from Hacker News

Pocuter – A coin-sized micro computer with WiFi and BLE

by dirkk0 on 8/28/21, 2:42 PM with 34 comments

  • by ducktective on 8/28/21, 5:41 PM

    Impressive! Congrats! How did you manage to integrate ESP32's WiFi antenna into that space? Specially in this image [1], it seems the pins of the esp32 is very close to the SD card...Wouldn't it cause interference?

    [1]: https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/034/323/339/1a68f2cee050491...

  • by squarefoot on 8/28/21, 6:53 PM

    Seems similar to the M5Stack (https://m5stack.com/), which is a good thing, if only to have more competition.

  • by bitwize on 8/28/21, 6:36 PM

    "Micro computer". There's a phrase I haven't heard in a while. Back in the day it referred to computers the size of my desktop.

  • by somesortofsystm on 8/28/21, 8:11 PM

    I've already got something just like this, only its better: the m5StickC:

    https://shop.m5stack.com/products/stick-c

    It is truly dee-lightful to sit and play with this environment, made even more awesome by the depth of the PlatformIO library system.

    See also, PineWatch, similar ..

  • by GekkePrutser on 8/28/21, 10:36 PM

    Interesting, but the price is a bit too high for what it is IMO. You can get a pinewatch or M5stick for much less. For me the appeal of such boards is that they cost negligible money so you can use them everywhere.

    I know they're not the same this and have some different specs, but they are in the same class. This is not something I'd buy as easily.

    However I hope it does well, after all scaling up will bring prices down.

  • by peterburkimsher on 8/28/21, 10:15 PM

    I like it! The name is especially cute.

    I carry a PQI Air Card in my pocket to use as an SD->WiFi->iPhone adaptor, and this could complement it nicely. I've also carried a CoreWind WiFiG25 for USB host, so I could mount other people's phones using MTP or libimobiledevice. The CoreWind stopped working, so I've been trying to replace it with a VoCore, but I haven't got that to work yet either. Does the Pocuter have USB host ports?

    Having battery power management circuitry is really wonderful - I'm usually having to use a Third Rail battery and microUSB M - USB F mini adaptor and microUSB M - USB M rotating adaptor to power the pocket computer, and then I can't use the same wire for plugging in other devices. Screen support is also very impressive - and with an ESP32 on board then it should be able to bit-bang VGA out too!

  • by dheera on 8/28/21, 7:24 PM

    This looks super awesome. I got excited until I saw it was a Kickstarter and not delivering until December. I guess I'll wait until they actually start shipping in case there's something better by then ...

    If they could ship one in a week I'd totally buy one now.

  • by bufferoverflow on 8/28/21, 8:44 PM

    32KB SRAM with up to 512GB of microSD storage.

    That's just wild.

  • by spicybright on 8/28/21, 6:27 PM

    Does this actually exist? I'm weary of kickstarters.

  • by throwaway316943 on 8/28/21, 4:04 PM

    Could something like this be leveraged for a physical representation of crypto currency? So that you could spend it like cash.

  • by Huwyt_Nashi_064 on 8/28/21, 4:21 PM

    Maybe nitpicky but why is the ESP32 (dual core @ 240MHz, 300kb+ memory, options with megabytes of flash and memory integrated in package) relegated to coprocessor for a 48MHz microcontroller with 256kb flash and 32kb memory?