Moyerman - Make: getting started with Intel Edison

by Stephanie Moyerman

Copyright 2016 Stephanie Moyerman. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

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• November 2015: First Edition

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978-1-457-18759-9

[LSI]

Intel Edison is well, its hard to say. Intel Edison is so many different things. If someone told you about Edison 10 years ago, you would have thought that person was utterly insane.

At its core, Intel Edison is a very powerful and cheap little computer. Priced at around $50 USD, this dual-core Atom processor is comparable to an entry-level Windows 8 tablet. At only a small fraction of the cost, it contains all the software amenities of modern-day computing. The system contains 1 GB of memory and 4 GB of storage to handle heavy computational tasks and data logging.

Intel Edison is a communications device. It comes integrated with Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities and preinstalled software to run both.

Intel Edison is a hardware development platform. It contains an Intel Quark microcontroller that allows you to program and control connected devices and circuits. Its also Arduino-compatible, meaning the vast majority of shields, code examples, and libraries that have been specifically designed for Arduino will work as is with Edison, too.

Finally, Intel Edison is an embedded device, designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technology. Even though Intel Edison is a computer, communications device, and hardware development platform, it weighs only eight grams, is approximately the size of a postage stamp, and can run in low power modes.

While on the subject, its worth taking a moment to discuss what Edison is not. Although Edison is a standalone computer running a full Linux operating system, its meant to be the brains of your connected and wearable devicesnot a laptop or desktop in the traditional sense. For this reason, Edison does not interface with a display, keyboard, or mouse on its own; you connect to Edison through a host computer and load your software directly on the module. Edison is not a great choice if youre looking to build a home media console or old-school arcade game (though both could still be done, with a lot of work), but its a great candidate for a personal assistant, smart watch, automated robot, smart-home controller, or basically any other electronic system you can imagine. What will you make?