Finally, a bit more news!


NXP i.MX 8M is used in Librem 5 smartphone and there is no big heatsink nor fan inside it: it is a smartphone much thinner than Pyra.
They choose NXP i.MX 8M because of support, long term support and availability. If it goes good on a smartphone it can go good on Pyra.

The i.MX 8M is not the Plus - though (my bad), I also didn't mean thr Plus but the normal i.MX8, which is the only interesting one regarding the CPU (as it has two Cortex A72).
The A53 has 2.3 DMIPS/MHz, the Cortex A15 has 3.4 DMIPS/MHz.

Both the A53 in the i.MX 8M and the A15 in the OMAP5 are clocked with a max of 1.5GHz.

That means one core in the i.MX 8M can run 3450 DMIPS, whereas one core in the OMAP5 can do 5100 DMIPs.
So in single core use (which is important for emulation needs) the OMAP5 is a lot faster than the i.MX 8M.

Both cores combined, the OMAP5 has 10200 DMIPS and the i.MX 8M has 13800 DMIPS using all four cores.

So yes, in single core performance, the OMAP5 is faster and all cores combined, it's not that much slower than the i.MX8M.

It doesn't really make sense working on a new CPU board that does not offer much improvement compared to the one we have.

The i.MX8 would've been interesting - but that's the one that needs a huge heatsink.
But yeah, that one has two additional Cortex A72 cores on top of the ones that the i.MX8M has - and these have at least 6.3 DMIPS/Mhz, so the i.MX8 is A LOT faster than the i.MX8M or the OMAP5.
(a single core A72 with 1.5GHz would be at least 9450 DMIPs, but usually even higher, so up to three times as fast as the A53 in the 8M...)
 
The Pyra is vapourware.

I paid 1 bitcoin for my preorder in May 2016, a full 7 years ago now. Today, that bitcoin would be worth nearly US$30,000.

There is always "progress" on development, but nothing ever really gets done. ED gives us reassuring words, he is still committed, he is still working hard, but there is always some new excuse.

You've been given enough time, enough money, enough second chances.

Admit this project is dead, ED.
 
The Pyra is vapourware.

I paid 1 bitcoin for my preorder in May 2016, a full 7 years ago now. Today, that bitcoin would be worth nearly US$30,000.

There is always "progress" on development, but nothing ever really gets done. ED gives us reassuring words, he is still committed, he is still working hard, but there is always some new excuse.

You've been given enough time, enough money, enough second chances.

Admit this project is dead, ED.
You sound bitter that you spent Bitcoin on a niche, small-run device, built on a shoestring by a small outfit, using a speculative currency. There's a massive amount of risk inherent in this transaction, so the chance that you will eventually get a Pyra (provided ED stays in business) for very little at the time of preorder, is the best outcome you can expect.

The fact that you would be richer if you had held onto your single bitcoin is not relevant to ED or this community, tbh.

What were your expectations?
 
The Pyra is vapourware.

I paid 1 bitcoin for my preorder in May 2016, a full 7 years ago now. Today, that bitcoin would be worth nearly US$30,000.

There is always "progress" on development, but nothing ever really gets done. ED gives us reassuring words, he is still committed, he is still working hard, but there is always some new excuse.

You've been given enough time, enough money, enough second chances.

Admit this project is dead, ED.
I don't quite see how this project made you use a Bitcoin to pay for the Pyra, instead of using a (in-the-long-run way cheaper) loan and keeping the Bitcoin.
 
The Pyra is vapourware.

As others mentioned before: Vapourware is something that never turns up. But we're regularly shipping. So even if things are moving very slow, it's not Vapourware.

I paid 1 bitcoin for my preorder in May 2016, a full 7 years ago now. Today, that bitcoin would be worth nearly US$30,000.

Well, it's up to anyone to decide how they spend their money. The same could happen with any other currency as well (just take a look at Turkish Lira at the moment, which has a high inflation).
So if you had bought it using Turkish Lira back then, it would've been the other way round and I would've made a loss.
Besides, it could also have happened that the BItcoin crashed and would be worth nothing these days.

And even if a currency is stable: you could've invested these 330 / 400 EUR into any other projects or even use it to play the lottery and make a huge win with that.
It's up to anyone himself to decide how he spends his own money.

There is always "progress" on development, but nothing ever really gets done. ED gives us reassuring words, he is still committed, he is still working hard, but there is always some new excuse.

Unfortunately, yes. There's not that much I can do.
It's no secret that I've already admitted that this project has gone wrong in a lot of ways: Issues with the case, with the SoC, and so on.
This did all cost a lot of additional money which wasn't planned. When planning the project, I've requested quotes and estimations from various companies and added around 50k EUR on top to be on the save side.
However, with all the issues that happened, those 50k weren't nearly enough. It's probably more than 200k I've had to spend on top.

Coating the next 500 new cases alone does cost 7000 EUR. That money has to come from somewhere, so I've been using all the profits of my shop trying to fix the things and move ahead with the Pyra.
This is slow, sometimes very slow - but we're moving. The wage I pay out from my shop is the minimum I have to do by law (which something around 650 EUR per month - yep, that's all I earn from working almost fulltime for my own company).

I could've also given up fully on the project and be done with it. If everyone would request a refund then, I could've filed for bankruptcy and no one would ever receive anything back.
I could then open up a new company which only runs the shop and be happy with all the profits I make. But that's not what I want to do.
I prefer to fulfill all my liablilites instead of running and hiding.

Believe me, if I got rid of the Pyra and it's liabilties by filing for bankruptcy, I would've made a lot more money from the profits of the shop compared to the 30k increase of the bitcoin back then....

You've been given enough time, enough money, enough second chances.

That's for every customer to decide.
Money: Well, yes and no. That's why new preorders will stop and I'm already covering all additional expenses with shop profits that have nothing to do with the Pyra. That should comply to your idea. Others might think: Why should he handle that all by himself and would offer more money if it helps and if they can afford it. It's up to anyone himself to decide.
The same can be said about time: However, the voucher code you received could always be used in the shop for anything else. If you got tired of waiting, you could've used it to buy a GPD Win or any other device as well. It's not bound to the Pyra.
There are also people who requested their money back, that's not a problem.

Second Chances...? That doesn't even make sense, as a second chance would mean that we all forget about what happened (including the payments I received) and we simply try to do it again :)

Again: From the very beginning starting with the preorder, it has been made clear that the money you spend here could be lost forever, in case something goes horribly wrong.
It was also made clear that it could take a long time (though i admit I also thought it should be a lot faster compared to the Pandora, I certainly didn't expect all these issues to happen).
And the voucher you bought can be used for anything else in the shop in case you got tired of waiting. I don't think I could've made that more open, fair and clear.

And - unlike other failed Kickstarters or failing projects: I never thought about asking for more money from any of the Preorderers and will stick to the price I told them years ago. Even though this is now a loss for me (simply because the money these days is worth less than back then). But I won't do that. Period. Everyone is welcome to donate something if he / she wants, but I won't REQUEST anything. It's as simple as that.

If there's anything you think I could've done more fair or better, let me know.

Admit this project is dead, ED.

A project is dead when it's been given up on it.
That's not the case. I've just paid a couple of thousand EUR to hns to get AESS running. I've spend a couple of thousand EUR on the updated cases and the coating of them.
Why should I do that if the project is dead? That money could've been used to send out refunds, which would make more sense for a dead project.
We're also checking out regulary various SoCs to see if there's a possible candidate for a CPU board upgrade.
That's also something you don't do if a project is dead.
And, as people above said: We're also delivering units. This also doesn't happen with dead projects.

So yes, it's incredibly slow at the moment, so you could call it near-dead ("I'm not dead yet!"), but as long as we deliver and continue to work on it, it's certainly not dead.
And the slowness mainly comes from missing funds.
Believe me, if I had 200k EUR on hand, I would seek the nearest plastic production company in Germany (which happens to be just 5km away from me), would create a completely redesigned case (which would have a replaceable backplate as well so we could change the ports in the future, for example with USB-C) and buy tons of evaluation boards for a new CPU upgrade.

As I don't have these, all I can do is continue to deliver what we have, albeit slowly, and try to make profits to be able to work on these upgrades at some time.
But there are also still 300k EUR I have to pay back to investors (back from when I rescued the Pandora), so profit has to be spent for paying them back as well.

Let me know:
Would you prefer it if I stop working on the project, call it dead and file for bankruptcy because I can't pay back all the preorders - or if I continue to work on it, deliver units as good as possible, send out refunds if customers request it (or they use the voucher for something else) and pay back all liabilities, even though it takes a long time.
 
I preordered with Turkish Lira. But I don't mind the big loss I made because I happily received my DrügünBüx Püra :D

Joke aside, the Pyra definitely is a great device, even with all it's flaws. Of course it's a niche device and due to these flaws not commonly recommendable. But for everyone who appreciates the ideals of this awesome project, the Pyra is still a product worth supporting or contributing. I mean look at all the emulators in the repository. They mostly work great, even with limited CPU power due to the current absence of a working AESS.
With AESS hopefully working in the near future, it's the best open gaming handheld I can imagine!
 
Hey ED, Thanks for the update.

I dont mind paying the "new price" for my Pyra. But it sounds like the Pandora, where people payed full price to get it sooner, and those that did not have the funds were pushed back in the queue. It was not a bad solution then, not a bad solution now?
I'm pretty sure I was one of those who paid full price to get my pandora fast. I haven't pre-ordered a pyra yet. Now that I hear you're making them at a loss and thinking about closing preorders, I'm wondering should I get in at the end of the preorders and order now, or do you plan to offer a new "full price" option like with the pandora? I'd be happy to pay a bit more if I knew when it would arrive :)
 
On my Youtube Account, you can see that the Pyra is no Vaporware, some units are allready out since january 2021, in fact, my Pyra did cause me health issues as i fell on it while i had an E-Bike Accident 2 Years ago, i have still issues whit my right leg..
 
On my Youtube Account, you can see that the Pyra is no Vaporware, some units are allready out since january 2021, in fact, my Pyra did cause me health issues as i fell on it while i had an E-Bike Accident 2 Years ago, i have still issues whit my right leg..
This proofs that it's healthier to store a bitcoin in one's pocket than a pyra!
 
@EvilDragon @hns About the battery, how is "made" the idle test ? I mean is the screen on at minimum brightness ?
With or without keyboard backlight ? Wi-Fi and BT off ?
Basically:
1. booting + waiting for login: on the FTDI console.
2. start a script (https://git.goldelico.com/?p=letux-...894f06f7e68baaaa1b602c922311fc548e297;hb=HEAD) that prints date and some battery status every 10 seconds.
3. X11 is running with some LetuxOS but doing nothing significant in the background so that the screen is completely blanked after some minutes. No GPU driver/code active. Audio off.
4. BT/WiFi/WWAN off.
5. LEDs heartbeat blinking.
6. keyboard backlight: I don't remember, but likely it was off.
7. then first wait until battery is full (ca. 4.1V - there is a safety margin for the WWAN modem) and stops charging, then unplug the power supply (but keep FTDI connected - well, this Pyra had a hardware modification so that it can not be charged through the FTDI port).
8. wait until the Pyra turns off and the battery status messages end (happens at ca. 3.1V battery voltage).
One thing to note: the key focus of this test was to check for the spurious stalls the OMAP5 can have in idle mode. This prevented the test to be executed (Pyra got stuck and stopped blinking LEDs and became unresponsive on console). Lower level idle was disabled by this patch: https://git.goldelico.com/?p=letux-kernel.git;a=commit;h=bddd637f3749553a3ab552bb5c046527163effc0
 
´So yes, it's incredibly slow at the moment, so you could call it near-dead ("I'm not dead yet!"), but as long as we deliver and continue to work on it, it's certainly not dead.
And the slowness mainly comes from missing funds.
Well, I think it is starving, but still alive. So feeding could help.

What about a donation funds just to speed up software development independent of hardware production speed? Like people can donate to Debian so that they organize Development Sprints and Mini Conferences. It could be a 10€ "Donation" button listed in the shop as a Pyra accessory.
 
I love it when people still not getting the point of seeing the development vs having everything hidden and never see what went wrong.
Coating the next 500 new cases alone does cost 7000 EUR.
Wait are this the right numbers? 14€ per case PLUS the actual cost of them?
That seems a bit excessive.
 
Believe me, if I had 200k EUR on hand, I would seek the nearest plastic production company in Germany (which happens to be just 5km away from me), would create a completely redesigned case (which would have a replaceable backplate as well so we could change the ports in the future, for example with USB-C) and buy tons of evaluation boards for a new CPU upgrade.

What about the cost of just finishing shipping the existing design to remaining preorders? I just want any pyra rather than having to potentially wait longer for a new pyra design. If you had the 200k, could that speed this part up? At this point finishing the orders should take priority over changing anything else that isn't a necessary fix. Think from the perspective of the customer who has been waiting and really consider if more redesigns is what the majority want. I'm serious when I said I would pay to finish my order, but ONLY to finish it, not fund more redesign.
 
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