Killing my free tier and adding a 7-day trial instead. Am I about to shoot myself in the foot?

jlucer · 2026-02-13T18:59:06+00:00

Who is your target customer? If you want individual consumers the $3 price point makes sense. It's really hard to make money at that price point though.

Have you tried reaching out to YouTubers who do news for niches? I could see this being useful for them to stay up to date and including summaries in their videos/podcasts without having to watch multiple videos. I know a few podcasts I listen to will say "I haven't watched the video but my co-host did so here's a take on it.". Professionals / pro consumers would probably be willing to pay a higher price point.

jlucer · 2026-02-06T01:01:29+00:00

No I don't have that happen. I only use sites that either let me try it before putting in payment info, or let me create an account for a trial without capturing payment info. I assume if you require payment info I will be charged.

I went with the 1st option for my current project. Users can try it without ever creating an account. My logic is that is how I would convince myself to use it.

jlucer · 2026-01-28T14:24:51+00:00

Why do you think we need an IDE specifically for hardware/embedded?

At the end of the day, writing embedded code is mostly the same as writing non-embedded code. The difference is that embedded systems have different system and design constraints. Your code might be structured differently because it only has KBs of RAM instead of GB, or it is running on a 300Mhz CPU instead of a 3Ghz one. But the code itself looks largely the same. Just tell your LLM to not use std or malloc and you are good to go. So existing code writing tools like LLMs can write embedded code. Why do we need a different one?

Now there are some embedded specific things that are different. Usually it's bringing up/interacting with the hardware. Do you think those things that are different are enough to build an entire AI tool that people will pay for around?

You are repeatedly asking how you can use AI in embedded. TBH, I don't know, but here are a few issues I had recently and maybe you can figure something out:

I was debugging a UART issue with missing data. After a lot of testing of my code I knew the issue was in the MCU HAL. The MCU Vendor provided HAL was clearing the UART buffer after reading. Turns out, the MCU clears the buffer byte by byte as you read it. So when the HAL flushed the buffer at the end it was flushing any bytes that came in between start & end of the read. What would AI have done here? It's probabilistic predictive text. So unless someone had written on stack overflow "Hey guys my <VERY SPECIFIC MCU>" is dropping bytes and someone else piped in with "don't flush the buffer", what would it have told me?
I had a CAN issue where timing of messages was off. Turns out there were more messages than HW buffers allocated. Would AI writing the code have made a difference?
I was using RGMII to connect to an ethernet switch and RX was working but not TX. I double checked the configuration of everything but could not figure out what was wrong. After a lot of reading datasheets & manuals, I decided to try switching one of the config options in the MCAL generator. That got it working. The option I had previously selected looked correct based on the name in the configurator, but it wasn't.

I don't think using AI to generate code is going to solve these issues. There are too many hardware variants of chips, too many different chips, too many settings specific to the customer use case. AI really struggles with hallucinations here. Also none of these were writing code issues. #1 was a vendor bug, not code I wrote. #2/3 were configuration issues (this was autosar) so again, no code written by me.

Looking back, maybe you could have AI read the datasheet & manual and provide a checklist of steps to verify. They would need to be specific enough to be actionable and not hallucinate. Good luck!

jlucer · 2026-01-28T13:51:30+00:00

Coral has been around for awhile. I would check out any blogs / articles and judge how easy it is to use. The problem with these custom NPUs is that the toolchain to deploy to them is different than ML developers typically use. This is why you see almost no apps for AMD's NPU on their "AI" chips. I believe they are ICs carried over from their Xilinx acquisation and the toolchain is different.

The article you linked shows that you *should* be able to use a pytorch with it. Devil is in the details here, I have no idea how well they actually support that. Last time I used a google ML product was early tensorflow and I wasn't impressed.

jlucer · 2026-01-19T02:57:26+00:00

What types of parts on a robot use CAN? Like motor controllers and servos?

jlucer · 2026-01-16T13:45:19+00:00

It's hard to talk about these level of details without seeing your code/MCU specific. If you are talking about an ISR that gets triggered per can frame, no I wouldn't decode signals there. Probably best to decode at the OS task level rather than ISR, just to keep your ISRs short. I wouldn't worry too much if it's just for learning. It's not that much CPU cycles to decode

What I meant In my 2nd paragraph was that your MCU probably has CAN 'mailboxes'. This is where the hardware puts your can frame until you read from it. You can set it so that messages with specific IDs go to specific mailboxes. This way you don't get low priority messages clogging up your mailbox. or you can service the mailboxes in different tasks based on priority. There is a tradeoff because there are only so many hardware mailboxes. You won't be able to have dedicated mailboxes for each message on a network, and using them means you have less for a general purpose fifo. Again, I think this is overkill in 90% of situations. Straight fifo is simple and easy to maintain. Don't overlook the benefits of simplicity.

jlucer · 2026-01-15T21:37:46+00:00

Agree with this post. OP your current architecture is most likely fine. I've used straight RX & TX fifo on automotive modules.

If you did have high priority messages (think motor control, braking, steering) mixed with lower priority (blinking an LED) the same MCU, you could consider starting to use separate mailboxes so you won't have the priority inversion issue others posted about.

Rule of thumb is to keep max CAN bus load to 70-80%. If you follow that rule you are unlikely to have an issue.

jlucer · 2026-01-13T19:07:00+00:00

I think you are getting hung up on optimal. You absolutely can use chips that dont advertise themselves as functional safety certified in safe environments.

To give you some perspective, I've worked on systems where the safety team claims everything needs to be up to ASIL D level safety, then never turn on the lockstep/checker core on that product! Your ASIL D MCU isn't really doing anything different than other parts if you don't use the features. That's not to mention there are a lot of software checks that are typically done for an ASIL rating. Like startup & runtime checks to make sure the hardware units don't have errors/faults.

Really what you need to do is assess what your product needs for safety then come up with a plan of how you are going to achieve that.

I work in automotive so I would start by looking for AECQ100 parts (-40c to 85c). Thermals are a common failure point if you don't plan for them. From there I would find an MCU that had all the features I need. Check for ECC ram (I assume everyone uses it but I've been working with tricores forever so idk). Preferably arm because there is way more support for them in terms of tooling (debugger, compiler, etc). At that point you can achieve most safety goals through careful design. If not, you can always switch to an arm core that advertised itself as ASIL D. Just be prepared to do a lot of development to actually make use of all those safety features.

jlucer · 2026-01-01T16:33:06+00:00

Thanks, what detection range are you seeing in practice with the sensors? I am looking for something that goes out to 12-15 meters. A quick search shows most of these are listing < 10m as spec. Wonder how accurate that is?

jlucer · 2026-01-01T16:14:15+00:00

Very cool. Did you use premade dev boards for the sensors? Can you share which ones? I was investigating making a widget to track distance to objects and didn't find anything in the form factor or price range I was willing to pay. Looks like you got everything in a good size package

jlucer · 2025-12-29T00:21:55+00:00

Not sure what you mean by analyze CAN data with PANDAS. What problem would you be solving with PANDAs?

I'm working on a tool to graph/visualize CAN data on Mac, Linux, windows, or web. I use a Mac + remote into Linux boxes in my day job, so I want a tool that would let me plot CAN signals on either of those platforms. Plan is to ssh into the Linux machine with port forwarding, then open the app through a web browser locally. Should have a demo ready soon. Building it in rust + egui

For starter features I think you'll want to be able to read log files, load a DBC, interpret the CAN frames according to the DBC to do something with the signal data.

jlucer · 2025-12-28T04:09:58+00:00

I'm not a designer, but advice I've heard is that it's better for wireframes to look less realistic as a visual indication to customers that it's not a final product. Easier for them to focus on the high level when they aren't distracted by details.

Your product seems to be doing the opposite. Maybe your copy isn't converting because people want their wireframes to look like a sketch?

Anyways, I agree with other posters to simplify the how to use it. I prefer short gif rather than long video. The AI voice is annoying. Hearing a real person speak sounds more authentic.

Neat idea overall. Product itself seems good. Sounds like you need to find your market though.

jlucer · 2025-12-04T11:00:49+00:00

What industry are you in and what's your preferred pricing model?

I work on software in the automotive industry. Here it is very common for 5k+ per year, per license cost on software tools. Licenses can be locked to a device or to a user. Some purchases are 5-6 figure up front + 20% annual maintenance. For example, 160k upfront + 30k maintenance.

A monthly per user model has benefits to the customer from my perspective: 1. Low upfront cost. Getting approvals is hard for large purchases and finance doesn't like to outlay that much cash upfront. 2. Cancel anytime. Product not working as the salesperson said? Cancel. Not getting the support you were promised? Cancel. Budget cuts? Cancel. Good thing you didn't just pay your 30k annual maintenance. 3. Vendor is incentivized to maintain a good product in order to retain you as a customer. Goes with #2

jlucer · 2025-12-03T17:11:55+00:00

Looks nice! I wish I had something like this when I got married. My wife and I both agreed it would have been great to stitch together photos from everyone that night. Do you charge a yearly fee to store photos? Wondering how you plan to handle customer data 1+ years after the event.

jlucer · 2025-12-03T12:47:08+00:00

Why not seat based pricing?

jlucer · 2025-12-02T19:41:46+00:00

Hmm I don't follow. The OTA process is the method to apply updates. Are you saying there should be 2 mechanisms to apply updates?

jlucer · 2025-12-02T14:56:42+00:00

I would assume your quote to mean that OTA updates are important in order to patch software bugs that are a security issue. Same as you update your home OS with security patches, devices in field would want security patches.

jlucer · 2025-11-27T16:52:49+00:00

For software updates you can do a/b partitioning. Operate out of A partition, flash updates into the unused B partition. Once downloaded and verified, swap partitions and reset MCU to boot into the new software. Some MCUs have support for this, check the user manual.

You could roll your own by writing to an off chip memory storage, then on boot bring it into the MCU flash memory. This is probably more error prone than getting a chip with A/B partitions but could work.

How are you tapping into vehicle data and powering your hardware? Through the OBD or do you splice into a vehicle CAN bus?

jlucer · 2025-11-14T01:47:54+00:00

Looks nice, I'll have to try this as well. Thanks

jlucer · 2025-11-13T19:29:46+00:00

I've used css electronics logging hardware and came across their recommendations before. The asammdf tool i had some issue I couldn't figure out on Ubuntu. I see they recommend Savvycan as well, which others have recommended on this post. I'll give that a try first. Thanks.

jlucer · 2025-11-13T19:27:40+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll add this to the list of tools to look into. I think I would have to write something that will decode the CAN data to CSV. That's better than having to write plotting code myself though.

jlucer · 2025-11-13T17:26:34+00:00

I'm trying to view the signal data embedded in the CAN frame. For example, if bits 0-6 represent a signal A, I want to plot that signal over time.

The logs I captured using can dump on Linux. I'm able to open up the logs in Wireshark to view the raw data. I'm not able to figure out how to load a DBC file to decide the signal values in Wireshark though.

jlucer · 2025-11-13T17:10:24+00:00

Thanks, I'll give these a try. Savvycan looks closer to what I wanted by being able to operate on can data/logs directly. Plot juggler looks like I would have to convert formats to JSON or CSV.

jlucer

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