Hi Andrea and UDOO Team, I was away from the Forum and my Udoo NEO for a while to see if the software support would catch-up*. I may be wrong but it seems that based on the number of posts on the Forum the initial excitement about UDOO Neo faded out. I am curious if the UDOO Team meets to discuss why this happens with the UDOO products; I noticed this same thing when I got my UDOO Quad; it had some support then it faded away. Just look at the Forum on how many questions without replies from the UDOO Team and community we have as the time passes. I am guessing people gets tired of waiting for the promised software feature and support. I would imagine that if the UDOO Team "walk the talk" on the software capabilities and reliable functionality to enable the full potential of for each of its products, the success of the products will improve. I am under impression that the UDOO Team always push for the cool hardware design to the customer, create the hipe how fast it is compared to products such as PI, then forgetds that there is a need for software, firmware/middleware/ and full builds along with it to make it work. I may be wrong, but it seems there is some initial effort to develop the software to support the new UDOOs then it fades away leaving us customer with a 1/3 cooked system. I hope you take this note as a feedback trying to help. I have been with your Kickstarter campaigns for a while, I would like you to succeed. You may want to take a look at the Raspberry PI model for success, it is not because it is cutting edge hardware but probably because the support ecosystem around it. *The NEO Forum is full of "we are working on it, you will be happy to know it is coming out soon". Well people like me try it, wait for it, get a bit more, wait for it, wait for it, then move on. Other potential customers (that were not early adopters), are trying to make a decision on getting the UDOO products. They probably end investing their money and time where they can get better support on the development tools. Where the product enables them to focus their time and efforts building their application vs. making the SBC like the Udoo products work. I know the UDOO x86 is coming up. It should be a good platform with better compatibility having with x86 64 software support. I was one of the first supporters for it in Kickstarter. I am wondering what will happen to it. What will happen when the new cool hardware chip will become available, will the UDOO Team move resources away from it leaving the system 1/2 done and customers figuring out how to get the remaining basic functionality to work? This approach probably wont help UDOO in the long run to have a best seller. My 2cents. I hope it helps. -Jack
I agree! I like the Neo for its architecture, Linux and Arduino combined. But when looking at the current roadmap https://trello.com/b/dPL55Pnt/udoo-neo-roadmap it worries me a little. There are lots of things to do especially on the Arduino side to have the libraries compatible with Arduino. As the M4 processor is hardly used in Arduino compatible boards there is hardly support for it. And it lacks the Udoo Neo community on knowledge how to port those libraries themselves.
I think the fundamental problem is that hardware is getting cheaper to produced, however the software costs aren't factored in to the KS campaigns which realistically could be anywhere between 3 to 10 times the cost of the hardware and these require skilled resources. This partly stems from the fact that the boards are promoted as plug 'n' play, which clearly they aren't when released. The other big assumption is that the community will be able to enrich the software stack for the free, which in my opinion doesn't always work because: 1. Novice developers don't have the skills required to undertake the complex development and enthusiasm fades overtime. 2. Skilled resources can't (or won't) always devote time for free! Furthermore the pool of developers is small. 3. The maker of the SBC doesn't have a rich relationship with the SOC vendor to ensure access to propriety hw/libraries/blobs to enable the community to progress their development. The rpi foundation seem to have made good progress in this area which partly attributes to their success.
I think that UDOO has the risk of falling into the 'I want to make something new' trap. I don't know how they calculated the price of a board, but if you want to succeed you need to be able to come up with updates, have a vibrant community. I do appreciate the enthousiasm of the UDOO team, but I sometimes worry if they underestimate what it means to create a product that requires support, and not just crank out a new board every few months, then abandoning the old ones.
These are well said comments. I posted something similar in the Android for Neo thread but with no response. This is my visit to the forums after a similar break, in hopes that some improvements would have been made and I'd have reason to continue supporting UDOO. Seeing this post at the top has made it easy. My next stop is kickstarter.com to cancel my backing of UDOO X86. All the hype around this new board has been aggravating, since all I can think about is the software support that never panned out for the last UDOO project I backed.
Dear @JackSilb, dear @waltervl, dear @jas-mx, dear @bander there is effectively a slow down on my side for what concerns addressing the problems here on the forum because of the campaign of UDOO X86, but in 12 days the Kickstarter campaign will be over, so I'm confident everything will be back to normal in short time. I also recognize that what I call "normal" needs to be improved, and we're making moves to do it - for example we now got one more developer and one more designer. I think this is a good news, meaning that we can achieve a better organization and dedicate ourselves to more task. I'm also confident that UDOO X86 will require much less support compared to the support required by UDOO NEO or UDOO QUAD, because it is a standard PC, with no need for portings etc. This means that there won't be a time schedule-Ragnarok. But I comprehend your concerns. On my side I can tell you that I'll be focused on your problems as soon as the campaign ends. In the meanwhile @Antonio Gisondi and @ektor5 are providing an unvaluable help here in the forum.
Hi Andrea, How are we doing on assigning dedicated resource(s) to Udoo Neo? Will we have soon a fully functional Arduino board? Arduino libraries working, reliable communication working, interrupts, reliable access to the sensors and RTC, the usual needed to have a reliable Arduino board that can talk to a Linux embedded computer. Thanks, -Jack
Hi @JackSilb, we are working together with SECO to port many libraries but we won't be able to port all the Arduino libraries in short time; we are working to solve the communication issues between the two processors.
Newsflash! In the next Udoobuntu version the serial connection with Arduino will be updated. http://www.udoo.org/forum/index.php?posts/20205
