Does the Oak have a future??

[marcmerlin]

thanks for making a new thread for me.
Yes there is the hang and infinite loop, but for me it says "your post is awaiting moderation", likely because I haven't posted enough here (I tried removing URLs, and that didn't help)

[PeterF]

Hm... maybe something changed due to spammers... it's been a long time since my dozen posts so I could also be forgetting what it was like. I did notice the hanging issue after submitting the post for a new thread... a reload of the tab showed the new thread created though :-/

[postuma]

It's funny Marc - I'm still a newbie to the system, as well, but I don't get the 'awaiting moderation' message. That may account for the delay, though, since I still experience it as well. I wonder if there's some background bot that does checking/verification against malicious code before logging our new posts.

Paul

[postuma]

Ah - gottit!

SMF - the bulletin board system we use here, has a Post count under which users must pass verification to make a post setting, which forces "users with a post count below the number set to pass anti-spam bot verification each time they make a post." This used to be a CAPTCHA but because of how broken this system is, there are now a large number of SMF anti-spam mods that can be run in the background for us newbies, all of which take time to run, and the sophisticated ones often take longest.

[emardee]

A bit off-topic... but did everyone see what Erik has been working on recently? (Is on-topic in the sense it explains where Erik has been of late).

BuildOne - $99 3D Printer on Kickstarter!

He's even offering a free $15 upgrade (or $15 discount if you pick a higher package) for previous customers (eg you guys)! It certainly explains his absence here recently. I might start a discussion about the printer elsewhere on the board (maybe up in General?), so we can keep this discussion around the implications it has on Oak future.

Certainly at first I was torn whether this was a good thing, and also whether my Oak experience meant I would or wouldn't support the BuildOne. (Spoiler: I've chosen to back the project, and I hope this will work out OK!)

Mike

[emardee]

I've just created a thread to discuss the printer itself.

I forgot to mention here the obvious Oak link... The 3D printer has an ESP8266 for Wifi control, which presumably means Erik is using either Acorn or Oak boards for this.

Mike

[ScottM]

I backed Oak on Kickstarter way back when and received 10 Oaks. I spent so many hours of my life trying to get them all to work and never did. I just popped back into this forum today to see if anything has changed and sadly, it doesn't look good. I still hold out hope for my Oaks, but in the meantime, the world has moved on and I'm going to investigate other IT options, like PI Zero.

The 3D printer looks interesting though, but I can tell you that without a strong user community, it can't survive. I bought a Tevo Black Widow printer and it had its growing pains. They all do. Without a very large Facebook group, I would have not survived.

[PeterF]

Oh the timing!

I just got a email the rather frazzled Erik who has resurfaced the headlong dive from the unexpected opportunity to work on the project which was the BuildOne printer.

Local server stuff is still on the agenda, so don't panic there. And possibly a Particle alternative, since the reliability of Particle of late appears to be leaving much to be desired of late... and Particle doesn't appear to be giving quite the support they originally promised. I won't say any more as I don't want to steal Erik's thunder, but hopefully this will reassure and appease those of you (us!) who have been growing more concerned. We haven't been forgotten... and he still keeps a finger on the pulse of the forum...

[etatto]

For my 5 Oak, I have drop the official firmware for ESPEasy mega firmware and I think I will not return.
Stable, reliable, OTA, up to date with ESP8266 Core... Nothing compare with official firmware

[emardee]

Be interested to hear more about the idea of a Particle replacement (RootCloud?). Been a rocky road to this point with more problems and delays than I'd hoped for. Some great times in the middle though where everything worked as expected (sort of). These units still have great potential though, so they deserve good long term stability. The challenge will be getting there. BuildOne is going to be a distraction for a little while yet.

My Oaks are needed for a project soon, so hoping for good long-term stable setup by then (either on Particle or RootCloud).

Be great to hear from Erik in person, and be able to discuss a realistic roadmap and timeline, because that would help me plan my own timings.

Mike

[emardee]

In case any of you are not following the original Kickstarter for the Oak, Erik has posted an update there about the Oak future and ongoing support.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/oak-by-digistump-wi-fi-for-all-things-arduino-comp/posts/1912567

Bottom line, Erik is busy with earning money to feed his family (making the BuildOne 3D Printer), but hasn't abandoned the Oak. There is work on his own new simple "local server" which will be able to be used instead of Particle Cloud. He also plans to make a hosted version if this available as a cloud service too. This won't be the "root cloud" though as it is too obsolete now, instead it is new code which ties into ESP8266 OTA firmware. In the comments there, he also confirms that separately, Particle are investigating the problems with a view to getting Particle OTA programming working again. Sounds like a promising set of news, albeit to be held with a realistic timeline because Erik is working on the BuildOne 3D Printer with tight deadlines too. I guess we watch this space...

Also if anyone has any coding skills to help speed any of that development work along, I'm sure the community would be grateful!