The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

#653 – Benjamin Cabé Nose Zephyr

Listen Later

Welcome Benjamin Cabé of The Zephyr Project!

  • Benjamin is the developer advocate at The Zephyr Project, which is both a Real Time Operating System and an ecosystem (or almost like a “distro”, rather than an OS)
  • Benjamin does videos on the Zephyr YouTube and maintains an awesome blog / newsletter
  • The ecosystem is deep: Chris recently learned there is a state machine framework
  • Multiple people involved in dev like an OS
  • The Platinmum Members includes chip companies like NXP, Nordic, ADI
  • There are 600+ boards supported in the ecosystem (and more if you do custom)
  • Devicetree is a tough concept, but a powerful one that was borrowed from Linux
  • Who is the audience for Zephyr?
  • Chromebook embedded controller
  • What’s the smallest processor that Zephyr can run on? M0s can run it no problem
  • Chris thinks one of the benefits is the ability to bolt new stuff on to a project
  • Simulation through Wokwi (Past Guest Uri) or Renode (Past Guest Michael)
  • Using different levels of abstraction
  • zephyr i2c init
  • Benefits of abstraction
    • Swapping out chips (bubblegum tapshoes)
    • Tying stuff together (bolting stuff on)
    • Infrastructure with CI/CD
    • Zephyr doesn’t have an official IDE but VScode “just works”
    • Helper tools from Nordic
    • Open Source
    • Hobby projects
    • Dev survey
    • Custom Keyboards (ZMK)
    • RP2040 support
    • Arduino recenlty joined the project
    • Layers of abstraction
      • Architecture (ie. arm, nios2, x86)
      • SOC (available peripherals surrounding the core)
      • Board (PCB definition which might have:)
        • SOC
        • Memory
        • Peripherals / Sensors
        • Check the tree and PRs for sensors that might be in-flight
        • Compared to Arduino IDE
        • Choosing ecosystems
        • Weekly newsletter
        • Things you didn’t know you needed: NMEA subsystem
        • In Jay Carlson’s 2nd appearance on the show, he said “I’m reading more code than I’m writing”
        • Benjamin’s profile photo is of his artificial nose he created a few years ago
        • Making a machine model for bread (pandemic)
        • It uses TFLite
        • What is the project doing? (in parallel)
          • Acquire data
          • Machine learning inference
          • Display update
          • Network interface
          • Benjamin reimplemented the Nose in Zephyr using ZBus (Chris recorded a video with the author of this subsystem)
          • Like an MQTT broker on device
          • Some of the concerns I (Chris) had when I was starting was not understanding RTOS concepts (threads, queues, etc). Brian Amos was on the show talking about his book, which is a great way to get started with these ideas.
          • Threading / work queues
          • The importance of a project when starting out
          • Starter hardware
            • Hero devkits (Chris likes the nRF9160-DK as a starter board or the nRF5340-DK)
            • M5stack boards
            • iMX8
            • Jumping down to Zephyr from Linux
            • MPU + MCU
            • Tight integration
            • Zephyr can run POSIX code
            • What about the the RT in RTOS? Does this operate realtime often? (timing critical)
            • BOM cost and software cost
            • Security and dependencies
            • Join the Zephyr discord to talk to other people using Zephyr
            • TechTalks / YouTube
            • Interested in going to a conference in Seattle in 2024 for Zephyr? The ZDS / EOSS CFP is open now!
              • ...more
              View all episodesView all episodes
              Download on the App Store
              The Amp Hour Electronics PodcastBy The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)
              • 4.9
              • 4.9
              • 4.9
              • 4.9
              • 4.9

              4.9

              225 ratings

              More shows like The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

              View all
              The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source by Changelog Media

              The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

              285 Listeners

              Embedded by Logical Elegance

              Embedded

              188 Listeners

              LINUX Unplugged by Jupiter Broadcasting

              LINUX Unplugged

              258 Listeners

              Talk Python To Me by Michael Kennedy

              Talk Python To Me

              580 Listeners

              Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast by MacroFab, Inc.

              Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

              36 Listeners

              Python Bytes by Michael Kennedy and Brian Okken

              Python Bytes

              214 Listeners

              Late Night Linux by The Late Night Linux Family

              Late Night Linux

              153 Listeners

              Darknet Diaries by Jack Rhysider

              Darknet Diaries

              7,818 Listeners

              Ham Radio Workbench Podcast by Ham Radio Workbench

              Ham Radio Workbench Podcast

              189 Listeners

              CoRecursive: Coding Stories by Adam Gordon Bell - Software Developer

              CoRecursive: Coding Stories

              185 Listeners

              Hackaday Podcast by Hackaday

              Hackaday Podcast

              62 Listeners

              Self-Hosted by Jupiter Broadcasting

              Self-Hosted

              136 Listeners

              The Real Python Podcast by Real Python

              The Real Python Podcast

              137 Listeners

              2.5 Admins by The Late Night Linux Family

              2.5 Admins

              89 Listeners

              Oxide and Friends by Oxide Computer Company

              Oxide and Friends

              48 Listeners