Hi all,
For various reasons you might be interested in running Micropython on Balena.
Here’s a container build I am working on
Cheers!
Alex
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Nice - keep us posted on this one @ajlennon !
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Hi @ajlennon,
Can you tell me more? What is the aim of the project? How would someone use it? I’m keen to understand more.
Phil
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Certainly! Here is my thinking… I’ve been working in embedded for 25 years+ and have generally been quite against use of scripting languages during that time. However in recent years I have come around to the idea that they have a place… There are a number of reasons but one main reason is that there are billions of IoT devices we are projected to need and we have nowhere near the embedded resource to create them. Ergo we are going to be taking people from other disciplines such as web and we need to support this.
So Python is one obvious go-to as it has a huge following. Python is also pretty big to add to an embedded image. Enter MicroPython. A massively slimmed down Python for embedded systems. Cross-platform and configurable and comes in at about 300KB.
Now MicroPython is supported out of the box on ESP8266/ESP32 devices and the new Raspberry Pi Pico devices. It and derivations such as CircuitPython are becoming widely accepted.
My thinking is that when I am developing software that can run down on deeply embedded chips such as ESP or Pico it would be pretty neat if I could simply take that software and run it up on Linux. Now MicroPython can be built to run on Linux so I am thinking it would be useful to be able to plug it into Resin as a service, and I am also planning a meta-micropython layer support for Yocto I think (one may already exist).
Hope that’s interesting! Cheers!
Alex
Hi Alex, that’s super interesting. Thank you for taking time to explain these and of course your time on running MicroPython on balena. I’m sure the balena community would appreciate your efforts.
I recently learned about CircuitPython and I’d like to play with it myself. So I’m definitely subscribed to seeing where you take this : )
Pinging @rahul-thakoor @phil-d-wilson @chrisys @mpous @dtischler as I suspect they will be interested in MicroPython usage as well.
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There are a number of reasons but one main reason is that there are billions of IoT devices we are projected to need and we have nowhere near the embedded resource to create them. Ergo we are going to be taking people from other disciplines such as web and we need to support this.
Btw, here you nicely captured one of our primary motivations at balena on why and how we reduce friction for all kinds of developers to work on these little devices.
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Thanks for the interest and the kind words.
Sometimes I do work because I see value in it although I can’t quite see what that value is yet. This is one of those times.
I forked an existing meta-micropython layer for Yocto and brought it up to date here
In general I think a < 1MB lightweight scripting engine is a useful think to have lying around 
We will see !