An ESP32 module suitable for hobby use is about 4$ here in Viet Nam. You can get the "raw" ones for maybe 0.50$ less. We're near China, so electronic component price is usually higher than Chinese prices by 1-20% (modules and hobby components on the higher end). If you're ever curious about prices, the good online retailer here is thegioiic ('World of ICs', we love naming businesses 'world of something' here).

Locally, 4$ is probably "more money" to us than 5$ is to you.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a marvel that we can have something so good so cheaply -- but correcting for cost of living, it feels less affordable for us here in Asia.

Anyway, not a criticism. Just sharing a slice of life from over here in case you were curious.

You can only cover some very specific cases like that for robotics.

Also, besides some really huge companies, I would be nervous as a business to rely on a third party so much that I didn't have a workforce of my own.

Yes, it works for automotive (extremely consolidated sector with huge capital), or Amazon, or chipmakers... But they've already gone through that transition. Who else needs that?

I just bought a bunch of these and a reflow soldering gun.

The real bottleneck is getting custom pcbs made.

The best companies that do this are in China and soon will be tarrifed

I totally see what you mean - with minified js bundles and mobile walled gardens we've probably already been in that stage for a good ten years - and AI-driven development that we don't even monitor is likely going to make that worse in the short term...

But I do wonder if LLM-driven code analysis might actually increase code comprehension and agency for laymen?

I've been quite impressed with AI's ability to decipher and visualise code and system relationships in e.g. mermaid diagrams.

Perhaps the representation of code will become more elastic (i.e. you have literal code, or AI-produced translations you can directly manipulate)

There's a balance to be struck here.

Coming from HomeKit, I've tried (_really_ tried) to move to Home Assistant. The gap in usability was too enormous for me to cross, and I'd brand myself a hacker.

I won't trust any kind of a "smart" device to operate the front door lock - ever - but smart lightbulbs are still stupid lightbulbs. I can just flick the switch.

Privacy concerns are valid - I can be profiled based on usage. But it's not like Apple doesn't know my precise location already.

With all that in mind, I'd say usability comes first.

Actually this thing would be a lot sexier if it were in fact complying with Eurorack standards, imho. There's no better environment to be dropping an alternative computing platform than directly into the rack alongside the rest of the interesting modules of the 21st century ..