David Briddock investigates an amazing value for money computer
What’s the right price for a barebones system-on-a-board computer? With well over five million boards sold so far, the Raspberry Pi certainly hit a sweet spot with its $35 offering. The original Model B has now been joined by the Model A , the Model B+ and most recently the significantly more powerful Raspberry Pi 2.
Yet the original Raspberry Pi board dates back to 2006, and the initial launch was way back in 2012. Over the intervening years there’s been a revolution in the Maker Community and a surge in commercial interest on the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) domain.
Nevertheless, the Raspberry Pi has always been one of the cheapest options for a fully functioning computer, and not long ago the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation reduced the Model B+ down to just $25.
But soon that may not be cheap enough. By the end of this year, there’ll be another open-source contender for the computer-on-a-board crown. And this time the price is just $9.
Next Thing Co
The $9 computer idea came from a small band of like-minded individuals who run what’s called the Next Thing Company (nextthing.co), which already has a track record in the IoT and maker arenas. Ironically, this reputation has been built with value-added solutions for the Raspberry Pi platform.
Next Thing Co products target hardware hackers, makers and innovators. One example is OTTO, a hackable camera built on the Pi (nextthing.co/otto.html). Then there’s STAK, an advanced system framework that deliver four-second boot times, reliable wi-fi, protected user program space, Git code integration and much more (nextthing.co/stak.html).
But now the team is working on replacing the Raspberry Pi altogether with something they call the C.H.I.P. project.
Kickstarter Phenomenon
These days if you have an original idea that needs funding, you don’t pop into your high-street bank and try to negotiate a loan. Instead you use the power of the internet and in particular the Kickstarter website.
The original C.H.I.P. Kickstarter (goo.gl/7R9qes) goal was to raise $50,000. This figure would allow the team to purchase individual components in sufficient quantities to achieve that attractive $9 price target.
Of course, part of the attraction of backing a Kickstarter project is that you’ll receive some goodies. Apart from the basic $9 C.H.I.P. board, you could pledge more for battery packs, VGA or HDMI adapters and even the PocketC.H.I.P. device (more on this later).
Yet, as we’ve seen before, even some great Kickstarter ideas fail to achieve their funding targets. So was it a success?
Yes, a rip-roaring success! When the funding period ended, on 5th June, a total of 39,560 backers raised a little over $2 million, so there’s absolutely no doubt the C.H.I.P. board will become a reality. And there’s bound to be a further swell of public interest when the hardware modules begin to ship.
Inside The C.H.I.P.
All the essential components are housed on a tiny board. At just 60mm by 40mm it’s quite a bit smaller than a Raspberry Pi. However, this board still has a powerful System-on-a-Chip package with an ARM Cortex-8 compatible 1GHz Allwinner processor and an ARM Mali400 graphics processor. The graphics capabilities support HD decoding of 1920 x 1080 video at 30 frames per second, plus the H.264, H.263, VC1, MPEG1/2/4,VP6/8 and AVS video decoding formats, with both 2D and 3D acceleration.
There’s also 512MB of DDR3 RAM plus a generous 4GB of NAND flash storage (in contrast to the Raspberry Pi, which needs a separately purchased memory card).
Around the sides there’s both full-size and micro-USB sockets, plus a multifunction composite-video / audio-out / microphonein port (HDMI and VGA adapters are also available), while the twin 40-pin IO sockets deliver a host of I2C, SPI, UART and GPIO interfacing options.
Unlike the Raspberry Pi, there’s built-in wireless communication. Wi-fi 802.11 (b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0 mean you can connect to the internet via a local wi-fi router and use a wireless keyboard/mouse setup or games controller. And there’s even native support for a 16 million colour 4.3” to 8” LCD screen and a camera.
The fully integrated battery power circuit ensures complete portability. Just attach a 3.7V LiPo battery to a couple of the IO pins and off you go.
So the C.H.I.P. certainly has plenty of capability: the processing power to run everyday apps and a full graphical user interface, plus the on-board storage to hold data, images and media files. In summary, it’s excellent value for money.
Software
As you’d expect from an open-source project, it runs Linux. In this case it’s a fast-booting Debian-based Linux operating system, with drivers for standards like the 2D-based OpenVG 1.1 and the 3D-centric OpenGLES 2.0, plus over-the-air update support.
As for apps, there’s plenty of preinstalled functionality. Use the Chromium browser to surf the web, manage your inbox, watch YouTube videos and much more,while LibreOffice makes it easy to create and manage your documents and spreadsheets.
But this is only a start. Running Linux means you can install thousands of free open-source community apps. For instance, photo manipulation or painting programs, music library managers, music production studios (using a USB MIDI keyboard) and new or retro-style games.
And if you’d like to write your own apps, just about any coding languages can be installed, including Python, Java and C++. Alternatively, you could create animations and games with the pre-installed blockbased Scratch language.
Open Source
These days, it’s essential to have an opensource mindset. This ensures the community will help to deliver updates, extensions and enhancements – something a single company cannot hope to manage by itself.
As we’ve seen, the software is exclusively open source, but with the C.H.I.P. it applies to the hardware too. All the hardware design files, schematics, circuit board layouts and even the bill of materials are free to download, modify and use.
This openness is the result of a close collaboration with the Allwinner Technology team (allwinnertech.com), who created the System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design (goo.gl/UXA6E8).
So whether you’re a Linux kernel hacker, app developer, electronics wizard or inspired device maker, you can become deeply involved in the C.H.I.P. community. And for hardcore Linux developers, there were 1,000 ‘special backer’ packages that deliver an alpha-level C.H.I.P. prototype this September.
PocketC.H.I.P.
One of the unique features of the C.H.I.P. Kickstarter offering is the PocketC.H.I.P. kit. What you’ll receive for your pledge is a rugged injection moulded shell, 4.3” (470 x 272 pixels) resistive touchscreen, a full QWERTY keyboard and a 3000mAH battery – plus of course the C.H.I.P. board.
The battery is good enough for five hours’ playtime and the whole thing slips into your back pocket. The C.H.I.P. board itself neatly snaps into a socket, located behind a removable hatch. Hardware hackers will be pleased to know the design ensures the GPIO pins are still accessible.
All in all, the case is rather reminiscent of the pocketable Nintendo GameBoy device. You can, of course, still use it to play games. But with its full ‘qwerty’ keyboard, you can browse the web, send communications and anything else a Linux-based computer can do. And it would make a neat remote control handset for robots, drones, game-consoles, TVs and a host of other electronic devices.
Availability
When can we get our hands on this $9 computer? In general 2015 is all about refining the hardware and software. There will be that alpha-level release we talked about in September, but the first production manufacturing runs don’t take place until November, so we’ll have to wait until early 2016 before delivery volumes start to peak.
And that’s the problem with Kickstarter projects. As 2016 is still some distance away, there’s plenty of time for something else to happen in the maker/IoT domain. For instance, there may be further Raspberry Pi price cuts or other secret, yet close-toproduction rival technology that will vie for exactly the same marketplace.
C.H.I.P. Vs Pi
The big question is: should you go for a C.H.I.P. or a Raspberry Pi? The C.H.I.P. is already around a third the cost of a Raspberry Pi B+ and almost a quarter the price of the new Raspberry Pi 2. Yet the Pi doesn’t come with 4GB of flash storage or built-in wireless support. All in all, the value for money that the C.H.I.P. delivers is quite staggering.
Obviously, the Raspberry Pi community is huge, and despite the attractive cost, it may be impossible for a C.H.I.P. to create a similar worldwide momentum. And there are a host of Pi accessories, add-ons, books, magazine articles, online tutorials and videos already available.
But the maker community and IoT domain simply cannot ignore such a capable, low-cost product, while clever ideas like the PocketC.H.I.P. kit are bound to raise its profile. And with over $2 million to play with, there may well be some other cool (and highly newsworthy) add-ons in the pipeline.
In the end it’s not a straightforward decision, but just about anyone can find a spare $9, so why not buy a C.H.I.P. anyway?
Full C.H.I.P. Specification
• 60mm x 40mm board
• 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 Allwinner A13 CPU
• ARM Mali400 GPU
• 512MB DDR3 RAM
• 4GB NAND flash storage
• 1 full-sized USB
• 1 micro-USB (OTG)
• Wi-fi (b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Stereo audio and composite video
• 2x40 pin IO (I2C, SPI, UART &GPIO)
• Camera sensor support (MIPI-CSI )
• Native 4.3 to 8 inch LCD screen support
• Integrated battery power circuitry (3.7v LiPo)