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Python and the Internet of Things Hack Chat

The power of Python on microcontrollers

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Event Details

The CircuitPython team from Adafruit (Dan Halbert, Kattni Rembor, Limor "Ladyada" Fried, Phillip Torrone, and Scott Shawcroft) will be hosting the Hack Chat on Wednesday, April 3, 2019 at noon PDT.

Time zones got you down? Here's a handy time converter!

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Opinions differ about what the most-used programming language in right now is, but it's hard to deny both the popularity and versatility of Python. In the nearly 30 years since it was invented it has grown from niche language to full-blown development environment that seems to be everywhere these days. That includes our beloved microcontrollers now with CircuitPython, greatly lowering the bar for entry-level hackers and simplifying and speeding development for old hands and providing a path to a Python-powered Internet of Things.

The CircuitPython team from Adafruit Industries will drop by the Hack Chat to answer all your questions about Python and the IoT. Join us as we discuss:

How CircuitPython came to be;
The range of IoT products that support Python;
Getting started with Python on IoT devices; and
What's on the horizon for a Python-powered IoT?

And as extra enticement, we'll be giving away five free one-year passes to Adafruit.io! We'll draw five names at random from the list of Hack Chat attendees. Stop by for a chance to win.

The Adafruit team will be streaming video live during the Hack Chat as well.

And the team made a Python-powered display that gets the time over the net and displays the days, hours, and minutes to the Hack Chat.

Files

4319hackchat.jpeg JPEG Image - 132.39 kB - 03/30/2019 at 22:07	Preview	Download

Event Logs

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Hack Chat Transcript, Part 4
Dan Maloney • 04/03/2019 at 20:08 • 0 comments

Dan Maloney11:56 AM
Hi all - we'll get started in just a minute. Quite a turnout so far..

andy.duli joined the room.11:57 AM

deshipu12:50 PM
@jkshaffstall there is unicode support, we just got a Chinese translation

tannewt12:50 PM
@jkshaffstall UTF-8 should work

tannewt12:51 PM
we're still fixing trickier issues with it though

limor12:51 PM
yay python3 unicode! more bytes() but its worth it

deshipu12:51 PM
(though the Chinese translation uses pinyin)

Hendra Kusumah12:51 PM
Thanks to you too @Kattni and all the CP member for giving me a shot at it

jkshaffstall12:51 PM
Oh, right, Unicode, forgot, way cool guys... And yes, it is worth it. Old geezer here. That's why reference to ASCII...

limor12:52 PM
you can use ascii if ya like :) check the german translation has plenty-o nonascii chars

todbot12:52 PM
but really, when is CircuitPerl going to happen?

jkshaffstall12:52 PM
In transmitting, code and data are irrelevant.

delatorrecohen12:52 PM
are you planning to have another Hack Chat in the future?

Kattni12:52 PM
If you want to see what it's like to add translation strings, check out the Pirate translation!

Matt12:52 PM
Arrrrgggggg....

deshipu12:52 PM
CircuitCOBOL

deshipu12:53 PM
(running on microcontrollers more powerful than the supercomputers it ran on originally)

jkshaffstall12:53 PM
Good choice Scott...:)

limor12:53 PM
python is not toooo different than perl :) i think the additions of python make it the best choice. i really love perl but writin' is on the wall

john joined the room.12:53 PM

Nicolas Tremblay12:53 PM
@deshipu LOL

happyday.mjohnson12:53 PM
@deshipu well, if you're going with CircuitCOBAL let's not forget CircuitFORTRAN

WRR12:53 PM
If Perl is the past and Python is the present, any thoughts on the future?

Dan Halbert12:53 PM
CircuitScheme !

jkshaffstall12:53 PM
Or CircuitBasic….

todbot12:53 PM
@limor haha yeah I only do Perl one-liners nowadays. I'm kinda sad for Perl

limor12:54 PM
there's already circuitscheme, golang, rust for the samd

deshipu12:54 PM
there is Forth, several lisps, lua and javascript

Dave Astels joined the room.12:54 PM

pt12:54 PM

https://learn.adafruit.com/scheme-in-circuitpython

ADAFRUIT

Overview | CircuitScheme - Lisp on CircuitPython | Adafruit Learning System

These provide a description of Lispy and a good introduction to the techniques and considerations of implementing another programming language in Python. This guide will not replicate the content of those papers. You may read them, then come back and see how we can use this in CircuitPython.

Read this on Adafruit

euchcat12:54 PM
Pascal ? :)

limor12:54 PM
note 6.001 ditched scheme for python

Dave Astels12:54 PM
I was following along but hadn't clicked "join"

limor12:54 PM
so that's that for me - i have to go where sussman says

euchcat12:54 PM
or ADA ? :))

tannewt12:54 PM
@WRR I think python is the future as well

deshipu12:54 PM
@euchcat there have to be some limits

pt12:55 PM
tinygo for circuit playground - https://tinygo.org/

jkshaffstall12:55 PM
Is there a future for C++ ???

limor12:55 PM
python is the #1 growing language, used by kids, students, biologists, mathematicians...everyone

Dan Maloney12:55 PM
We've got about five minutes left. I've got the winners of the giveaway...

Kattni12:55 PM
Hooray!

limor12:55 PM
yayyy freee!

happyday.mjohnson12:55 PM
ooh ooh....did i win did i win????

Hendra Kusumah12:55 PM
yeaayy

EventHor1zon12:55 PM
huzzah

David12:55 PM
give aways?

deshipu12:55 PM
@jkshaffstall languages don't die, there are still COBOL programmers hiding in the basements of swiss banks

Dan Maloney12:55 PM
Congratulations to:

@salec

@brian hughes

@Frank Buss

@rmuller325

@bailey steinfadt

Please contact pt@adafruit.com to make...
Read more »
Hack Chat Transcript, Part 3
Dan Maloney • 04/03/2019 at 20:07 • 0 comments

tannewt12:36 PM

https://github.com/mithro/valentyusb

GITHUB

mithro/valentyusb

USB Full-Speed core written in migen/LiteX. Contribute to mithro/valentyusb development by creating an account on GitHub.

Read this on GitHub

todbot12:36 PM
too bad there isn't a "BLE mass storage" class

Hendra Kusumah12:36 PM
@Dan Halbert great. Thanks for all the answer

Dan Maloney12:36 PM
FYI everyone, Adafruit is kindly giving away one-year Adafruit.io passes to five random Hack Chat attendees. I'll do the drawing for that in about 15 minutes, so stay logged on for that.

happyday.mjohnson12:36 PM
@deshipu hmmm.. that doesn't make sense for iot devices. Don't we have to "python family" choices for a microcontroller? CP or mp.

David12:36 PM
artix might be too expensive, probably $70+ starting prices

Dan Halbert12:37 PM
CircuitPython is great for learning about physical computing and doing maker projects; it is not our objective to be an OEM programming language, but we're happy when it happnes

tannewt12:37 PM
@todbot agreed. I want to add file transfer later in the year for that reason

todbot12:37 PM
@tannewt sort of like rshell for CP?

kglasnapp joined the room.12:37 PM

jkshaffstall joined the room.12:37 PM

Dan Halbert12:37 PM
@todbot "BLE mass storage" we want to provide a BLE-based workflow so you can program a CircuitPython board via BLE on a tablet or phone.

deshipu12:37 PM
@happyday.mjohnson I dont' think there is any particular curriculum or development plan yet, but thanks for bringing it up, it's probably a good thing to think about

jkshaffstall12:38 PM
Just join chat.

pt12:38 PM
the latest io updates are here: https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/04/02/adafruit-iot-monthly-april-2019-adafruitio-iot-adafruitio/

happyday.mjohnson12:38 PM
@Dan Halbert thank you. it really helps me to understand the vision. That does mean there is a spot of chasm between CP and "iot product ship." But how beautiful to learn with!

Dan Smith12:38 PM
@Dan Halbert elementary teacher question here: Is circuit Python a fork of MicroPython?

deshipu12:38 PM
it is

Dan Halbert12:38 PM
@Dan Smith Yes

Dan Smith12:38 PM
thanks!!

limor12:38 PM
here's another good link - FAQ for circuitpython https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/frequently-asked-questions

Dan Halbert12:39 PM
the base language is the same; we have different native I/O libraries; we are a "friendly" fork

pt12:39 PM
here is the IoT project that works with the hackchat api, when you click like you can see the skulls go up - https://hackaday.io/project/163309-circuitpython-hackaday-portal-pyportal

limor12:39 PM
for IoT projects, its super fast to get started and design your project

JustTheDazz12:39 PM
Is there a book(s) you recommend for learning more with CircuitPython & also MicroPython?

jkshaffstall12:39 PM
I got a send and receive socket working in Python the other night using the socket library. Are you going to port that library?

Dan Smith12:39 PM
@limor awesome. More about convincing the parents, you're a hero to the students :)

pt12:40 PM
@JustTheDazz mike b had "Getting Started with Circuit Playground express..."

pt12:40 PM
AND

deshipu12:40 PM
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920056515.do <-- Programming with MicroPython by Nicholas Tollervey

Chris12:40 PM
Is there anything to share about the airlift devices mentioned in one of the recent CP emails?

limor12:40 PM
jk, we have socket support for the ESP32 coproc working that's how we implemented requests

pt12:40 PM

https://github.com/adafruit/awesome-circuitpython

GITHUB

adafruit/awesome-circuitpython

A curated list of awesome CircuitPython guides, videos, libraries, frameworks, software and resources. - adafruit/awesome-circuitpython

Read this on GitHub

pt12:40 PM

https://github.com/adafruit/awesome-circuitpython#books

GITHUB...
Read more »
Hack Chat Transcript, Part 2
Dan Maloney • 04/03/2019 at 20:05 • 0 comments

limor12:21 PM
we haven't seen any awesome mqtt lib's yet but if you do let us know

happyday.mjohnson12:21 PM
@chris - i was able to access adafruit.io from a generic mqtt library from my flutter app.

deshipu12:21 PM
@happyday.mjohnson for sure, but there are always a lot of things that would be nice to add as well — I'm sure there will be sleep support eventually

todbot12:21 PM
@tannewt wrt micropython native code in mpy, are you referring to this PR? https://github.com/micropython/micropython/pull/4588

limor12:21 PM
happy, we haen't implemented it yet - if you'd like to help out check out the issue and you can try implementing it!

Dan Halbert12:22 PM
@happyday.mjohnson the answer is not "no", but "not yet"

limor12:22 PM
right now our focus is getting 4.0 out to release candidate :)

tannewt12:22 PM
@todbot yup!

happyday.mjohnson12:22 PM
@deshipu of course - btw, thank you for all the incredible work you have done both on micropython and cp.

deshipu12:22 PM
@happyday.mjohnson thanks :)

happyday.mjohnson12:22 PM
@Dan Halbert thank you. i was just curious given this discussion is about iot, cp doesn't do much for battery life.

WRR12:23 PM
Does anyone know of any actually released products that use CircuitPython or MicroPython? Can it translate reasonably well from prototyping to production?

Boian Mitov12:23 PM
I have implemented MQTT in Visuino, and it is open source

deshipu12:23 PM
@WRR check out the http://circuitpython.org for a list

WRR12:23 PM
Thanks!

Hendra Kusumah12:23 PM
is the CP support for the NRF52 based board like particle xenon already mature enough?

limor12:24 PM
yeah there's the TI calculator add on that supprots circuitpython

happyday.mjohnson12:24 PM
also - i love the simplicity of Adafruit.io versus offerings from say google.

limor12:24 PM
the TI-83 Premium

Dan Halbert12:24 PM
@Hendra

pt12:24 PM
TI calc ships with CircuitPython - https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/03/31/use-circuitpython-boards-on-the-ti-83-premium-ce-calculator-tiplanetnews-ticalculators-circuitpython-circuitpython/

David12:24 PM
has anyone tried the sipeed Maix modules?

WRR12:24 PM
Wow, that's cool! Wish I'd had that in my math classes...

Matt12:24 PM
OpenMV ?

Boian Mitov12:24 PM

https://bitbucket.org/mitov/visuino-libraries/src/master/

BITBUCKET

mitov / Visuino libraries / source / - Bitbucket

Added "Array Insert Items", and "Array Replace Items At Index" components

Read this on Bitbucket

Dan Halbert12:24 PM
@Hendra Kusumah we have simple BLE peripheral support working and are working on more; we aren't supporting the particle.io cloud stuff specifically; we have our own Feather nRF52840 board

Cesos12:25 PM
Are there any good Bluetooth support libraries for the ESP32?

limor12:25 PM
@boian has to be in python :)

Boian Mitov12:25 PM
I have also added Bluetooth support for ESP32 in the Visuino libraries :-)

tannewt12:25 PM
@David I haven't but I've seen some folks on the MicroPython forum I think

pt12:25 PM
for micropython, products: casio calc, numworks calc as far as shipping products

Boian Mitov12:26 PM
Sorry, Python is just not my cup of tee :-D

Dan Halbert12:26 PM
@Cesos I think BLE support for ESP32 is early days even for Arduino, etc.

David12:26 PM
@tannewt thanks for the tip.

limor12:26 PM
boian, all good - this hackchat is about python on hardware :D

tannewt12:26 PM
np

happyday.mjohnson12:26 PM
is there any thought of a debugger for CP?

David12:26 PM
Im interested in edge AI. Will circuit python support Tensorflow?

David12:26 PM

https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/guide/microcontroller

TENSORFLOW

Microcontrollers | TensorFlow Lite | TensorFlow

TensorFlow Lite for mobile and embedded devices

Read this on TensorFlow

Hendra Kusumah12:27 PM
@Dan Halbert thanks for the answer, I don't mind not using...
Read more »
Hack Chat Transcript, Part 1
Dan Maloney • 04/03/2019 at 20:04 • 0 comments

Dan Maloney11:56 AM
Hi all - we'll get started in just a minute. Quite a turnout so far..

andy.duli joined the room.11:57 AM

limor11:57 AM
yayyyy!@

limor11:57 AM
/me does a jig

JustTheDazz11:57 AM
Hi Everyone!

Cesos11:58 AM
Hello world!

juli11:58 AM
Hi everyonee

andy.duli11:59 AM
Hello everyone. Just lurking. I'm working on a router at the moment.

Boian Mitov11:59 AM
Hello everyone :-)

Dan Maloney12:00 PM
Alright, let's kick it off. Welcome to the Python and IoT Hack Chat. Today we have the Adafruit CircuitPython team online to discuss all your Python questions with microcontrollers and IoT stuff. Not sure who on the Adafruit side is going to take lead - I've seen Limor and Kattni so far. Anyone else want to say hi? Oops - there's PT too. Anyone else.

Dan Maloney12:00 PM
?

limor12:00 PM
yahhh! we're ready1

tannewt12:00 PM
Hi! I'm Scott and also work on the CircuitPython core.

jamesonbeebe12:01 PM
YEAH! LETS DO THIS!

limor12:01 PM
we got with us @tannewt and @Dan Halbert

deshipu12:01 PM
the video stream:

Kattni12:01 PM
Hello, everyone! I'm Kattni and I work with the CircuitPython libraries!

limor12:01 PM
also @Bryan Siepert perhaps

pt12:01 PM
here we go!

Dan Halbert12:01 PM
I'm Dan and I also work on CircuitPython core

delatorrecohen joined the room.12:02 PM

Dan Maloney12:02 PM
So Scott, Dan, Limor, PT, Kattni, and Bryan

Kattni12:02 PM
Bryan won't be joining us

Dan Maloney12:02 PM
Welcome all and thanks for being here.

delatorrecohen12:02 PM
Hi everyone...

Rebecca E. Skinner12:02 PM
Rebecca Skinner, interested in IoT, environmental data, sensors, etc.

Dan Maloney12:03 PM
Hi Rebecca, welcome

limor12:03 PM
ok everybody

limor12:03 PM
so - on the topic of IoT and Environmental sensors

limor12:03 PM
we haz like 150 libraries for all sorts of sensors you can use with CircuitPython

limor12:04 PM
yah @kattni is the official Library Keeper

limor12:04 PM
so we have your sensors covered - whew!

limor12:04 PM
next up we recently added IoT support to circuitpython - using an ESP32 as a a wifi coprocessor

limor12:04 PM
SO

limor12:04 PM
you are about to ask

Kattni12:04 PM
CircuitPython libraries list! https://circuitpython.readthedocs.io/projects/bundle/en/latest/drivers.html

limor12:04 PM
WHY DIDNT YOU JUST USE THE ESP32!?!?!

Andrej Mosat12:04 PM
There seems to be the micropython forum, now branching off to other platforms (stm32, esp32, circuit python, microbit) So what is the overall strategy on the circuit / adafruit python both software and hardware ?

limor12:04 PM
LIMOR WHAT IS RONG WITH YOU? THER EIS ESP32 FOR MICROPYTHON!

limor12:04 PM
great quesiont!

limor12:04 PM
answer is - we wanted native usb for the awesome circuitpython experience (1)

limor12:05 PM
and (2) we find that we do best when we offload all the SSL TLS ceriticate stuff and have it run async

limor12:05 PM
ESP32 is so cheap and easy to use, its great as a coproc - lovin' it

jamesonbeebe12:05 PM
I'll tip my hat to that!

limor12:06 PM
for the hardware API we're trying very very very hard to stick to *one* api for all hardware so we only have to maintain one version of our drivers

Hendra Kusumah12:06 PM
hello all, a micropython enthusiast here from Indonesia. Thanks for the answer regarding circuitpython for esp32 @limor . I can sleep in peace now

Andrej Mosat12:06 PM
like HAL ?

deshipu12:06 PM
@Andrej Mosat like the "machine" module on the MicroPython

limor12:07 PM
e.g. the Si7021 lirbary will run on a Rapi, Google Coral, Nvidia Jetson, Circuit Playground, nRF52840...

pt12:07 PM
@Andrej Mosat for circuitpython, beginner friendly, drivers for tons of hardware, works with the most devices/hardware

Dan Halbert12:07 PM
@Andre like digitalio, busio, pulseio, board, ...

limor12:07...
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