Peripheral Devices For Pandora

[Samalthos]

I just wanted to know if any peripheral devices were being planned. 'cause I have a few Ideas for some. No way to develop or mass produce them but ideas. It seems that Pandora is trying very hard to be the worlds smallest fully featured Palmtop computer, an Idea is a docking station with all the typical inputs and outputs a laptop or desktop would have. Another Idea is if anyone such as me has BIG hands, an Airflow grip system would be awesome, probably running off of AA's or AAA's. I dunno, If anyone is interested or has any ideas of their own please reply

 

[Prophet]

Well I'm not sure if this qualifies, but one thing I would very much like to see is a commonly supported USB controller convertor for using Playstation2 pads and sticks with Pandora.

Imagine being able to plug the Pandy into your TV, plug 2 PS2 controls into the Pandy, and basically have a retrogaming console that fits in your pocket and also plays movies etc.

I choose PS2 because they're pretty good controls and many people have them already.

If drivers for such a thing were available and commonly supported by most Pandy emulators (and games etc.) it would be pretty nice.

 

[flatmush]

I choose PS2 because they're pretty good controls and many people have them already.

If you live in britain you can buy a usb ps2 controller for the pc from GAME for £13, pretty sure you can get logic3 and other dual-analogue usb rumble-pads equally cheap elsewhere.
I'm imagining that most peripherals will be usb or sdio based, there aren't really many pandora specific peripherals that I can think of.
A cradle with an inbuilt hard-disk, usb-hub and power supply would be nice for when you don't need it to be super portable, but to be honest for home use you don't need a cradle as a simple usb cable should both charge it and provide fast data transfer (possibly to mount a pc hard-disk too).

 

[Samalthos]

Well I'm not sure if this qualifies, but one thing I would very much like to see is a commonly supported USB controller convertor for using Playstation2 pads and sticks with Pandora.

Imagine being able to plug the Pandy into your TV, plug 2 PS2 controls into the Pandy, and basically have a retrogaming console that fits in your pocket and also plays movies etc.

I choose PS2 because they're pretty good controls and many people have them already.

If drivers for such a thing were available and commonly supported by most Pandy emulators (and games etc.) it would be pretty nice.

I have a controller Converter that I don't use however My Kubuntu Doesn't seem to want to log me in so I cant test it out and it doesn't even show on XP

people seem to be going on a lot about battery life also. Maybe a USB External Battery for it that mounts to the bottom, It would have to have a fan or risk overheating but the Pandora's footprint is big enough it could have a battery and fan.

Wait I think I'm onto something here. What about a Battery, Fan, AND Airflow grip all in one? It seems feasible to me... Maybe me and my JROTC Engineer Buddies could work up a prototype. If anything perspires from tihs I'll let you all know

 

[trooper]

With a possible 10 hour battery life, I don`t think an external battery will be needed. A second/extra battery would be useful for those times when you need alot more mobile runtime than one battery can provide, But i`m sure that won`t be that often.

Trooper

 

[Holokauston]

With a possible 10 hour battery life, I don`t think an external battery will be needed. A second/extra battery would be useful for those times when you need alot more mobile runtime than one battery can provide, But i`m sure that won`t be that often.

Trooper

Source: mfk
Quote: Frankly speaking; 10 hours of battery life is a dream at the moment. I think we should kill this rumor too.
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...;p=547635&#

Also 10Hours maximum should be like maybe 3-4 hours of actual use time, if you look at any device for ex. a mobile you see that passive time is far more than active usage, sure the gap might not be as big as for a mobile phone but still there will be a big difference between just humming along and actively using WiFi or playing a game etc.

 

[aatu]

With a possible 10 hour battery life, I don`t think an external battery will be needed. A second/extra battery would be useful for those times when you need alot more mobile runtime than one battery can provide, But i`m sure that won`t be that often.

Trooper

Source: mfk
Quote: Frankly speaking; 10 hours of battery life is a dream at the moment. I think we should kill this rumor too.
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showt...=547635�

Also 10Hours maximum should be like maybe 3-4 hours of actual use time, if you look at any device for ex. a mobile you see that passive time is far more than active usage, sure the gap might not be as big as for a mobile phone but still there will be a big difference between just humming along and actively using WiFi or playing a game etc.

Something a little bit "fresher" (yet still nothing 100% fact):
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=40823

 

[Snu]

what i want is a nice form fitting usb hub with plugs that fit in the audio/video, and one that goes into the usb in or ac port to charge the pandora from a built in battery or external source (battery might not be all that useful).
even if this isnt made, ill probably hack up a usb hub and make something similar, leave it in the living room and just plop my pandora in there whenever i want to game on the big tv.

the first thread on periphreals:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=40659

also, the 10 hour battery life is quite probable, and what is being aimed for as a minimum.
quote directly from craig:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?s=&am...st&p=595336
"According to our calculations it should work for up to 100 hours(!) playing mp3s. We won't know about using powerful apps until we do some further tests, but we are aiming for that magic 10 hours. It should easily get 10+ hours running recompiled GP2X apps."
note: 'should' doesnt mean 'will', but i trust craig's judgment on it i think...

 

[Squidge]

Source: mfk
Quote: Frankly speaking; 10 hours of battery life is a dream at the moment. I think we should kill this rumor too.

Back in august last year when that post was written it was correct. However, much has changed since then (including the SoC), so now its possible

 

[Samalthos]

I'm really thinking about trips and stuff. i live in Italy and I play (American) Football we go to Germany to play the other teams the bus rides are over 21 hours so an external battery would get a lot of use here. My Friends and I have already pledged to buy Pandora's so the battery thing would get a lot of use. I guess you'd have to be here to see it's practicality.

 

[Chip]

There are already a ton of external USB battery packs on the market. I really don't think we need one just for Pandora.

Personally, I'm not in favor of proprietary or customized addons. The whole point of using standard interfaces like USB and SDIO is that you can use standard accessories. USB hubs and power packs and various dongles already exist. Use them.

From a manufacturing perspective it makes even less sense unless Pandora really takes off. It is not feasible to manufacture less than about 2000 of anything. What percentage of Pandora users really want or need a snap-on USB hub or fan grip thingie? How many Pandoras do you have to sell before you have 2000 potential customers for your addon?

 

[Samalthos]

True. I've seen some of your other posts, you are very good at telling it like it is. Maybe It'll just be a custom one time deal then.

 

[trooper]

I'm really thinking about trips and stuff. i live in Italy and I play (American) Football we go to Germany to play the other teams the bus rides are over 21 hours so an external battery would get a lot of use here. My Friends and I have already pledged to buy Pandora's so the battery thing would get a lot of use. I guess you'd have to be here to see it's practicality.

Just buy two extra standard pandora internal batteries (when they become available), That should keep you upwardly mobile for upto 30 hours.

Trooper

 

[OrR]

Well, external USB power can be more convenient if you have interest in keeping the Pandora running. Though my little Minty Boost probably won't charge it fast enough...