Vadi
@vadivelk · Craftsman
@david_petrie - Tell us about its applications. BTW, very beautiful and sleek design.
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David Petrie
@david_petrie · Engineer @getocean, @icracked. NZer.
@vadivelk The original reason for developing this was to provide a mobile diagnostics platform (via USB OTG) for a nationwide group of technicians. Technicians would visit a number of different locations each day, often with limited internet or cellular access. They could connect to Ocean over Bluetooth on their phone, and then use the Ocean to perform diagnosis via USB.
Ocean also excels at device monitoring and detection, so here are some other example applications we are using the Ocean for:
- "Set and forget" wifi monitoring on a network, where we use kismet to check for unauthorised access on our network.
- Ambient device detection. and service and characteristic discovery, of Bluetooth devices.
- Mobile device backup and restore (e.g. install libimobiledevice libraries for iPhone, or adb for Android).
The above are all things you can mostly do with a mobile phone. However, writing mobile phone apps is hard, and sometimes I just want to write a simple Python or Node script so I can quickly try out an idea. Ocean comes pre-installed with Debian Jessie, so its trivially easy to do that.
At home, I have an Ocean that I use to give me access to several BTLE sensors. The Ocean is connected to the internet over WiFi. It connects to the sensors with Bluetooth, and I thus have an API to access those sensors from anywhere. It's great to try different physical configurations and layouts and the lack of need for a power cable gives a lot of freedom for experimentation.
It's also cool to have a bare metal server to play on that doesn't have to be permanently connected to a power source!
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Kyle Davidson
@kylewdavidson · Vlogger & CEO
@david_petrie I have 2 questions as this looks like the ultimate product for me.
1) Is the webUI/dashboard open source?
2) You mention in the FAQ you can install another OS on it. How is this done? Is it similar to the Pi?
Sorry if these are mentioned on the website, I didn't see specifics there.
Definitely a cool product that I would love to use. Thanks for the discount!
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David Petrie
@david_petrie · Engineer @getocean, @icracked. NZer.
@kylewdavidson @vadivelk
1) We actually hadn't considered open sourcing the web UI and dashboard. It's not a bad idea, I'll have to discuss it with the others on the team. We will be open sourcing almost everything else we can.
2) It's pretty similar to the Pi in that you simply need to replace a micro SD card. The difference with the Ocean is that you will need to unscrew the board from the case to do so. You need a torx and a philips screwdriver to do it.
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Kyle Davidson
@kylewdavidson · Vlogger & CEO
@david_petrie Thanks for the response! This sealed the deal and I ordered one :) I can't wait to check it out. It looks amazing.
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