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Sub-1GHz Bands, Augmented Alarm and Alert systems, Bird Feeder Defender, or Home Decoration Projects? What projects do you want to work on next?

tariq.ahmad

Last time we did one of these polls you chose Off-the-Grid projects followed by Sub-1Ghz Bands and Augmented Alert Systems.    Taking a look at the last poll and then  Theme Suggestions I've added a couple of  themes: Bird Feeder Defender and Home Decoration to the list of themes for the next project competition.   Keep the project ideas coming and vote on the next Project14 we do!

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  • in reply to shabaz

    The BB team should self-reflect. Out-of-date or non-existing documentation on their own project site has been *the* issue ever since the very first release.
    A repeat, every time the hardware or software got updated. It may not be an issue for the in-crowd, but that's a small army.

    It used to be my go-to device. I liked it more than the Pi. I'd write BB code, then port it to Pi if needed. But with each new OS or HW iteration, it became more difficult to find the right documentation. There was often documentation, but outdated or wrong. And promises to provide working examples that did not materialise (am I the only one who bought the PRU cape with the promise that they would publish examples for the hardware on that add-on?) .
    As if the energy of the team synced up with the Texas Instruments yearly employee performance evaluation cycle. Loads of activity in October, with press conferences and new things. More new things. Then silence till the next autumn. No follow up on the pesky old things of last year.
    It reflects what the company is doing in the last years. The TI forum has been a community, but reverted into a support site for customers, answered by TI staff. Community provided blogs have been deleted, favouring in-house publications. Community initiatives like the Launchpads and Energia seem to be abandoned.

    Pi seems to be better at updating their own documentation. And their community keeps refreshing existing projects. That is (I think) not happening in the BB community. I claim that the growth of the Pi community and the decline of the BB one are a result of that. Even thought he BB designs are intrinsically better and more adventurous.

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Totally concur... 

    I found a similar problem with LimeSDR. Fantastic hardware, let down by awful documentation (and what in that case feels like deliberate information-hiding with the few blogs/tutorials which are missing all the "meat"). I even attended an in-person training session in London (well, half of it, I couldn't spend more time that day), and while aspects of it were very good, it still left the user at a bit of a loss.

    TI ought to be better. They ought to realize they are not selling things that need no instructions. They are not selling kebabs! 

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    I'd love to disagree with you Jan, but I suspect you might be right. The first thing I'll look at for the BeaglePlay road test is how easy it is to get started on the path to a sensor reading on the BeaglePlay directly and then via the BeagleConnect Freedom.

    Running an open source program like BeagleBoard must be hard. In theory, if there's gaps in the documentation then the community could fill it, but that might be quite hard unless you're in the "inner circle". (I mean inner circle in a knowledge and experience way, not a cliquey way.)

    We're dragging this Project14 thread off topic a bit. Perhaps a "Thoughts on BeagleBoard" thread might be useful.