If you’ve used the Espressif series of processors, perhaps you’ll have heard of their upcoming ESP32-P4. This is an application processor, with dual RISC-V cores at 400 MHz, and save for a lack of an MMU, a spec sheet much closer to the kind of silicon you’d find in single board computers with pretensions towards being a mini-PC.
It was announced a year ago and there have been limited numbers of pre-release versions of the chip available to developers, but thus far there have been very few boards featuring it. We’re excited then to note that a P4-based board we’ve been watching for a while is finally breaking cover, and what’s more, you can now pre-order one.
The Tanmatsu (Japanese for “Terminal”) is an all-in-one palmtop computer for hackers, with a QWERTY keyboard and an 800×480 DSI display. It’s designed with plenty of expansion in mind, and it’s got space on board for a LoRa radio. The reason we’re interested is that it comes from some of our friends in the world of event badges, so we’ve seen and handled real working prototypes, and we know that its makers come from a team with a proven record in manufacture and delivery of working hardware. The prototype we saw had hardware that was very close to the final version, and an operating system and software that was still under development but on track for the April release of the device. It will be fully open-source in both hardware and software.
We liked what we saw and have pre-ordered one ourselves, so we’ll be sure to bring you a closer look when it arrives.
Did I hear someone whisper “Meshtastic”?
I believe that’s on the cards.
That’s the first thing I thought of. However, since I pretty much always have my phone on me anyways, I think I would probably stick to using the Meshtastic phone app as the human interface and keep the Lora circuits stashed in a small weatherproof enclosure that can be tossed in a backpack, or mounted to something tall to use as a station.
I would have to find additional personal uses for this in order for me to carry around this somewhat clunky and non-weatherproof gadget in my pocket, in addition to the phone that’s already in my other pocket….
Since it is fully opensource, where can we find the sources?
120 Euros, no thanks.
Hardware does cost money, and having seen what goes into this one and the manufacturing costs, that’s pretty reasonable. 99 if you’re outside Europe.
Seems like we’ve gone full circle in reinventing the 90’s era PDA/Palm Pilot.
Obviously microcontrollers with onboard wifi/bluetooth, GPIO pins, and even built in screens/buttons for interfacing have a multitude of uses and applications. However, when it comes to mobile devices… nothing really beats the ubiquitous modern smartphone. You likely already have a smartphone that you use daily – which has a beautiful touchscreen display, a powerful processor, a handful of integrated sensors and antennas, a refined operating system, and tons of polished software applications. It’s hard to come up with use-cases this device provides that a cheap smartphone + $7 ESP32 microcontroller could not accomplish (and with a much slicker interface).
1) Touchscreen display. These are seriously overrated. Ever tried typing on a touchscreen? Not a pleasant experience. Ever try doing any serious image editing when you can’t see what your finger is clicking on? And if you really have to have such a thing, I’m sure this display is available with a capacitive multi-touch touch screen.
2) Smartphones in general. BATTERY HOGS. Have to charge them every night. And for what? To be running a full multitasking operating system. No thanks. ESP32 RISC-V is pretty close to the sweet spot in usable computing performance per Joule. But I may be wrong – STM32U5 series is probably better.
3) Throw a SIMCom 7600 module into this, and hey, you can also use this as a phone.
4) Slicker interfaces. Remember when Apple came up with candy buttons and “redefined” the user interface, only to turn around a couple of years ago and pronounce “flat” buttons to be where it’s at? Time to grow up and get over the eye-candy-of-the-week.
Hard disagree – phones are extremely efficient for their capability. One day? My Pixel 9 gets three. And it has nothing to do with having “a full multitasking operating system”. The OS uses a fraction of a percent of the total power draw. It’s the stuff you run on the OS you have to blame.
That cellular module you added, though? That’ll wake up and start pulling 400mA without telling you.
My Nokia Tough with KaiOS get up to week. So I just quickly glanced at KaiOS market and looks like they have some interesting devices (with qwerty keyboard!) – anyone knows how hackable are those devices?
And yes, the PDA was a GOOD thing. We all said, “Yes! Give me more!”, and the industry said, “okay, but we’ll have to charge you more,” and Apple said, “You don’t want a PDA; you want an iPhone. For a lot more.” And here we are. It’s not reinventing when you already had the right product. It’s refinement.
Only one photo of device, no hands-on, no documentation. The product looks raw, alpha version. And I don’t want to be an alpha tester.
“Fast and big” DSI display. I would be much happier with numbers. If that’s a 7″ display, then the keys are about 12mm, which can be typed on. If it means 5″ or 4.3″, we’re talking Blackberry size, which is a thumbs-only no-thanks.