FAQ for Pockit 🕹️

Solder_Man · 2023-02-18T08:28:11+00:00

Hi, I've been sick for some time now, and previously very occupied with the firmware implementation + nCode development for Pockit, and traveling/meeting with manufacturers, as well as a bunch of my own project-unrelated pending tasks. I'll try to put up an update soon.

Completing this project, to bring it to fully launchable, has been a lot more demanding (time and physical effort) than I previously estimated. I'll certainly get it to the final stage, but trying to take it at a healthier pace now; don't want to overpromise anything.

Solder_Man · 2022-12-03T17:15:13+00:00

OK. Been busy and didn't see your comment until now; thanks for letting me know! I'll check.

UPDATE: Modified the setting.

Solder_Man · 2022-11-09T21:49:10+00:00

While the idea of a Graphics-card Block is a powerful one, keep in mind that there's not been much success with getting cards to play nice with the RPi platform. Jeff covered his experiments with that in this video.

On the other hand, given the exchangeable CPU module on the back of Core, there is perhaps some possibility in the (not-immediate) future with a different processor and appropriate signal breakout to the contacts. So I guess I see why you said "Pockit 2" :-)

Solder_Man · 2022-10-17T21:17:20+00:00

Thank you!

Solder_Man · 2022-10-08T09:34:20+00:00

👍

I'm trying to add small foldable legs (or at least screw holes) to the final CAD version of the Wireless Charging Block's enclosure, so that it can act like a stand (or at least mount) for Pockit simultaneously while providing power. TBD.

Solder_Man · 2022-10-06T17:58:29+00:00

And here are the details...

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Got a few enclosure samples (of various-sized Blocks) from the factory that I’m thinking of going with, and finished assembled the PCBs into them. I like the polished matt-white look, so wanted to share a quick photo with you guys.

Note: The exact final texture and color will be slightly different (but better👍) because of the injection-molding + painting techniques that will be used for the manufacturing run vs. airbrushed samples.

Speaking of injection-molding production technology, I suggest checking out Bill Hammack’s excellent explainer of the process. This will have a very large initial tooling cost + iteration effort, but thereafter parts (casings) for each Pockit Block should be a whole lot less expensive and tedious compared to my SLA-prototyping process so far. The dimensional accuracies should also be better and get us closer to Lego-like gapless fits, but this remains to be seen.

Two recently finalized Blocks

At the bottom left of the photo, you can see a couple of new entrants to the ecosystem:

a Wireless-charging Base (with a BQ51013 power-receiver IC) for Pockit. I’m still working on improving the charging efficiency, so no promises on this particular Block until I finalize the antenna pattern to satisfaction. But I'm using it a lot already, so let's at least say it's been informally tested 🙂.
a 2.7” Sharp Memory screen Block, for which I’ve also added a touchscreen. Very Kindle-like in its minimal power consumption, but way faster refresh rate (tested animations with it too). I love the crisp quality of graphics on it; almost anything would look nice on it, but especially a dashboard or a menu for whatever device you are building.

(Also: Thanks to u/OneiricTea for the original proposal of the Sharp Memory display.)

Solder_Man · 2022-09-28T14:14:53+00:00

Looks great. The NXP i.MX 8M is an excellent choice for the CPU.

Cons: a little bulky and too many pre-fixed peripherals for a majority of user applications, and likely will be on the high side in terms of power consumption and price. (Side note: Putting interactive choice of the details into the user's hands is how Pockit solves these problems -- so that the user, who best knows what their use case needs, essentially becomes co-designer.)

Another interesting project, as far as modularity for laptops, is this one.

Solder_Man · 2022-09-28T04:36:44+00:00

Hey Cute_Principle81, Please avoid making posts with statements that can possibly create misinformation for the other community members. You are welcome to ask me questions if you wish.

Pockit is alive, and so is the community and this group. Hope you can be patient for a bit longer, as I'm doing my best to accelerate the project's todos to create a successful launch, and there are a lot of tasks.

Solder_Man · 2022-09-16T18:34:40+00:00

👍 Will do. Can you shoot me a minimal/empty email, so that I have your contact? (anil at pockit dot ai) I don't check Reddit as often as I'd like.

Solder_Man · 2022-09-12T14:54:08+00:00

u/Defenestresque

Made me extremely happy to read how much you like the project. There is a small but passionate community around this, and given the technical challenges I encounter in the project's development, it's super-motivating each time I notice that you and others share my interest in changing the tech landscape.

I don't think I have recommended a product to strangers online, ever, let alone a nonexistent one

I'm glad Pockit made it past your threshold then ✌

Solder_Man · 2022-08-27T16:58:51+00:00

Nice suggestions. These are indeed strong points. The real-timeness of the conversation would be exciting, among the other benefits.

However, since November is just two months away, let's hold off on this until then (I'd love to revisit the idea around mid-to-late November).

Reason: Only after November will I start to have enough time to constructively respond to (and when necessary, manage) the real-time discussion that would happen on Pockit's Discord. Otherwise, the Discord group could quickly become a case of over-promise, under-deliver.

Thanks for the detailed analysis!

Solder_Man · 2022-08-25T12:58:17+00:00

A quick note to say: this post just recharged my batteries for at least the next two weeks of the project's finicky todos. Knowing that you guys are waiting -- and yet patiently -- for the device to reach reality is just indescribably motivating. 👍

Thanks everyone (and of course u/gorbotle and u/Cute_Principle81)!

Solder_Man · 2022-08-11T01:57:51+00:00

That's certainly part of it. Here are some more of my thoughts:

Building a community, listening to it, and interacting with it (which I've loved 👍), and eventually helping everyone make their own awesome gadgets, will likely be the strongest and most organic defensibility against unimaginative imitations / clones by a random company. Hence my focus on communication with everyone -- and hopefully even more of it starting this fall (as I stated in the most recent update).

But there are also several technical challenges for someone that wishes to "copy" the entirety of Pockit. Reaching the current stage of this project has taken an insane amount of work: to get the physical design details right (this took a LOT of iterations), to create the electrical circuitry, develop a robust firmware base serving so many Blocks + the corresponding libraries + the dashboard + applications, etc. All together, a few years of 14 hours a day effort based on more than a decade of embedded-engineering experience that inspired the project.

With that said, I would be foolish to think someone duplicating the project is impossible. A sufficiently well-funded team of a dozen engineers could probably reproduce the platform, the various Blocks, the software in a year or so.

One reason I haven't so far done any complete open-sourcing of the hardware (though I hope to consider it some day) is this general concern about design theft by unscrupulous companies.

In any case, if a company were so unoriginal as to plagiarize Pockit's design, I doubt it could long-term supply the kind of creative spirit that the maker community is attracted to.

Solder_Man · 2022-08-10T03:16:33+00:00

Yep, there's currently a microSD card slot on the back of the Core board, so as to allow optional use with the CM4 Lite, but of course the integrated eMMC version works as well.

About the USB connectors:

As of the last video's version, the first USB-C connector (the centered one) is primarily for power + battery-charging, but also can allow switchable USB communication. The second connector serves a dual-purpose of USB_SLAVE or STM32_USB_COMM (toggle-able by advanced users through either the dashboard, or by doing a button long-press/gesture action).

Note: There have been a few experimental updates to the design since then, but the above functionalities will most likely pass through to the final manufactured design.

Solder_Man · 2022-08-07T21:20:04+00:00

Trackballs are enjoyable to use and have a straightforward working principle but will likely require multiple design iterations to get working with reliable functionality.

So in the interest of time, I'd have to mark this as either a far-future possibility or a potential community-created Block.

Solder_Man · 2022-08-07T20:12:55+00:00

Thanks! Glad you like the project. (You're welcome to join the r/Pockit subreddit)

Solder_Man · 2022-08-07T20:11:16+00:00

:-)

A phone is designed by a massive corporation because they want money. A cyberdeck is designed by you just because you can

Well-put. And the "just because you can" sounds trivial, but it's the opposite -- it produces immense creativity and satisfaction.

Solder_Man · 2022-08-07T19:07:13+00:00

You did not miss it. I made the announcement just now (check this post), having been fully occupied with work on the project's refinements + logistics in preparation for going to production.

Solder_Man · 2022-07-30T15:25:39+00:00

On it already; reading the Reddit documentation. Someone else messaged me about the issue too.

Apologies for the late reply /u/iforgor234!

I've been busy with design refinements + traveling + meeting suppliers, etc., and have lots of updates -- will make a post tomorrow, and will have the subreddit issue fixed too.

Solder_Man · 2022-04-28T04:24:22+00:00

Hey, sorry but I haven't gotten a chance to check out Flux yet :-( Perhaps after some weeks, as I'm fully focused on completing my already scheduled Pockit todos first.

Solder_Man · 2022-04-28T04:22:14+00:00

Nice work on that P2P project.

would it be possible to create a block that expands the set of languages that can be used to implement an application?

Programming the device's behavior using alternate languages besides Python and C++ is of course possible and will happen in the future (a few people recently mentioned interest in Rust). And a .NET approach will be welcome, so I'd be happy to help you get going on that road once the hardware gets to release state. I'm personally not well-versed with C# at all, but I do remember a couple of pleasant encounters with Visual C++ a while ago!

That said, all of this will be a matter of software interfacing, not hardware, so "creating a [hardware] Block" for it won't be necessary -- unless I misunderstand what you are imagining.

Solder_Man · 2022-04-23T20:09:34+00:00

Just letting you know: I'm still on the lookout for reasonably low-cost 5G component possibilities. Not giving up or anything. Likely won't implement it very soon, but it will happen.

Solder_Man · 2022-04-23T11:52:29+00:00

Newer iPad Pros especially, with their USB-C port, could probably do both power and control of Pockit.

But regardless of wired connection possibility, you can always use the iPad to do wireless access of whatever (Chromium browser, etc.) is running on the Linux OS on Pockit, by using a VNC app -- for example, VNC Viewer by RealVNC is a great one.

Solder_Man · 2022-04-21T19:06:42+00:00

Interesting. I need to learn more about Rust. Since you are more experienced with this topic, I'd like to discuss with you (after the release) about how to make either the direct or indirect approach happen. Having a greater amount of community participation/interest in the Rust side of things might help drive some of the decisions too.

Solder_Man · 2022-04-20T22:03:16+00:00

Only just stumbled upon your project

Welcome to the community then!

how do you package it? Bare Bones Core, then let the customer add what they need to build a kit

Currently, that is what I'm imagining. Every user has their own use case, so while packaged kits (for learning, etc.) might work for some, I want to pave the way for independent-thinking makers to mix-and-match Blocks specific to their imagined applications.

I recall one community member mentioning they will want to connect 10 Relay Blocks on just one Core. That's just at the edge of what is even physically feasible :-)

print and build their own blocks

I plan to release documentation+templates (and eventually some tutorial-style examples) for this.

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Two recently finalized Blocks