OpenMV Cam M7 progress

Hello guys, I think you should promote this camera more agressively. Looks like people are still do not know about it. And even more does not know about OpenMV any camera, it’s capabilities and features. Also some do think that it has closed source firmware.

Any ideas for what we should do? I’ve reached out to a few places with no responses.

I’ve tried to put URL in many embedded electronic groups in Google+. I’m not a advertisement/sales guy. But it would be nice to have an article about this project that describes most of the things. Some introduction that starts with a new camera and follows by old version with images of “look what projects could be done with it”, some videos, code examples… So people could be attracted even if they didn’t want to get this from the beginning (because they were not informed well). And then go to all possible places and share this link. Also you could try to reach non-english portals too if you are able to translate this article (I could help with russian version). Some good places are:

http://easyelectronics.ru/

https://www.nixp.ru/

Also why not to try to contact Adafruit guys? And/or create your own video “article” if you have time and resources )

I’ve reached out to Hackaday where this project was born for them to feature us in an article. So far no response… even though I talked to them at the Hackaday conferences. Adafruit gave us a big no on selling our product when I last talked to them. But, that was more than 6 months ago. We’ve sent samples to SparkFun and they will get around to reviewing it eventually, they seem interested at least. Finally, we’ve sent stuff to Seeed Studio but talks broke down for some reason on that front. I guess I’ll have to re-approach that later.

Something which should show some concrete results in the mean time will be putting up Google Adwords.

As for videos we could really user user help to make those. I’m trying to stay focused on developing the platform so people can use it easily. Right now I’m finally getting the docs up to date.

Anyway, thanks for the ideas! Maybe once I get that QRCode library working I’ll do a video of that. I think the M4 board can actually handle it.

I look forward to putting in preorder for two M7 cams. But before I do, I would like to see some information on things like:

  • what is being/will be done to prevent parts / manufacturing issues such as ones that plagued the kickstarter campaign?
  • if some such issues nevertheless arise, what is the policy?
  • what kind of warranty & return policy is offered?

Thanks.

Hi:

*So, the big issue last time was the camera sensor, the OV2640 sensor. We switched to the OV7725 sensor and our problems went away. We’ll continue using the OV7725 sensor.

  • As for the new design there are only minimal changes between it and the current M4 based board we sell.
  • The USB connector is now through-hole so you can’t rip it off. This was an issue for a lot of folks.
  • Finally, we’ll have a better version of the boot loader which should not have programming issues.

In addition to all the above we’re repeating the same manufacturing process that worked for us with the M4 boards. In particular, right now we are still running prototypes to get a golden design. Our last prototype should be in our hands next week. Assuming it works without any issue we’ll order 40 boards like we did for the M4 cam on 2 panels. These two panels will be tested with a new testing rig.

If all the above works without issue we’ll begin full production.

As for a policy if manufacturing problems arise - we should be able to provide a full refund. M4 sales will cover the bulk of the manufacturing cost. I.e. we are mainly paying for the production run out of pocket. The M7 sales are most useful for making is so the company doesn’t go broke after the M7 production run.

As for the warranty policy. We’ve been replacing broken OpenMV Cam’s without any question currently. Returns however, will not be accepted after the order has shipped. We have no capacity to handle returns. If you want a refund you need to ask me to cancel your order before it ships.

Hello there,

I’m using this product to develop a robot here in China that is used for the automotive industry… If this works out like I think it will, we will require thousands of these units.

Currently, they use a udp based camera made in Beijing for the current platform and have tried out a German brand too. None of these models can compare to the M7 I’m testing out now.
Once I get the last bug worked out, I will install this on the robot.

Time is of the essence here and the project is overdue by about two weeks. What’s really lacking on this model is the frames per second are kinda low, but a bit more tweaking may get it in line
with where it needs to be.

My hats off to you guys, this is a very nice product.

Robert

PS. Is there any hidden loop holes that would stop me from using your product in a commercial application? I my self would think you should be very interested in this. Also when I purchased this model
It came with a key to use, where do I use it?

One other thing to note here is the MCU used in the M7 version, I also design using the STM32F series of arms, but I should draw you attention to the FT90 series, much Higher throughput on the models, much more! may improve your product to the next level.

Just some food for thought, Also Mikro-electronica (mikro compilers) makes the development board for those FT90 series chips and in any programming language you want to write it in.

I’m not trying to increase there sales, but more like trying to increase your sales, I want your product to grow and be around for a while!

Robert

PS for more information on what I’m doing here visit: www.yonegy.com

This is our website and you can see what kind of products I will be using your M7 in…

This will be our first product using your OpenMV M7.

The actual link to the AGV robot:

Great to hear you are putting it in a commercial application. We actually have to gain more projects like this for the company to grow. Hobbyist sales will allow us to keep selling forever more or less… But, me and Ibrahim don’t really get paid at the current sales level so that’s why we are moving to using the STM32H7 along with having global shutter and thermal imaging support. We’ve had alot of people asking for things like low power presence detection and we should now be able to do that with ease.

Note that you can program the OpenMV Cam in C and bake your script into it in C. The python level interface makes it easy to use… But, it’s open hardware that you can bend to whatever will you like. If you want to keep your script secure then you need to bake your script into the C firm and then use the protection bits in the STM32 to prevent flash access. Technically, you have register access to all memory using MicroPython so you can do this in the python world too.

Um, anyway, after the STM32H7 we will likely start working on a linux based camera. We’ve been stuck using the STM32 line of chips because they require the least amount of software rework to upgrade to along with having the least amount of risk to design with. We expect to be able to stay with the STM32H7 and it’s 600+ MHz cousin that will come out soon for quite a while giving us a solid base of sales for a few years.

The product key is for use with OpenMV IDE. If the camera is not registered OpenMV IDE will bug you about the camera sales not supporting OpenMV. If you’re not getting bugged about the issue then I guess you are fine.