Lets create the PineCom

[tllim]

Hello everybody,
This is my first post on PINE's forums. I'm in my EECE degree's senior year, and am working on a project proposal for, essentially, the PineCom in backpack form.

I am going through this thread and using a lot of the ideas and suggestions by you fine folks. As others have pointed out, there is a really wide spectrum of ideas about what this device should do. I have to narrow the field significantly, which is something I can do on my own - but I am really excited to engage with the Pine community. I plan on making my project files entirely open source (obviously this won't apply to some vender-supplied chips, e.g. the LoRa module itself, much as with the PinePhone).

The thing about a good senior project is, it can't be only for its own sake. It has to meet the needs of a target audience. The audience I want to target is both professional and recreational outdoors users who need long-distance off grid communications. It's not intended to be a playground for hardware, but a rugged and practical upgrade to your PinePhone.

The core of the project will be the LoRa chip, an external antenna, and an R Pi Pico microprocessor to control the chip. The best additional features to include are still under consideration. I've identified a high-end GPS, a solar panel+battery combo, or other sensors (barometric pressure, temp, humidity, etc.) as the most useful potential additions for that target audience of outdoor first responders and recreational campers, hikers, adventurers, etc.

I have only read six pages of this thread so far, but I really appreciate everyone's input. I hope this project can guide the development of the PineCom proper (I have another name picked out for my project...). I will read the rest of the thread this weekend.

Check on the PineDio STACK project which will be release soon. You can know more about PineDio LoRa STACK from Lup Yuen's tweet.