the maker market complains so much about the idea of businesses selling products at a healthy markup. Just because you know how the sausage was made doesn't mean that the logic of operating a business is any different to how it works in the consumer world.
If you're skilled and motivated enough to make it yourself, you might save some money. You'd loose a lot of time though and that's worth something too (perhaps a lot more).
Hardware is hard and I applaud every effort to make it easier for tinkerers to build atop a platform. I've been away from it for a long time but how does the RPi system stack up in comparison? With all the hats available and the variety of cases, it shouldn't be too difficult to match the aesthetics, power consumption and exploit all the pluggable peripherals. What are the blind spots?
Their main selling point is that "most projects die in the setup: a screen, buttons, power and sensors to wire up before you can even begin". With their product, you get plug-and-play blocks for everything. But that idea has been tried many times before. It's Aduino "shields", Beaglebone "capes", an entire ecosystem of Raspberry Pi accessories, etc.
Maybe it'll take off this time around, especially if they can make it cute enough, but at nearly $200 for the base device, I think they're gonna face an uphill battle. I still wish them well.
No, it starkly contrasts the RPi ecosystem because it has an "all in one" main unit, which works without shields, cables, extra cases, etc. It's approximately as self-contained as a mobile phone. But on top of that it offers GPIO pins.
It's nice but should be half as much.
Yeah I’d be interested at about a third of the asking price
It’s hard to beat LilyGo’s lineup in this area
Very long-time lurker here; I made an account specifically to say what I am about to say:
I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else.
Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu.
I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.
I don't think this is for gaming. It has arrows plus two buttons, probably for conceptual equivalents to "tap/click/enter" and "back/escape".
If you want a DIYish handheld for gaming there are much better options on the market.
Not to be rude but the page literally says "Browse what the community ships: games, tools and toys. Run them on your Kode Dot."
Perhaps I should have written "I don't think this is well suited for gaming, despite the marketing copy"
What? Playdate absolutely has a menu button.
Price is too steep. Cardputer is 30 bucks.
There can be other valid usecases than yours where the price is not an issue.
And surely you are aware of the challenges of supply+demand and the issue of using offshore labor... that means most products made ethically and at low volumes are inherently going to be expensive.
This has NFC built-in which is something I've been looking for for a long time, there are no other ready-made programmable devices on the market you can buy that have a screen, touch, NFC and a battery, that I know of, so it's perfect for me, and the price is not a concern.
I'm an NFC enthusiast as well! Technically the flipper zero meets your criteria, but I'm guessing there's something else about it that doesn't quite meet up to your needs. When you say programmable, although the Flipper zero is "programmable", it's more like apps and you don't have full control over the device, which could be a limiting factor for whatever you're doing.