RPi Alternative: ESPRESSObin V7
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I purchased a GlobalScale ESPRESSObin V7 with case on Amazon for US$79. In its white case, the unit is 110mm x 85mm x 35mm (about 4-1/4 x 3-3/8 x 1-3/8 inches) on its rubber feet. It looks like a small router (because it is), with three Ethernet ports and two USB ports on the "front" side, a MicroUSB connector, power jack, and slot for MicroSD card on the "back" side, and three LEDs on top. The Ethernet ports are arranged in one-WAN two-LAN (switched) configuration (again, like a small router -- it would be perfect for running pfSense). The unit requires a 12VDC power supply with the ubiquitous 5.5mm center-positive male plug. The MicroUSB connector provides a serial console to the board.
The system has a Marvell Armada 3700LP dual core ARM Cortex-A53 processor at 1.2Ghz, so it's a little slower and has half the cores of an RPi 3B+ or my previously-reviewed Libre "Le Potato". Naturally, one can expect less performance as a result, but depending on the purpose, you may never notice.
Getting the thing up and running has a bit of a learning curve. The installation of an OS on the chosen media is well-documented, but not all of the docs are up-to-date, and they assume a few bits of knowledge that aren't obvious if you're not a bit of a techie -- you have to set parameters in the boot firmware manually to get it to look at the right storage device and load the correct kernel, etc. I tried both OpenWRT and Ubuntu 16.04 at first. I had no trouble getting OpenWRT up and running. Ubuntu 16.04 was a different story -- it would not start up, and right as I was about to give up on it, I tried overwriting the kernel on the provided Ubuntu image with another version they had available for separate download (not in the instructions, literally just a random kernel file and three data files). I got that to boot. Unfortunately, once 16.04 was up and running, I could not run a modern version of nodejs because the core libraries are too old. I could have run older versions of nodejs, but none that are current LTS, so why bother? The purpose is to build a lasting configuration! I then decided to try to get ARMbian Jammy (22.08) running, to push on it and see how modern I could go. That turned out to be the easiest of all: I downloaded the image from the ARMbian web site and wrote it to a USB Flash drive, stuck it into the ESPRESSObin, powered it up, set the firmware boot parameters, reset the system, and it booted immediately. I then got nodejs 18.12.1 installed and Reactor up and running in a couple of minutes after.
So it's not a quick startup like an RPi/Libre, but I attribute some of my time to the learning curve, and by the time I got to trying ARMbian, I understood better what the settings meant, and it was pretty easy to get it up and running. And once I "got" it, I also realized how bullet-proof that actually makes the thing, because you can, with sufficient know-how, get it to boot just about anything the ARM CPU will take. The serial console interface gives you a ton of useful commands, and it stays connected even when power to the board is removed -- the USB connection powers the serial interface separately, so you never lose the link to the board, even when power-cycling it.
As expected, it's not a speed demon, but it's not bad. With the case, the form factor is good and doesn't leave you with bare connectors and spaghetti wiring, and that, for some, may be a good trade-off for a little performance. The included case incorporates a heat sink for the memory and CPU, so you don't have to worry about that, either. It has two USB ports (one 2.0, one 3.0), so in theory you could run ZWave-JS UI and/or Zigbee2MQTT on it. The only issue I had with the hardware was that the case clearance for the MicroSD slot is a little tight, so I could insert a MicroSD card, but I could not get it to "pop out" without removing the board from the case. I fixed that by adjusting the slot size (somewhat inelegantly).
The unit I bought, which included the case, was the only ESPRESSObin configuration available on Amazon at the time, and was priced at US$79. On GlobalScale's web site, the bare board alone was priced much higher at US$99 at the time of this writing. So the Amazon package is a good value, but if you can't get it in that configuration, the benefits of the case are lost and that further devalues the ESPRESSObin, in my view.
My verdict: the ESPRESSObin works, but overall I would not recommend it over, for example, the Libre Computer "Le Potato". I think many users will find the ESPRESSObin a bit too technical to get running, and for less than half the price, Le Potato gives you better performance and easy setup.
Next up: Orange Pi (two models)
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I purchased a GlobalScale ESPRESSObin V7 with case on Amazon for US$79. In its white case, the unit is 110mm x 85mm x 35mm (about 4-1/4 x 3-3/8 x 1-3/8 inches) on its rubber feet. It looks like a small router (because it is), with three Ethernet ports and two USB ports on the "front" side, a MicroUSB connector, power jack, and slot for MicroSD card on the "back" side, and three LEDs on top. The Ethernet ports are arranged in one-WAN two-LAN (switched) configuration (again, like a small router -- it would be perfect for running pfSense). The unit requires a 12VDC power supply with the ubiquitous 5.5mm center-positive male plug. The MicroUSB connector provides a serial console to the board.
The system has a Marvell Armada 3700LP dual core ARM Cortex-A53 processor at 1.2Ghz, so it's a little slower and has half the cores of an RPi 3B+ or my previously-reviewed Libre "Le Potato". Naturally, one can expect less performance as a result, but depending on the purpose, you may never notice.
Getting the thing up and running has a bit of a learning curve. The installation of an OS on the chosen media is well-documented, but not all of the docs are up-to-date, and they assume a few bits of knowledge that aren't obvious if you're not a bit of a techie -- you have to set parameters in the boot firmware manually to get it to look at the right storage device and load the correct kernel, etc. I tried both OpenWRT and Ubuntu 16.04 at first. I had no trouble getting OpenWRT up and running. Ubuntu 16.04 was a different story -- it would not start up, and right as I was about to give up on it, I tried overwriting the kernel on the provided Ubuntu image with another version they had available for separate download (not in the instructions, literally just a random kernel file and three data files). I got that to boot. Unfortunately, once 16.04 was up and running, I could not run a modern version of nodejs because the core libraries are too old. I could have run older versions of nodejs, but none that are current LTS, so why bother? The purpose is to build a lasting configuration! I then decided to try to get ARMbian Jammy (22.08) running, to push on it and see how modern I could go. That turned out to be the easiest of all: I downloaded the image from the ARMbian web site and wrote it to a USB Flash drive, stuck it into the ESPRESSObin, powered it up, set the firmware boot parameters, reset the system, and it booted immediately. I then got nodejs 18.12.1 installed and Reactor up and running in a couple of minutes after.
So it's not a quick startup like an RPi/Libre, but I attribute some of my time to the learning curve, and by the time I got to trying ARMbian, I understood better what the settings meant, and it was pretty easy to get it up and running. And once I "got" it, I also realized how bullet-proof that actually makes the thing, because you can, with sufficient know-how, get it to boot just about anything the ARM CPU will take. The serial console interface gives you a ton of useful commands, and it stays connected even when power to the board is removed -- the USB connection powers the serial interface separately, so you never lose the link to the board, even when power-cycling it.
As expected, it's not a speed demon, but it's not bad. With the case, the form factor is good and doesn't leave you with bare connectors and spaghetti wiring, and that, for some, may be a good trade-off for a little performance. The included case incorporates a heat sink for the memory and CPU, so you don't have to worry about that, either. It has two USB ports (one 2.0, one 3.0), so in theory you could run ZWave-JS UI and/or Zigbee2MQTT on it. The only issue I had with the hardware was that the case clearance for the MicroSD slot is a little tight, so I could insert a MicroSD card, but I could not get it to "pop out" without removing the board from the case. I fixed that by adjusting the slot size (somewhat inelegantly).
The unit I bought, which included the case, was the only ESPRESSObin configuration available on Amazon at the time, and was priced at US$79. On GlobalScale's web site, the bare board alone was priced much higher at US$99 at the time of this writing. So the Amazon package is a good value, but if you can't get it in that configuration, the benefits of the case are lost and that further devalues the ESPRESSObin, in my view.
My verdict: the ESPRESSObin works, but overall I would not recommend it over, for example, the Libre Computer "Le Potato". I think many users will find the ESPRESSObin a bit too technical to get running, and for less than half the price, Le Potato gives you better performance and easy setup.
Next up: Orange Pi (two models)
Thanks for the run down - will be waiting on the next installment for the Orange Pi.
Looks like the OS problems lets the Espresso down. Any sockets for an internal SSD or would the USB 3 socket be taken up with an external SSD?
@toggledbits said in RPi Alternative: ESPRESSObin V7:
ubiquitous 5.5mm center-positive male plug
Need to keep an eye on these: Some take a 2 mm central pin and others use a 2.5 mm pin.
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Thanks for the run down - will be waiting on the next installment for the Orange Pi.
Looks like the OS problems lets the Espresso down. Any sockets for an internal SSD or would the USB 3 socket be taken up with an external SSD?
@toggledbits said in RPi Alternative: ESPRESSObin V7:
ubiquitous 5.5mm center-positive male plug
Need to keep an eye on these: Some take a 2 mm central pin and others use a 2.5 mm pin.
@a-lurker said in RPi Alternative: ESPRESSObin V7:
Looks like the OS problems lets the Espresso down.
The OS issue redeemed itself pretty quickly using ARMbian, and after getting comfortable with what I was doing (I hate just typing in commands from a set of instructions), but from the perspective of documentation, I'd have to agree: GlobalScale lets itself down with dated OS images and incomplete instructions. Anyone who would not find that the ARMbian project separately publishes an up-to-date Debian/ARMbian for this board would be really disappointed and may discard or return it.
@a-lurker said in RPi Alternative: ESPRESSObin V7:
Any sockets for an internal SSD or would the USB 3 socket be taken up with an external SSD?
The V7 boards have a SATA port inside. A common complaint about the case is that it leaves almost no room for any SATA drive or module. The SATA connector is vertical on the board, and indeed, the SATA modules I have would all be too tall to fit in the case without chopping a hole in it. But it's there. There's also a Mini PCIe connector, but I can't find any statement that it can be used for storage (I suspect it could, perhaps with work, as detection is more of an kernel/software issue than a hardware issue). USB 3.0 would also be an option.
The board has provision for eMMC, and more RAM, but I don't see any models that have it. That may be something they make available when you order a custom lot.
Some take a 2 mm central pin and others use a 2.5 mm pin.
Indeed! This is a 2.1mm inner.
