Haven't done one of these threads in a while. I always enjoy reading about what others are working on and sharing my own projects.
In my line of work (industrial automation), we have our hands tied hardware-wise because we have to use things that are UL-approved. I've been wanting to do some light signal processing using an embedded PC, but the UL-approved ones currently are way overpriced, and have limited/poor software support.
Siemens has come out with a UL-approved "IoT gateway" that is essentially an improved Intel Galileo SBC (uses Intel Quark processor, x86 but same instruction set as the very first Pentiums, P5x). Their business model is to leverage all the open-source software surrounding this, and they have also given a very reasonable price for their offering.
Seeing the potential of this product, I immediately pre-ordered one and am wetting myself waiting to compile/run everything I can on it. This doesn't seem big, but it is: existing UL-approved industrial devices are typically >$600 (more like >$900 actually) with either proprietary software or very limited support for an ancient image of Debian. This ships with Yocto Linux with kernel version 4.4 and will have all the open-source resources the Intel Galileo does, and is $260. Suddenly, I will be able to do a lot of things in a UL-approved form for a lot cheaper. Example: $1600 UL-approved router with VPN server? Nope, OpenWrt + this. $700 UL-approved wifi router? Nope, OpenWrt + mini-PCIe WLAN card + this.
This will be my work/play project for quite sometime. Pretty stoked.
