Embedded.fm · 22 Apr 2021 · 58m · Episode 370
Alvaro Prieto, an electrical and firmware engineer at Sofar Ocean, discusses his work on oceanic remote-sensing buoys and his personal passion projects, including making cheese and building weather stations. He details the evolution of his cheese-monitoring device from an over-engineered prototype to a low-power Bluetooth wedge using an nRF52, and explains how these side projects helped him secure jobs at companies like Apple and Verily. Prieto also shares insights on choosing wireless protocols (Zigbee, BLE, LoRa) for his weather station and the importance of getting a working prototype before optimizing.
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Hosts Elliot Williams and Al Williams review a week of hardware hacks, including a low-power DIY smart button network using nRF52 microcontrollers and a rocket camera module stabilized by a spinning brass gyroscope. They discuss a continuous pickle bioreactor, weather stations in Chernobyl, and a capacitive proximity sensor, before covering long-form articles on wire splicing techniques and the history of human debris on the moon.
Eli Hughes of TZero Research and Development discusses building a connected brewery monitoring system using acoustic sensors and cellular connectivity. He details his transition from FreeRTOS to the Zephyr RTOS, highlighting Zephyr's benefits for standardizing builds and enabling PC-based simulation. Hughes also shares his experience as an NXP Pro Support engineer and the business lessons learned from validating product-market fit with craft brewers.
Jared Boone, founder of Sharebrained Technology, discusses the HackRF software-defined radio and the Portapack, a portable handheld device he developed to make SDR accessible without a laptop. Alvaro, who runs a cheese project called Ostur, joins the conversation to discuss embedded development using STM32 and Nordic nRF52 platforms, while also sharing his passion for cheesemaking. The group explores the history of interactive TV, Blu-ray authoring, and the technical details of various radio technologies, including Iridium satellite interception and TPMS signal analysis.
Eli Hughes, a full-stack embedded engineer and educator, discusses his 'Super Monkey' guitar active pickguard project, which uses an NXP i.MX RT685 processor for DSP and a Nordic nRF7002 Wi-Fi chip for cloud data upload. He explains the technical rationale for choosing Zephyr OS for its standardized, reusable software stack and emphasizes the importance of a 'beginner's mindset' and rigorous hardware bring-up procedures. The episode also covers news items including the Waveshare BG95-M3 Zero cellular SBC, the Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+, and Breadboard OS for the Pi Pico.
Chris Gammell joins Alicia White and Dave Jones of Embedded.fm to recap the year and discuss the state of the electronics industry. They cover the shift in PCB prototyping costs, the rise of the ESP32, and the challenges of IoT device management, including firmware updates and security. The conversation also touches on career transitions, remote work trends, and specific technologies like LoRaWAN and CircuitPython.
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