Imagination Launches Creator CI40 "Ultimate IoT-In-A-Box"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Imagination Launches Creator CI40 "Ultimate IoT-In-A-Box"

For the past month Imagination has been sharing details on their Creator CI40 development board. Today this "IoT-In-A-Box" has officially launched in the form of a Kickstarter campaign...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Imagination-Launches-CI40

[uid313]

What is so IoT about this?
What makes this more IoT than the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino?

Just hearing Imageon Technologies makes me shiver. Makes me think if their proprietary PowerVR. No thanks.

[dragonn]

What is so IoT about this?
What makes this more IoT than the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino?

Just hearing Imageon Technologies makes me shiver. Makes me think if their proprietary PowerVR. No thanks.

Does any IoT aplication really need GPU? I think It would be better to have a board without any GPU (low power usage)

[piranha32]

Does any IoT aplication really need GPU? I think It would be better to have a board without any GPU (low power usage)

Whether the processor will have GPU or not is irrelevant. Their attitude towards Open Source and PowerVR will make me think thrice before touching any product made by Imagination Technologies.

[Linuxhippy]

I simply don't get it: Imagination needs every developer it can get in order to not let MIPS becoming irrelevant - yet they sell their boards at quite high prices (f?r 110$ you can get a AMD-APU + Mainboard), fully ignore closed-source drivers and now make a new development board even crowed-funded...

[piranha32]

Unfortunately such things aren't really driving the market for embedded stuff (Much though I would like this to change, as I happen to work in that sector), and cutting out companies that aren't OSS friendly would leave you extremely limited in this are (as, for example, ARM have the same closed-only drivers, and only really have the start of an OSS driver due to their hw apparently being easier to reverse engineer than PowerVR)

(Disclaimer: PowerVR pay my wages - I personally would love to see an OSS driver, but Politics....)

Imagination wants to bring MIPS back into limelight, and making products hacker-friendly may be one of the ways. It will not give immediate results, but it may work as a long-term strategy. Many of the college kids who look for cheap board to hack in a few years will decide what components to use in future products, and there is a good chance that they will choose something they've got familiar with. Many hardware companies rely on this donating software and devel boards to universities, and selling products to students at discounted prices.

[kieffer]

I have not really been impressed by the CI20: neither by the performances, nor by the stability, nor by the software stack.
Imagination may be willing to provide its PowerVR an open source driver but there is tons of things to polish before it gets an usable product.
The raspberry foundation made the Pi2 only after optimizing everything for the Pi1 ...

[alexvoica]

What is so IoT about this?
What makes this more IoT than the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino?

Just hearing Imageon Technologies makes me shiver. Makes me think if their proprietary PowerVR. No thanks.

Three main things:
- The low power wireless connectivity: 802.15.4 which is the building block for 6LoWPAN and Thread
- The sensor packs: the ability to plug Click sensors on the go and prototype hundreds of IoT devices
- The software stack: there is a complete open source software stack pre-built on top of the hardware

There is no PowerVR GPU inside the SoC.

[alexvoica]

Whether the processor will have GPU or not is irrelevant. Their attitude towards Open Source and PowerVR will make me think thrice before touching any product made by Imagination Technologies.

We are working on the PowerVR situation. This is a new board that does not suffer from the open source GPU driver problems of the past.

[alexvoica]

I simply don't get it: Imagination needs every developer it can get in order to not let MIPS becoming irrelevant - yet they sell their boards at quite high prices (f?r 110$ you can get a AMD-APU + Mainboard), fully ignore closed-source drivers and now make a new development board even crowed-funded...

The price point is for a set of six boards, including the main Ci40 IoT hub, the two battery-operated Clicker expansion boards, and the three Click companion boards. Please read my previous comment about the driver situation.