No prototypes for GamesCom, but a Wifi Chip and a Pyra in the dark!

[_wb_]

http://www.speedguide.net/faq/is-5ghz-wireless-better-than-24ghz-340

So, essentially 5Ghz can theoretically be faster and has more channels so is less likely to suffer from interference, but it has a shorter range: at the same power, the distance you get is smaller at higher frequencies, and also solid objects are bigger obstacles.

2.4GHz is more likely to suffer from interference (obviously this depends on how many 2.4GHz wifi/BT devices you and your neighbors are already using simultaneously), but it has a better range.

In my experience, range is the important thing. Speed will not matter when you're using wifi for internet; if you're using it for file transfers on your home network (e.g. streaming stuff from a NAS) then speed does matter, but you'll never beat the speed of something wired anyway.

Of course, if we pay extra for the 5GHz then we still have the 2.4GHz bands, so I guess you could get the best of both worlds.

In practice, I would probably be using the 2.4GHz bands most of the time though, because for me, range is nearly always a bigger problem than interference or speed. Not much point in having a fast and non-congested 5GHz band when you can't see the access point...

Should we pay 14€ extra for 5GHz? In my opinion, it's not really worth it. I'd rather get a bigger/faster eMMC or something for those 14€. You can still be future-proof by upgrading your wifi router to a dual-band one and making sure that all or most of your other devices (laptop, phone, smartTV, etc) use the 5GHz bands, which means the 2.4GHz bands get less congested and will work better again.

Though perhaps we could have the cheaper wifi chip in the devices without 3/4G, and the more expensive one in the devices that will be more expensive anyway? You could also offer all 4 combinations, but that is just going to complicate things. Most likely, people who are willing to pay for 3/4G will not mind paying also for the extra 5GHz band, while those with a tight budget will drop the 3/4G and they will certainly appreciate not paying for the extra 5GHz band. So if you're going to have two different main boards anyway, you can just as well make them differ in terms of the wifi chip too, right?

 

[WizardStan]

The problem is the first order.

Money is tight with the first 1000 Pyras, after that, things will be easier.

We need to make enough money to also fund the next 1000 Pyras.

And 14 EUR more results in 14,000 EUR more to pay. This doesn't sound like that much, but it simply adds up.

Use the 2.4Ghz for the first few batchs, once some more money is in the bank consider an upgrade for future batches.

 

[pmprog]

Once it's on brightest setting, it loops back to lowest brightness.

Ugh, this is a horrible idea. I assume we'll be able to stop it doing this

 

[Neelix]

I agree. Pressing "Brightness Up" should never result in lowering the brightness and vice versa.

-Neelix

 

[EvilDragon]

I agree. Pressing "Brightness Up" should never result in lowering the brightness and vice versa.

-Neelix

Some devices do that, but that's a software script, so easy to change

 

[matzesu]

Expecly the Revo k101 plus gba which also only have one brignes button..


You also can use the icon in the taskbar on pyra to change the brighnes..


Well, just put brignes on a fn under funktion, and it should work..


By the way: how visible is the Pyra in the Sun?? Better than the Pandora??


Acording how good the screen is, whe want need to use the brignes control much at all

 

[_wb_]

I agree. Pressing "Brightness Up" should never result in lowering the brightness and vice versa.


-Neelix

Some devices do that, but that's a software script, so easy to change

On the Pandora I only really use two brightness settings: minimum (which is perfect when there's no sunlight) and maximum (when there is sunlight). I don't really use anything in between: as soon as minimum is not good enough, I very quickly want to go to maximum.

So for me, brightness is not really an up/down thing, but rather an on/off toggle.

I suppose we could write a configuration dialog that lets you select the number of brightness levels and whether or not to wrap around. In my case I would select "two" and "yes", respectively

 

[Saber]

Finalizing the keyboard layout

Thanks to the poll and your comments, we were able to finish a keyboard layout that should be usable and satisfy most of you.


We will still work and tweak on the look of some of the symbols and char, but the functionality should be finished (unless someone finds a huge flaw here).


So, here it is:

Blender.png

No, it has functionality issues to it. I've posted some needed changes here but I'll reiterate them anyways for the readers. 

Yours:

Spoiler

• Junk symbols ° § € at significantly reachable positions while these ] } \ | are pushed away to and past the middle. No need to clone everything from a full-size German PC keyboard.
• These _ - = + are weirdly placed. If you, and it seems so, are imitating strictly U.S. symbol pairups then they shouldn't be arranged reversed like that.
• Brightness controls for screen and key backlighting, on one button, on the same side as the keyboard modifiers to use them. Please no looping.
• Is the keyboard Shift going to be a sticky key? It should be since ( and ) are unwieldy to reach without the L1 shoulder. 

Mine with some critical changes: http://i.imgur.com/QByJOCK.png   

Spoiler

• Fully suited for the French language and doesn't pretend to be otherwise. Nothing omitted except the ÿ, which is rarely used.
• All these are much more reachable: { } [ ] \ | _ - + =. 
• Sticky keyboard Shift. No Lock mode for it or the sticky keyboard Fn.
• Removed Print Screen on Escape, which shouldn't like Enter have any modifier value.
• Removed the dead Umlaut(unnecessary now) and added a dead Caron diacritic for even more users.
• Added a ñ for those who need it.
• All brightness controls still reluctantly on one key but now easily accessible with the keyboard Fn. It's no longer clumsy to change brightness, which people tend to like to do sometimes. While this improves things, I've also further pushed in the private layout discussion most of you are unaware of to move all brightness controls to keyboard-only Fn + Dpad, with Fn + Up or Down for display, and Fn + Left or Right for key backlighting. It works well on other portables, like the GCW Zero and the Dingoo, and on the Pyra with keyboard Meta, it wouldn't be any simpler. It would also deliver us two "User" keys up top on the two buttons to the right of Power if we moved F11/F12 button to the button next to Escape(where it can also be utilized much better with the keyboard modifiers if it's on the left). This is optional though.

 

[TrashyMG]

Junk symbols ° § €

I don't think the euro symbol would be seen as being "junk" for most europeans... Still not sure of the use of the section symbol outside of law writing.

 

[WizardStan]

I suppose we could write a configuration dialog that lets you select the number of brightness levels and whether or not to wrap around.

We could write a configuration dialog that asks a billion questions for every conceivable scenario, that doesn't make it a good idea.It's a script, stick with the default, if someone doesn't like it that way they change it or ask someone to change it.

Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to post off-topic in yet-another-keyboard-thread.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

5ghz wi-fi sounds too expensive per unit. If it increases the unit cost significantly then forget it.

600 euros sounds about right; anymore and people may balk at the price. 

Still, I'm in regardless.

 

[levi]

By the way: how visible is the Pyra in the Sun?? Better than the Pandora??

I'd also like to know this.

I've also never used 5GHz.  I find if I want to max out the connection using my Pandora for local file transfers, I put my Pandora in front of the router, and that causes the wifi led on the router to apparently stay on, and the transfer rate to more than double.  IIRC that was using a USB 801.11n adaptor I bought from ED though.

Also, I approve of the angry and shocked smileys on I and K respectively

 

[txus]

Well, if money BEFORE production is a problem, this could be solved in several ways. If there is only one version of Pyra, fix the price at the one WITH the 5 GHz band and:


- In case of Kickstarter(alike): Congratulations, you got your first stretch goal!


- In case of home-made prepayment: Many people (me included) are prepared to support you and this project and pay even up to the full price upfront, not only 200 or whatever you had in mind as pre order. These people could cover the cost for the ones that can't or won't pay that kind of money upfront, and everyone is happy.


I do REALLY think the 5 GHz band is important nowadays. As I and others said, in crowded cities it is sometimes NECESSARY to have a decent connection. It's not ALWAYS about range


And I would GREATLY advice against doing a first batch without 5 GHz support and later ones with. That is not being nice to the people that would have supported this project putting money upfront, "suffered" the early adopter bugs and debugging process (many of us do, but not everyone fully enjoys the "breaking and fixing" process), and still paying full price. This is not something that you can update your hardware with later on, so I for one would reconsider getting a first batch one if I know the next batch will have 5 GHz support, as even if it it useless for some people who wouldn't even have to use it, it IS important to me. And I guess I'm not the only one. And if the critical part is precisely the first batch and people decide to wait... Well, to put it in a positive way, try to do it as best as possible right from the beginning!

 

[_wb_]

I suppose we could write a configuration dialog that lets you select the number of brightness levels and whether or not to wrap around.

We could write a configuration dialog that asks a billion questions for every conceivable scenario, that doesn't make it a good idea.
It's a script, stick with the default, if someone doesn't like it that way they change it or ask someone to change it.


Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to post off-topic in yet-another-keyboard-thread.

I didn't mean a configuration dialog that everyone is forced to go through, e.g. in the first-boot process or something. It's perfectly fine to have a default setting and just use that, no need to make the first-boot process more complicated than strictly necessary.

But still it's nice to be able to adjust things like this in a user-friendly way, via some kind of "system settings" menu and a simple GUI dialog.

I don't mind manually editing some config file, I assume that you don't mind doing that either, but for many there is a big difference in scariness between

• adjusting a slider and pressing OK, versus
• editing some text file in /etc and typing some magic command to let the change have effect.

With respect to this brightness button: I think a reasonable default would be either something like 10 levels and no wraparound, or something like 3 levels (low - medium - high) with wraparound. No wraparound would force new users to understand Shift+brightness for brightness down, wraparound by default makes it perfectly possible to never use Shift+brightness. Wraparound is very annoying though if you have a lot of brightness levels.

 

[FaeMinx]

Finalizing the keyboard layout


Thanks to the poll and your comments, we were able to finish a keyboard layout that should be usable and satisfy most of you.


We will still work and tweak on the look of some of the symbols and char, but the functionality should be finished (unless someone finds a huge flaw here).


So, here it is:

Blender.png

No, it has functionality issues to it. I've posted some needed changes here but I'll reiterate them anyways for the readers.

Yours:

Spoiler

Spoiler

• Junk symbols ° § € at significantly reachable positions while these ] } \ | are pushed away to and past the middle. No need to clone everything from a full-size German PC keyboard.
• These _ - = + are weirdly placed. If you, and it seems so, are imitating strictly U.S. symbol pairups then they shouldn't be arranged reversed like that.
• Brightness controls for screen and key backlighting, on one button, on the same side as the keyboard modifiers to use them. Please no looping.
• Is the keyboard Shift going to be a sticky key? It should be since ( and ) are unwieldy to reach without the L1 shoulder.

Mine with some critical changes: http://i.imgur.com/QByJOCK.png

• Fully suited for the French language and doesn't pretend to be otherwise. Nothing omitted except the ÿ, which is rarely used.
• All these are much more reachable: { } [ ] \ | _ - + =.
• Sticky keyboard Shift. No Lock mode for it or the sticky keyboard Fn.
• Removed Print Screen on Escape, which shouldn't like Enter have any modifier value.
• Removed the dead Umlaut(unnecessary now) and added a dead Caron diacritic for even more users.
• Added a ñ for those who need it.
• All brightness controls still reluctantly on one key but now easily accessible with the keyboard Fn. It's no longer clumsy to change brightness, which people tend to like to do sometimes. While this improves things, I've also further pushed in the private layout discussion most of you are unaware of to move all brightness controls to keyboard-only Fn + Dpad, with Fn + Up or Down for display, and Fn + Left or Right for key backlighting. It works well on other portables, like the GCW Zero and the Dingoo, and on the Pyra with keyboard Meta, it wouldn't be any simpler. It would also deliver us two "User" keys up top on the two buttons to the right of Power if we moved F11/F12 button to the button next to Escape(where it can also be utilized much better with the keyboard modifiers if it's on the left). This is optional though.

OMG! It's alive. It's still alive!!!


Somebody get the salts..., get the holy water. Quick! QUICK!!!


edit: requoted for correctness.

 

[Urben]

I'm for the 5GHz Module. It might not work so well today, but since we are talking about a device which is kept up to date with new SOCs we might assume that 5GHz get's better with the years.

 

[_wb_]

And I would GREATLY advice against doing a first batch without 5 GHz support and later ones with. That is not being nice to the people that would have supported this project putting money upfront, "suffered" the early adopter bugs and debugging process (many of us do, but not everyone fully enjoys the "breaking and fixing" process), and still paying full price. This is not something that you can update your hardware with later on, so I for one would reconsider getting a first batch one if I know the next batch will have 5 GHz support, as even if it it useless for some people who wouldn't even have to use it, it IS important to me. And I guess I'm not the only one. And if the critical part is precisely the first batch and people decide to wait... Well, to put it in a positive way, try to do it as best as possible right from the beginning!

I also don't think it's a good idea to make the first batch have less features than the next batch. It could easily have the effect that people postpone buying a Pyra because the next batch will be better, or people who buy the first batch get pissed afterwards.

Putting 5GHz only in the units which also have 3/4G makes sense to me though. That way those who want a "cheap base model" do not have to pay extra for 5GHz support.

Maybe you live in the middle of nowhere, in some rural area with low population density, and there is no 3/4G coverage where you live, so you don't want to pay for that. But then you don't really need 5GHz wifi either, because typically where there is no 3/4G, there's also not a lot of sources of interference.

On the other hand, if you're willing to pay the 100 EUR or so extra for the 3/4G module, then the 14 EUR extra for better wifi is probably not going to make a big difference.

 

[txus]

I also don't think it's a good idea to make the first batch have less features than the next batch. It could easily have the effect that people postpone buying a Pyra because the next batch will be better, or people who buy the first batch get pissed afterwards.


Putting 5GHz only in the units which also have 3/4G makes sense to me though. That way those who want a "cheap base model" do not have to pay extra for 5GHz support.


Maybe you live in the middle of nowhere, in some rural area with low population density, and there is no 3/4G coverage where you live, so you don't want to pay for that. But then you don't really need 5GHz wifi either, because typically where there is no 3/4G, there's also not a lot of sources of interference.


On the other hand, if you're willing to pay the 100 EUR or so extra for the 3/4G module, then the 14 EUR extra for better wifi is probably not going to make a big difference.

This. 100% agree.

 

[pmprog]

Some devices do that, but that's a software script, so easy to change

Will be doing that then

By the way: how visible is the Pyra in the Sun?? Better than the Pandora??

I hope so, my Pandora isn't usable outside if there's even a glimmer of sun!

something like 3 levels (low - medium - high) with wraparound

You forgot "Screen Off"...

 

[Saber]

Junk symbols ° § €

I don't think the euro symbol would be seen as being "junk" for most europeans... Still not sure of the use of the section symbol outside of law writing.

Is that all that jumped out at you in the comparison post? Anything you want to say to ED about the looping brightness, the layout, something less trivial?