I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding you but, why are local apps a prerequisite for controlled networking? Or is that just how you want to build it out?
To be clear, all I'm suggesting is executing a command like `network connect <SSID>` instead of automatically connecting to saved networks.
Maybe I'm just not sold on the concept of a truly remote terminal (like the real old terminals). Why should I have to carry around two devices when Linux could run on this device itself? Perhaps it's a lot more work? but there have been some efforts made on this already. I would like to casually launch vim and start writing, without worrying about connectivity.
As an aside, also consider looking at how the reMarkable tablet implements ether/IP over USB, that has been working pretty well for me too, though I really wish it would broadcast an mDNS entry over WiFi as well.
Ah, I misunderstood you. Without the local apps, unless you are connected to a network, there is literally nothing to do with this device. That's because it is more-or-less a terminal only (excluding the few PF local apps). There are no notifications to speak of.
A Linux OS based device can't meet the goals of the device from a couple of standpoints (power, availability, and the limited RAM/resources on the microcontroller pop to mind right away). Think of this as an instant on appliance. You turn on your old Commodore 64 and you are instantly able to type.
I hear ya, when it comes to "just wanting to be able to open the thing and start typing into vim (or whatever)". We're working on sanding down those edges in a couple of ways--1) eventually, we'd like to point people to a very cheap, simple cloud linux deployment if they don't want to setup their own, with lots of conveniences. 2) regarding actually getting a network connection since we're talking terminal-only the bandwidth requirements are tiny; because of that, it looks like we're going to want to add cell network connectivity. This is early-stages in thinking this through, but there are plans in the $40 - $60 range for an ENTIRE YEAR that would give you unlimited bandwidth that is plenty fast for terminal purposes (128kbps after using a limited amount of faster 4G bandwidth).
I will take a look at the reMarkable ether over USB. Thanks for pointing it out. It'll be a while before we've got a full USB stack working though. Remember, the software footprint for this device is tiny by design.
I promise you can make Linux wake from a low power state much faster than you can wake up the radios and negotiate a stable network connection with "the cloud!?". Not to mention battery life... Even if my host was connected over ethernet I wonder how realtime benchmarks would compare with whatever network hardware you have in mind.
I love the idea of having cell and wifi modems, but these seem like high priority secondary concerns to me personally.
I understand that I may not have the same vision as you exactly, but I really am pretty much your target consumer. I totally get the elegance of reimplementing the "dumb terminal", but I really challenge you to justify it.
I think the disconnect between us is that this is running on a microcontroller. Think "a beefier version of what runs your smart thermostat." Linux isn't unheard of for such a device, but is a pretty heavy lift because of limited resources. Using a microcontroller has its advantages. One advantage goes exactly to the point--with smart design it can maintain a wifi connection, waking for milliseconds at the required interval, so when you want to use it there is no wifi negotiation time. Keeping things open all the way to the remote host is whole other matter, but I believe that's touched on in the document.
What is your use case for this sort of device? We'd certainly like to support as many as possible without compromising the overall vision. You mention PDFs--is your use case for reading or creating documents?
There was no plan to support local viewing of PDFs--again, parsing them is a pretty heavy lift for a low-power microcontroller to do with acceptable performance. We've got a related (very alpha) project that uses Chromium to render websites in a fancy text-only fashion. This is because for most devices, having a modern web browser is table stakes so we want to support that for this device. However, this browser would would be installed on the host you connect to with this device, not on the device itself. The browser can view PDFs (it uses Mozilla's pdf.js). I can show you screenshots of output of this browser, but not much else at this point. Those closest relative of this browser that is public is Browsh. It would give you an idea for what can be done: https://www.brow.sh/
> What is your use case for this sort of device? We'd certainly like to support as many as possible without compromising the overall vision. You mention PDFs--is your use case for reading or creating documents?
Creating documents implies reading them in their final form, unless you have a publisher on staff. Even then I'd argue the medium matters. Most of the time I stick to plaintext, but there's a lot of value in PDF layout as well.
So yes, I plan to use this device for both reading and creating.
And I DO NOT trust my network connections. Just saying.
Gotcha. I don't think we could make this the right fit for you then, sorry.
Well, the more I think about it, it's conceivable it could handle it with some small amount of extra hardware, but would take a LOT of software work and as hobbyists with no funding...
> And I DO NOT trust my network connections. Just saying.
Yes, this should be a hard pass for you then! (Unless built-in, dirt-cheap cell connectivity would assuage those concerns.)
Maybe you make a little RPi-like device that is designed to connect and host this thing as a module that attaches nicely to the enclosure. You could build out the whole idea as you have it and come back to this for people like me. Meanwhile, I might just carry around a RPi for this purpose, as long as they can share power easily.
I hope I'm not being too discouraging. I really like this idea, which is why I'm pushing you on it a bit. I would love to help, but yea, fund-less hobbies are tough to get large scale support for. I wish I had more to offer.
To be clear, all I'm suggesting is executing a command like `network connect <SSID>` instead of automatically connecting to saved networks.
Maybe I'm just not sold on the concept of a truly remote terminal (like the real old terminals). Why should I have to carry around two devices when Linux could run on this device itself? Perhaps it's a lot more work? but there have been some efforts made on this already. I would like to casually launch vim and start writing, without worrying about connectivity.
As an aside, also consider looking at how the reMarkable tablet implements ether/IP over USB, that has been working pretty well for me too, though I really wish it would broadcast an mDNS entry over WiFi as well.