PyCom alternatives?
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Hi all,
It took some weeks longer than expected due to component lead times but I'm so glad to release Walter today. We have taken as much advice as we could and are convinced about the way we took. Get to know Walter on https://www.quickspot.io/
Happy New Year!
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@Tiit thanks for the feedback. We have kept physical pin compatibility but implemented the rest completely different. We have a physical modem reset, a switchable 3.3V output, the IO pins are 100% configurable and not shared with internal peripherals, ... Find out all about Walter on https://www.quickspot.io/
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@Daan-Pape for JavaScript support low.js may be an alternative to Espruino.
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@jcaron thanks for the tip, I didn't know it yet and I'm going to look into it with our team.
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@Daan-Pape -Great to see the progress! I'm curious why the SIM has to be on the underside of the product; it is the only thing one needs to remove once the module is mounted on a board. If you solder the module in place, the SIM is impossible to get out. Personally it is the first thing from a Pycom module I would not have cloned.
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@Don-iot it is a size issue. When we would place the SIM card on top the module should be almost 20mm longer. This would break our goal to be GPy compatible as not all designs would be able to fit such a long module. Also it would interfere with RF from the antennas.
You are right about it being very hard to replace the SIM card when the module is soldered. I'm open for suggestions on how to solve that. The only option that we were looking into was an eSIM SIM card.
Kind regards,
Daan -
@Daan-Pape -I understand. We may be interested in the module you are developing if we will not move in another direction. Can we have a commercial discussion outside this forum to understand your timeline?
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@Don-iot It would probably make sense to move it at least to the edge of the board, though depending on the type of card holder you may have to push it slightly over the edge (if it's a purely passive push-pull holder and the only way to take out the SIM would be to pull on it, as opposed to some kind of push-push holder where you can push on the SIM to have it come back out with a spring).
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@jcaron We have investigated moving the SIM card to the edge but there are two problems:
- It cannot be placed at the ESP32 side because that would interfere the PCB antenna's RF view. This would violate Espressif's good practices and thus the CE/FCC certification of the ESP32-S3 module.
- The only option left would be to choose the other side but there we have the USB-C connector which is through hole. Previous experiences have thought us that you do not want USB connectors to be purely SMD, sooner or later they will come loose and permanently damage the board.
We therefore chose to place the SIM slot as close to the ESP32 as we could. It is a slide slot with hot plug SIM card support and I think we can easily solve the problem with a little 'tool' to push the card in/out even when Walter is soldered onto another PCB board.
I will simulate this tomorrow and make a little video of the tests. Thank you for thinking along.
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If you're interested in checking out Particle I can get you a sample!
- LTE
- Developer friendly ecosystem
- Certified
- Easy transition from pycom
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