I already have a work laptop running Linux, but it doesn’t support GPIO or LoRa without additional dongles/accessories. Working on industrial equipment while occasionally in remote locations, makes this device appealing to me specifically.
I’m also fortunate to have my employer willing to foot the bill, especially when they can also see the utility of this device in our line of work.
If you don’t work in this specific niche, your mileage will obviously vary.
I don’t know what’s LoRa though, but can’t you just plug an Arduino board to the computer’s USB port and get a bunch of GPIOs? It’s cheap. It’s durable.
LoRa is a low power radio communication protocol that is very useful for warehouse and farming equipment, among many other things. I currently use ESP32s for GPIO, LoRa, and Wifi, and occasionally FPGAs for various tasks. But ad-hoc testing and diagnosis can be a pain for these devices, requiring multiple different dongles, power adapters, and converters.
If I can consolidate 75% of that gear into a single, handheld device, it will easily pay for itself in productivity gains.
No. You don’t need it.
Just get a used ThinkPad for work, and whichever handheld game console if you want to play while on a trip.
Run Linux on ThinkPad. It’s open source too.
I already have a work laptop running Linux, but it doesn’t support GPIO or LoRa without additional dongles/accessories. Working on industrial equipment while occasionally in remote locations, makes this device appealing to me specifically.
I’m also fortunate to have my employer willing to foot the bill, especially when they can also see the utility of this device in our line of work.
If you don’t work in this specific niche, your mileage will obviously vary.
Great! Go for it then.
I don’t know what’s LoRa though, but can’t you just plug an Arduino board to the computer’s USB port and get a bunch of GPIOs? It’s cheap. It’s durable.
Already done!
LoRa is a low power radio communication protocol that is very useful for warehouse and farming equipment, among many other things. I currently use ESP32s for GPIO, LoRa, and Wifi, and occasionally FPGAs for various tasks. But ad-hoc testing and diagnosis can be a pain for these devices, requiring multiple different dongles, power adapters, and converters.
If I can consolidate 75% of that gear into a single, handheld device, it will easily pay for itself in productivity gains.