balena.io seems to tick a lot of boxes abstracting away or centrally managing edge apps deployment. The vision seems to be that I as a software/app guy would be served very well by it. However, the supported devices list mostly lists SBCs and SOMs…
We would like to deploy edge apps in industrial settings and we don’t have capacity to assemble and test units from SBCs and SOMs.
I’m in a position to pick a HW platform specifically for balena.io but I think none of ~70 HW targets you list is usable. I would like to choose a DIN rail 24V industrial PC with 4G/5G modem - cheap and available in Europe. Is there one?
I think it would be worthwhile for you to maintain, advertise and document support for 3-5 widely available industrial PCs including high-level features like 4G/5G, GPIO, UPS, CAN/RS485, GPU acceleration - if directly supported and documented by balena. Strategically picked on price range (budget and high-end) and features.
Compulab devices seem great but they are not available in Europe. RevPI Connect 4 seems to be the only option? No 4G/5G :(.
To be clear my post is about 2 different problems:
marketing and technical communication for 2 distinct groups: hardware OEMs / integrators vs edge application developers who need finished hardware with clear feature matrix and support guarranties. Me (the second group) have the hardest time finding a solution on your web. This should be easy to fix on the web/docs.
high quality support for IPCs including peripherals/IO - admittedly that’s harder but you have my vote to dedicate resources here
I have a quick follow-up question. You mentioned that Compulab devices are not available in Europe. This is the list of Compulab resellers: Resellers and Distributors - Compulab Edge Computing. Are Compulab devices not available in your country?
I’m in Slovakia/EU so there shouldn’t be a problem with some of the resellers you list. I disregarded Compulab because of inability to quickly see prices online and outdated/chaotic links. After spending 1 more hour I think they are a viable option fulfilling all requirements on paper.
But I must insist that their web presence is quite chaotic and doesn’t inspire confidence. Their “main” site is different with a lot of the same content. E.g. resellers are here, but no Slovakia: Compulab Distribution Partners | Compulab
We have several automated OS test suites. But we don’t specifically test modems. That said, balenaOS for Compulab device types is built using the Board Support Package (BSP) from Compulab. So the modem may work, but we can’t guarantee that. We did ask Compulab about this on your behalf and they suggested that you contact iotsupport@compulab.co.il.
