Introducing the Snickerdoodle; ARM + FPGA + Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0

[krtkl]

@wandrson - I’m just trying to help answer people’s questions; apologies if you’re put off by my responsiveness (or lack thereof?) or wording. As you said, a huge part of the potential success of this product is dependent on the health of the community so I’m just trying to get involved early on as opposed to leaving you all in the dark with all questions and no answers.

That said, it is a bit of a ‘bait and switch’ to list a fully loaded products specs and compare its price to a machine that doesn’t share those specs, then say in the fine print that the price is only comparable when many of those ‘options’ are removed from your product.

Sorry if this wasn’t clear, just giving an apples-to-apples comparison. Put another way: if wireless isn’t a need for you, you can get a version of our product without wireless for the price of a Raspberry Pi without wireless. If you do want wireless, you can get a version of our product with wireless for price of a Raspberry Pi with wireless. Does that make more sense?

I suggest practising a modern version of Teddy’s “Walk softly and carry a big stick”. IMO, its best to let the actual users of your products produce such hyperbole. Many of us have been dealing with such tech industry promises for decades, mostly for products that never made it to market–but they would have changed the world if they had.

Yessir, I hear ya! I admit I can get a little carried away when excitedly talking about this stuff. I guess a better way to put this is: you won’t be disappointed. If you’re more comfortable ‘waiting and seeing’ if we can actually do what we’re saying we’re going to do before pre-ordering a board, I totally understand. Although in this case - as is the case with any crowdfunding campaign - we are indeed relying on people to have a little faith… If everyone wanted to just ‘wait and see,’ crowdfunding wouldn’t exist and these projects would be dead anyway - which is what we love about it! Everyone (users and creators alike) is in it together so either everyone wins or everyone loses.

Best,
Ryan

[wandrson]

@krtkl

You have my best wishes that your product makes it to market and is successful. And while I understand how easy it is to become really passionate about a project your working on, it is equally easy to over sell your product (“we’re gong to blow away all of these other boards.”) and produce nothing but disappointment no matter how well done your product is.

There is also the fact that many individuals/companies before you have made promises that they never delivered on, even after taking money from people who funded such campaigns. Your sites emphasis on marketing and ‘creating a community’ seems very premature to me. Getting the engineering and business aspects done (or nearly so) before such efforts almost always equate to actually making a successful delivery for a crowd funding (or any other new product release).

So if wireless isn’t a need for you, you can get a version of our product without wireless for the price of a Raspberry Pi without wireless. If you do want wireless, you can get a version of our product with wireless for price of a Raspberry Pi with wireless. Does that make more sense?

As I said, I couldn’t find the comparison text that @David_Walker referenced in his OP on your site. Do you know where such a comparison was actually made and by whom?

[jast]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[krtkl]

Thanks @wandrson!

There is also the fact that many individuals/companies before you have made promises that they never delivered on, even after taking money from people who funded such campaigns. Your sites emphasis on marketing and ‘creating a community’ seems very premature to me. Getting the engineering and business aspects done (or nearly so) before such efforts almost always equate to actually making a successful delivery for a crowd funding (or any other new product release).

I wholeheartedly agree. We actually would have launched months ago if we weren’t so obsessed with developing an actual, working design prior to launch (something that I can guarantee most companies with crowdfunding campaigns are not doing).

The most obvious place re: the ‘price of a R Pi’ was probably one of our landing pages, however if can also be found under the “what can I don with snickerdoodle?” dropdown on the homepage.

-Ryan

[krtkl]

@jast - not entirely sure who’s “trolling” who? Just here to answer questions. If I’m bothering people, please let me know and I will cease all posting to the thread.

-Ryan

[wandrson]

[quote=“krtkl, post:17, topic:4150”]
I wholeheartedly agree. We actually would have launched months ago if we weren’t so obsessed with developing an actual, working design prior to launch (something that I can guarantee most companies with crowdfunding campaigns are not doing).[/quote]

Well apparently you are also spending a fair bit of time creating a marketing plan and hyrperbole for a product that doesn’t exist yet. And most reputable crowd funding sites require a working design prior to launch. They allow you to figure out how you’ll manufacture after however, which is where most of those have failed. Well except for the blatant frauds who sold imaginery products that “would change the world.”

The most obvious place re: the ‘price of a R Pi’ was probably one of our landing pages, however if can also be found under the “what can I don with snickerdoodle?” dropdown on the homepage.

Thank you for pointing that out. I have included a screen copy with annotation so as to make it clear in perpetuity. I find your web page to be an extremely misleading piece of marketing that has confirmed by overall impression that you’ll appear to be putting more effort into ‘selling’ rather then building a good product.

[krtkl]

Thanks @wandrson. Fixed to help clarify… [screenshot from http://krtkl.com ]

[jast]

Apparently it’s just me.
Carry on.

[EgoValve]

If you really want to make the Raspberry Pi comparison…

Raspberry Pi 2 - Model B ($35) - Newark 38Y6467
WiPi Single Band 802.11 b/g/n WiFi ($15.52) - Newark 07W8938
Bluetooth 4.0 USB adapter for RPi ($8.99) http://www.amazon.com/JBtek-Raspberry-Bluetooth-4-0-adapter/dp/B00L08NCPQ
Logi Pi Raspberry Pi FPGA Hat ($89.99) http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/83-16453

But that is the beautiful thing about technology… it’s a constant process of evolution, miniaturization and integration.

[wandrson]

If you really want to make the Raspberry Pi comparison…

I wasn’t the one claiming that you could get all of those features in this better then sliced bread new board for “about the price of a raspberry pi”

[krtkl]

I do appreciate you pointing that out, @wandrson - I see how that could be perceived as confusing/misleading. It is not our intention to deceive anybody. Hopefully the new wording helps clarify things.

If we fail to live up to our “hyperbole” or somehow fail to meet your expectations of what you consider a “worthy” product, I will personally invite you publish a guest post on our site explaining how we’ve failed to live up to our promises - seriously.

-Ryan

[wandrson]

So your shooting for a product price of about $50-$60? (Pi2 + wifi+ bluetooth)

[krtkl]

@wandrson – Yessir!

[wandrson]

At that price range I will likely take the risk on your crowd funding campaign depending upon whose site you use.

[JohnKocurek]

Ryan, are you aware of Chris Fenton’s work? He put a cycle accurate Cray 1A on an FPGA several years ago.

FPGA Cray 1A

He and some others have upgraded to a Cray XMP(dual CPU Cray 1A) on an Altera SOC devboard. I dunno if the Snickerdoodle has enough resources, but that would be a fun thing to do with one…

John Kocurek

[krtkl]

That’s great to hear, @wandrson! Hopefully Indiegogo work for you…

[krtkl]

Hey John,

Hadn’t seen the FPGA Cray 1A project before but looks very cool! Gotta admire the dedication required to put something like that together…

-Ryan

[urbite]

For reference, here’s one least expensive ($99/Z7010, $119/Z7020) Zynq boards I’ve found that doesn’t require a carrier board to be useful. Has ethernet, HDMI, CAN, USB UART, USB OTG connectors on main board.
http://www.myirtech.com/list.asp?id=502

However, adding WiFi (module, $25) + I/O expansion (board/cape, $39) brings the total cost to $163. So if Snickerdoodle can reach anywhere close to target price it should be the lowest cost Zynq platform available that has ‘real’ peripherals and easily usable (i.e. has 0.1" connectors) I/O.

[krtkl]

Here’s a little sneak peak for you guys…

[krtkl]

For those interested, the snickerdoodle campaign page (finally) went live today:

snickerdoodle

Been a long time in the making…we hope you’ll like it.