WEEKLY UPDATE W/C 7th Nov

[Fred]

Dear all,

A brief update for the week as promised. Last week, Daniel and the team did an awesome job getting a load of firmware updates/improvements and app launches! Namely:

NEW firmware 0.9.3.b2: RELEASED Friday 4/11/16

• ADC (Analog to Digital Converter)
• PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) Timers.
• Multi-Threading via the _thread module.
• UART interrupts bug fix.

NEW Pymakr 1.0.0.b6: RELEASED Tuesday 1/11/16

• Fixed the sync feature in combination with latest LoPy and WiPy 2.0 firmware.
• Small layout fixes.
• Preventing multiple errors in the update plugin.
• Added Project configuration screen to the expert version for setting default project directory.
• Fixed a bug where REPL threw an error when using backspace and arrows combination.
• Added some aid in the device preferences page.

NEW Pymate IOS: RELEASED Friday 4/11/16

Pin-Outs LoPy, WiPy 2.0 and Expansion Boards: Released 6/11/16 (New iteration released today
Thank you Alberto Piganti

This Friday we will release:

• Bluetooth coexistence with WiFi. We have received from Espressif a new file which Daniel and the team will integrate into our existing code.
• SD card support.
• Several fixes and stability improvements (Floating point error fix, MicroPython core update, File system errors fixes).

Some other follow up points:

• We will launch the Pymate Android version on 18th November.
• Opensource: We are due to receive final GPL V3 licence on 11/11/16 and will immediately released source code on Github. I will give a comprehensive detail of the licence as soon as I receive the final points from the legal people. I do believe we will have a licence which will allow our developers to continue developing freely and unhindered in the spirit of Opensource!
• Documentation: We are working on this issue and will get some more content released shortly.

As an FYI, we will be organising on the 17th and 18th January 2 days of intense workshops for LoRa, Sigfox, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity applications. More details to follow but I wanted to give you the heads up.

Thats it for now...

Best wishes Fred

[KDHeard]

Hi Fred

Thanks for keeping all of us updated. Though there is no news coming through the LoRa Nano Gateway - is this still part of development path?

Regards
Kevin Heard

[Fred]

@KDHeard Hi Kevin,

Good to hear from you!

Using the LoPy as a Nano gateway is already available (raw LoRa Gateway). I think the only thing missing is the documentation on the website as to how that can be done. One of our developers was getting this documented today so keep an eye open on the Forum. I will check from my side.

Cheers Fred

[KDHeard]

@Fred Thank you for the reply. We are really looking forward to the documentation and unleashing the 'full power of the LoPy'....

Regards
Kevin

[brotherdust]

@Fred It's the 11th! Excited!

[bmarkus]

@brotherdust said in WEEKLY UPDATE W/C 7th Nov:

@Fred It's the 11th! Excited!

Same, looking for the floating point bug (and others) fixed.

[rskoniec]

@Fred Any updates about new firmware release?

[brotherdust]

@Fred, even if it's not ready, it would be nice to have some kind of update saying, "Hey, guys, sorry. It's not ready yet." Silence is not good.

[jonirons]

tru dat - It would be great to have a forward road-map of when features and documentation might be available. e.g. https://docs.pycom.io/wipy2/library/machine.RTC.html tells me I can do so:
rtc = machine.RTC()
rtc.init((2014, 5, 1, 4, 13, 0, 0, 0))
print(rtc.now())

but machine.RTC() tells me

import machine
rtc = machine.RTC()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'RTC'

Is someone working on it as we speak? or is there a list of features ahead of it?

Cheers

Jon

[bmarkus]

@jonirons said in WEEKLY UPDATE W/C 7th Nov:

tru dat - It would be great to have a forward road-map of when features and documentation might be available. e.g. https://docs.pycom.io/wipy2/library/machine.RTC.html tells me I can do so:
rtc = machine.RTC()
rtc.init((2014, 5, 1, 4, 13, 0, 0, 0))
print(rtc.now())

but machine.RTC() tells me

import machine
rtc = machine.RTC()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'RTC'

Is someone working on it as we speak? or is there a list of features ahead of it?

Cheers

Jon

We have roadmap. Issue is that this roadmap is not followed by PyCom and that PyCom stopped communication to its customers, changed condition advertised during KS campaign and do not meet its own commitments.

[jonirons]

@bmarkus I now need some clarification - I've responded to a Pycom forum. Who is this "We" that is separate from Pycom? Can I rather follow the "We" and understand whats really happening, because Pycom seems to have NO idea of how to communicate.

It was sold to me on the open market as an "Enterprise" grade product with no indication that its not yet ready, and in fact has a significant way to go. At best this is misleading. At worst its possibly fraudulent. I didn't buy this as a Kickstarter project where one understands that's where we're at.

How do I get behind the glossy brochures and find out where this (very early stage) development is at? I don't want to waste time on stuff that is under development, and I don't have the tools to fix.

I have faith that the "We" can get this right - The wipy gets WLAN connection in 1.9 s - the wipy2 gets connection to the same network in 10s.

Please let us know where this is at, because right now I've been GROSSLY mislead.

PyCom - get your act together, stop selling this as a finished product, and give those of us who've been misled an idea of when we should stop wasting our time on problems we can't solve.

[jonirons]

@jonirons Here's my guess:

A bunch of really talented developers (I mean that) were told by some corporate freaks "have we got a deal for you!"

The developers said - "It's not ready yet"

The corporate freaks said "It's got to go now now now"

The developers said - "It's not ready yet"

The corporate freaks said "marketing have got the glossy brochures, we've got the cool web-site, we've got the online payment channel - g0 go go - Developers WORK HARDER"

Something like that?

[Fred]

@jonirons it's good to see you got it right from the beginning: HERE'S MY GUESS.

[jonirons]

@Fred ;) in the absence of information that's all I can do!

[Fred]

@jonirons fair enough :) My bad. We appreciate you guys have put a lot of trust into Pycom. Unfortunately hardware design can suffer these delays as you developers will know only too well. I will come back a little later with a more comprehensive update for the week. Thanks

[jonirons]

@Fred PyCom needs to immediately stop selling this as a product that is "enterprise grade" and has the following features: https://www.pycom.io/solutions/py-boards/wipy2/

and realistically say "Our plan is to have the following features:" https://www.pycom.io/solutions/py-boards/wipy2/

You also need to put those of us who've been conned into buying them in contact with your (as previously stated) really good developers. All the stuff I expect to already work on WiPy 2 already works on WiPy 1 - it took me about 15 minutes to port a weekends buggering about to WiPy 1 and it all just worked.

GIVE US A ROADMAP

The WiPy2 and the rest of the multi-channel devices have enormous potential with talented developers who can make it work. Tell us "Here's how it will play out". I will follow it, and re-engage, but at the moment you're wasting my time!

PyCom needs to re-think its communication strategy!

[Fred]

@jonirons nobody is conning anybody! Feel free to return the product and we will refund including postage. Email me on fred@pycom.io Thanks Fred

[jonirons]

The enormous potential comment still stands. I still want this to be great, and your development team have already done this before. I would prefer a ROADMAP.

If you let me know that I'm happy to change my mind-set to a Kickstarter kind of deal. Otherwise I will likely take up your offer and send it back (and all the follow on)

Like I said - rethink the communication strategy, and stop selling this as a finished product. This is not yet yet worthy of a beta software release.

May of the documented features are not available (not buggy, just simply NOT THERE).
The "fully featured IDE that connects automatically to your Pycom" PyMakr has yet to talk to any WiPy (1 or 2) for more than a few seconds before giving an error that can't be got rid of without using "Activity Monitor".

We know software development is difficult and time consuming. TELL US WHERE YOU"RE AT.

[daniel]

@jonirons what features that are documented in: https://docs.pycom.io/wipy2/ are not available in the software? Or do you mean documented in the spec sheet? Thanks.

Cheers,
Daniel

[jonirons]

@daniel - Both

following the links from https://docs.pycom.io/wipy2/ -> click on Library Reference -> Pycom boards specific features -> try importing pycom module

From the spec sheet, try googling WiPy2 RTC - get result https://docs.pycom.io/wipy2/library/machine.RTC.html - no machine.RTC module. (admittedly I see it isn't linked directly from the above module)

In addition, and as documented previously No success getting PyMakr ide connecting to any board at all for more that a few seconds, whether factory clean, configured or via USB. Although Telnet, Screen and FTP are working fine.