That one looks really great,I’d buy one 
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One cool side of the LCD screen instead of physical CPU bars is that in addition also working for 8 or 32 cores in the future that it can change the screen background color to match the case.
So if you build your case as orange or magenta instead of blue it’s only one parameter to change on the ESP -screen module.
I am thinking there could even be a system prefs app to set this which would send settings (such as background color ) to it or even just call esptool to flash a new version directly.
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The Haikube wouldn’t be from one manufacturer as it’s an open system so I’d encourage many to build/sell their version based on a reference implementation sharing only common stuff (a recognizable cube shape and a ESP32 screen controller so the code remains the same).
Instead of being only seen as that Haiku that runs on old Thinkpads (which are great) it could be also the one that runs on a variety of colorful boxes. But
Basically this but homemade by diverse makers:
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I don’t even have a visionfive yet (but ordered one to fiddle). Being in Brazil it’ll take a month :-/
You certainly know more about this than I do. I thought initially about using UART for simplicity. Notably because to be able to work during the boot process it should be pretty minimal and not add new risks of crashing.
I used these ESp32 modules only with Arduino / ESPHome. They have this advantage of being completely self contained compared to a screen you’d access with more complex code on the Haiku side. They can turn on immediately on boot before the main board (being either Intel or risc-v) and display something (such as time elapsed since start and an eventual error if no communication is received)
I find the idea appealing in both modes: a minimalist communication model (send only values to display and use pre-flashed graphics) and the whole demo scene way of doing whatever you want with this screen to impress your friends once the OS is loaded.
Ideally I’d want a small SDK that any app could add so it would be a few lines to display a chart or a progress bar from your torrent client or your video compression app or anything. Just set name , color or bar and percentage and the module would display it.
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I want one of these
Looks great but I wonder what the height is needed for since it has no disks and the visionfive 2 is powered by USB C? Could be a slim design with LCD on the right hand side? Or will it have drive bays there?
It’s a shame there are not headers for things like USB on the visionfive 2, so that front mounted ports could be more easily added. I looked at the star64 and milk v mars and they are also lacking there. I guess the milk v mars compute could be an option but much more work.
Well first off all it’s just a preliminary mockup. The thing is a perfect cube just… looks nice. After all the idea is to make recognizable hardware. Something people can see and this “oh a haiku box”.
Remember the Vision Pro fits in a 12cm length so if you push the height up it’s still a rather small 12x12x12 cube. I can dream of a a place with many of these cubes in various colors .
I thought about putting a decent speaker in the remaining height. The center circle presents a volume rotary button. It could be also work as an open source HomePod . See home assistant for how this can be setup (on Linux nowadays).
I imagine a minimum desktop with just a pure cube box shape and a screen.
In terms of design I’d like to avoid usb ports even if agree they are practical for plugging stuff in rapidly. Maybe in a sliding door. But ports hidden at the back look nicer .
Wow that’s really creative, I love the name and colour scheme!
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I like it but one speaker is a cheap design. It ends up being a bit indicator. Put two of them and you have a little media box. Interface the LCD with MediaKit and you can even have song or radio infos. It’s not like if you don’t have room, one speaker on each side should do it.
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Of course , I said “a speaker” but I meant a small stereo pair. It could work like a HomePod without all the corporate crap.
Sure there is a wide variety of quality in this world and each builder should be able to chose to go for cheap and decent or higher end stuff , depending on size of box.
Wonder what would be the best way to connect them? I thought maybe USB speakers as support has recently started working and it is bound to be universal at some point. Not sure what audio output works on the VisionFive 2 today.
Note that I’d like the design to remain generic, so it can work with a Vision Pro but also a small x86 box and just reuse the same type of ESP32 to get the things on screen & speakers independently of main board architecture.
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I propose that this should be called the Haiku Hako.