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News CSIRO picks Intel's Edison for bee-tracking project

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 25 Aug 2015.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Does this mean we're going to be seeing jars of honey with the "Powered by Intel" logo on them now? ;)
    I'll get my coat shall I. :D
     
  3. aramil

    aramil One does not simply upgrade Forums

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    Maybe they have to hum the Intel dum dum dum, dummmm as they fly [emoji38]

    OK who moved my coat.....

    Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
     
  4. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag What's a Dremel?

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    Maybe the new slogan would be "Intel Outside".


    What I don't get is why exactly a project like this needs Edison? If they're just monitoring sensors, keeping track of RFID tags, and logging data to an SD card, an Arduino Mega or Due would get the job done just as well for a lower price and probably in a smaller power envelope.
     
  5. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    An Arduino Mega or Due with Wi-Fi connectivity to automatically upload the tracking data to CSIRO so people don't have to go and bother the bees every few hours would have a considerably bigger footprint and draw considerably more power than an Edison based system, while also costing more. (You'd pay £35 for a real Due or £15 for a Chinese knock-off, plus £60 for an official Wi-Fi shield or £30 for a Chinese knock-off; the Edison is £40 and has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity built-in.)

    Yes, you could do it cheaper if you had an Arduino logging to an SD card offline. Until you factor in the cost of having someone go and swap out the SD cards in a few thousand hives in order to get the data, in which case it would become considerably more expensive.

    I'm not a huge fan of the Edison - I've got one 'ere, with Arduino break-out board, but rarely use it - but for this kind of use-case, it's pretty dang neat. Personally, though, I would have opted for the Spark Core (or Particle Photon, as it's now known) with the option of the soon-to-be-released Electron - which swaps the Wi-Fi of the Photon for 2G or 3G mobile connectivity, allowing it to work anywhere there's a mobile signal - for more remote hives.

    This all ignores the biggest factor in all this, of course: Intel is almost certainly financially involved in the project. They either funded CSIRO's research or, at the very least, covered the cost of the Edison hardware, in order to boast of a major design win for what at present is still a niche product in the embedded market.
     

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