RoadTest: Espruino
Author: refaqtor
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Evaluation Boards
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: Tessel (with embedded javascript)
What were the biggest problems encountered?:
Detailed Review:
Getting started with this Espruino has been the most enjoyable of all the many (many, many) project boards I've encountered. So much so, that I'm likely to purchase a second one so that each of my children can build a robot. Now I don't mean to say that this board isn't a capable board, but rather that it is so easy to get going, particularly with the graphical script builder.
Documentation on the main site ( Espruino - EspruinoBoard) was fine to begin with, but continues to get better (more thorough, easier to understand).
The step by step getting started procedure was painless, and within 5 minutes of connecting, I had the board firmware updated and was modifying the blinky demo script with satisfying results using the graphical script builder.
The IDE is a chrome plugin that installed quick and easy.
Now, here is the IDE. pretty standard. The serial port scanning worked pretty well, which made selection easy.
Here is a look at the toolbox of hardware specific pieces of the graphical IDE. My background is C/C++, and generally not interested in "all them trendy new fangled languages." So, I actually reaaaally appreciated the ease of building up my logical constructs graphically, then toggling over to the text editing mode to see what it produced. The javascript proper stuff I could find on the web easily enough, but it was mighty convenient to have the hardware specific bits generated for me instantly - saving me from having to go to the reference (or internet) before I could get this going.
Aside from the easy to get started IDE, I feel that the board has just the right amount, and type, of proto area. Generally, my projects on these boards have little more than, say a L293D motor controller or U2003 Darlington array, which the Espruino designers left just enough room for. I suppose they could have cut the board in half, but for the thoughtful inclusion of the smt pads on front, and more on the back - specifically for a bluetooth module. Very insightful.
I really enjoy this little board, and I'm likely to buy ones for my children to experiment with. I would not generally consider a $40 board for any other purpose, but what it does, it does very well with a tremendously intuitive IDE - and that is worth it.