It's a shame that, being based on a full-blown Linux SBPC, it has an absolutely unacceptable boot time for a camera. 22 seconds. I can have my iPhone camera out and ready to capture an ephemeral moment of child's play in under 3 seconds, most commercial cameras boot in seconds as well. A film camera can be ready to go the second the lens cap is off. 22 seconds is an eternity in the world of photography. It's a shame that the SoC the Raspberry Pi line is based on has no kernel support (or IIRC hardware support) for S3 or anything similar.

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ktpsns 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's unfair to compare an idling deep sleep device with a cold boot.

However, there is a shortcut: Just don't boot a full OS (thinking of custom firmware which boots in fractions of seconds, standard in the Microcontroller world). Or boot an optimized Linux user space. I am confident with a bit fiddling one can bring down a standard SBC Linux to a few seconds from cold to ready.

	▲	DrewADesign 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Functional comparisons among devices within a category are always fair. Pointing out a device’s perceived shortcomings is not an attack on the people that made it. One crucial role designers play (ideally) in product development is seeking out honest feedback, filtering it, and figuring out if that feedback can help make the product better for end users. The FOSS landscape needs a lot more of that.

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luqtas 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

i built my own camera out of a Zero 2W [0] and by disabling Picam2 and letting the OS (Debian Bullseye) idle, i can get 2 days of shots and some videos while i walk around the city/hiking out of 3 18650 batteries... bringing 3 spare batteries in my backpack never put me needing battery in any situation! starting Picam2 takes a fraction of a second

[0] https://happort.org/camera

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dofm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The early Sony Alpha A7 cameras run Android (really: you could jailbreak and write your own PlayMemories apps)

https://github.com/ma1co/sony-pmca-re

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/59226/does-the-son...

So there must have been a way to do this at that time. (I suspect a simpler subsystem does initial boot response).

I did contemplate building something around one of the Arducam modules and an RP2350.

	▲	numpad0 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		They always ran Linux and Sony ported AOSP userland to it. So it's slightly different to real Android, and those cameras are not always in that mode.

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iamnothere 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I bet this could be changed to seconds if a unikernel type approach were used. There’s no need to boot a full OS. I understand the developer starting with Linux, though, as I’m sure it’s easier for debugging.

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beezlewax an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Cameras shouldn't need to boot at all.

	▲	rlt an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Pretty much everything has a boot sequence of some kind, it just might be very quick.

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fellowmartian 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s possible to boot Linux in seconds, it’d just be a terrible developer experience.

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serf 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

you can get a zero booting under 10 seconds fairly reliably.

still slower than a hot phone with an app, but it's faster than 22s.

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e12e 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not from off state, though? Granted I still expect the iphone to boot quicker than 20 seconds.

	▲	serf 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yeah it's pretty fair if you compare them apples to apples. an iphone boots in 15-20s depending on how stale things are, you'll presumably need to unlock it, and then navigate to the camera app however you do so. it's just presumed you wont have to boot your phone.