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Tepix

This device is similar to many hacker festival badges from the recent years. Just a bit more expensive.

For example:

- the Camp 2023 flow3r badge https://events.ccc.de/2023/06/05/camp23-the-flow3r-badge/

- the MCH2022 badge https://wiki.mch2022.org/Badge

- the SHA2017 badge with E-Ink https://wiki.sha2017.org/w/Projects:Badge

- the Camp 2011 badge R0ket https://events.ccc.de/camp/2011/wiki/R0ket

The first three have ESP32 CPUs, not sure how it compares to the ARM Cortex-A35

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The ESP32s belong to a completely different category of processors, they are microcontrollers optimized first and foremost for cost and power efficiency rather than raw performance or the ability to run Linux. The Rockchip SoC used here, on the other hand, is more akin to what you would find in a cheap Android tablet or set-top box: it has Cortex-A cores, a proper GPU and can use far more memory than the mere hundreds of kilobytes of SRAM built into ESP32 chips. Of course it also requires far more external components and draws significantly more power when running at full speed, so it's in no way a drop-in replacement for microcontrollers in products where Linux is not a hard requirement but BOM cost and battery life are.

One small addition...

> they are microcontrollers optimized first and foremost for cost and power efficiency

ESP32 is only optimized for cost. Other wireless MCU are significantly lower power... they are just more expensive (and tend to have worse docs then ESP32).

ESP32 is great for low power apps, you can switch off most of the chip subsystems, rely on watchdog timers etc.

Compared to what?

> ESP32 is only optimized for cost.

Are you sure? I'm plaing around with the deep-sleep mode of an ESP32-3C and it appears to sip almost negligible current.

Various hibernation modes are great, but 300ma@5v sometimes feels too hungry for the amount of computation in there. I bet things would be better if it wasn’t 45nm ‘pitch’. They are great chips, but require more power than you might expect if you’re doing something network-heavy or, god forbid, using the camera. Unfortunately there’s no competitive alternatives for the hobbyist.

they are very different, esp32 is an advanced microcontroller (with wifi/bt) and is comparable to an arduino on steroids, whereas this board uses cortex a35 and is more comparable to a raspberry

esp32 has 520 Kb of ram, while this board has 512 Mb!

"comparable to a raspberry"

Well, slightly worse, as A35's are smaller and lower power than the A53's in something like the pi zero-2, but also slower. The devices slight clock advantage probably doesn't make up the difference.

So, its probably a great embedded system, but it should be running something lighter weight than a normal linux distro. Otherwise it becomes like all these gas station pumps, point of sale terminals that all seem to take 10+ seconds to do things that older devices didn't lag and pause with.

"If your badge has been hit by ransomware, see how to enter Safe mode."

What a world we live in...

Wait till your brain integration gets malware and your thoughts are locked away...

Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down....

I'm pretty sure that was a game/gimmick and part of the conference badge challenge. But maybe not. Regardless it is a security conference after all and I'd totally expect people to be playing around like that. I don't think it would have been seen as malicious.

It was a joke and part of the actual hacker festival.

This thing runs full linux and requires 3.3V, 2000mA (max). A badge is probably not the best use case.

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