How difficult is it to add support for a new board ourselves? What does this process look like?

We are working on a new project and looking to boot up 100-500 devices over the next year and I’m wondering how hard it is to have ResinOS run on an SBC of our choice.

We have the following hardware requirements:

  • 4 GB eMMC flash (Minimum)
  • Dual Band WiFi a/b/g/n
  • Ethernet 10/100

Nice to haves:

  • Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000
  • Cellular CAT 1 (for remote management only in the event we lose WiFi connection)
  • "Hardware/sensors required for indoor positioning "
  • Off the shelf enclosure
  • Wifi add ac compatibility
  • Secure/tamper proof mount

We are currently looking at:

https://www.digi.com/products/embedded-systems/single-board-computers/connectcore-6-sbc

And I am in talks with Digi to see if they can build the support for Resin.io if we guarantee a minimum order quantity. It would be useful to understand:

  • What does this process look like?
  • Alternatively can we hire someone (perhaps from the community?) to write support for this board
  • Ballpark estimate on how long this might take/cost

We are also looking at the following two options:

  • Using the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 with a support board
  • Use a BeagleBone Green with a custom cape

Any ideas/feedback welcome!

Hi there,

We actually announced our own board earlier in the year, the Fin, which actually covers all of your requirements and includes quite a few of your ‘nice to haves’ (including RPi CM 3 support).

There’s a blog post announcing it here. We’re currently in the process of finalising distribution plans, but I can certainly flag you as a potential customer if this looks interesting to you?

On the general support of custom SBCs, we have a dedicated device team who currently add support for boards, but the length of time it takes varies considerably based on the BSP/support already present for them. It is possible to ‘roll your own’ support for a board, but we strongly advise against it if possible. One advantage with using the Fin is that we obviously support it straight out of the box.

Best regards,

Heds

Hey @hedss I would absolutely love to try this board out and see if it could be a good fit for us.

Is this board “End device certified”/if we add the compute module 3 can we ship it as a packaged device?

Are CAD files available for the board?
Have you published designs for an enclosure at all?
How soon can I get my hands on 2-3 units for testing?

Perhaps you could simply add one of the devices to my account that is in your office for now and I can run my app on it to check some of the data around the WiFi connection/signal?

Cheers!

Hi,

That’s great, thanks for the swift response!

At the moment, we’re asking potential customers to email fin@resin.io with their interest (including the questions you have on the board), and we’ll start a one-to-one conversation discussing how we can move forward with you.

Best regards,

Heds