Embedded Vision Development Kit- Now $199 (Limited Time Offer)*

[ebclr]

http://www.latticesemi.com/Products/DevelopmentBoardsAndKits/EmbeddedVisionDevelopmentKit.aspx?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3NOzk7mu1wIVjA-RCh1SRQqXEAEYASAAEgILoPD_BwE

[sibeen]

May be the longest 'limited time' offer I've ever seen bandied about except for some late night television carpet salesmen

[rstofer]

For me, the 'catch' is the "evaluation" version of the development tool.  How crippled is it?  If it's full featured, is it time limited?
The board set is clearly doable and, perhaps, worthwhile as an educational experiment (education has NEVER been free) but what I can't afford to do is buy an expensive toolchain when the "evaluation" period runs out.

[asmi]

For me, the 'catch' is the "evaluation" version of the development tool.  How crippled is it?  If it's full featured, is it time limited?
The board set is clearly doable and, perhaps, worthwhile as an educational experiment (education has NEVER been free) but what I can't afford to do is buy an expensive toolchain when the "evaluation" period runs out.

I think it's part-locked to specific part that is onboard, just like many other devkit offerings.

[lukier]

I've noticed that a while ago but the free version of Lattice Diamond doesn't support this part (ECP5UM5G) and I couldn't find if there is a device-locked license with the kit. I've asked this question via "Contact Sales" but got no reply

On the website it only says:
"Embedded Vision Development Kit Diamond License Information" - which might mean anything, e.g. a leaflet saying "buy your license now, only $XXX"

For another dev. kit, http://www.latticesemi.com/Products/DevelopmentBoardsAndKits/ECP55GVersaDevKit.aspx it is explicitly stated:
"Diamond Free License - for the ECP5-5G Versa Development Kit Only"

So yeah, cheap dev kit, but then $1000/year for the development environment.

[ebclr]

It's too good to be true, but it's true, don't  try to find out catches, The software will run but license locked to this device

[diyaudio]

The ZYNQ 7000 is probably still the cheapest option at the moment.

[asmi]

The ZYNQ 7000 is probably still the cheapest option at the moment.

Good Zynq devboards (==ones that have high-speed connectors) are quite expensive. I think ZedBoard is the cheapest one, and it retails for $495. That is not cheap in my book.

[nicklinn]

Good Zynq devboards (==ones that have high-speed connectors) are quite expensive. I think ZedBoard is the cheapest one, and it retails for $495. That is not cheap in my book.

Really depends on what you are doing.  These guys: http://www.myirtech.com/ have a CPU module for around $140-160 or they sell a board with LPC FMC for $310-330

[ebclr]

This comes with 2  Cameras and a lot of things, is really a nice product at this price

[lukier]

This comes with 2  Cameras and a lot of things, is really a nice product at this price

That's true, however I didn't like the HDMI output, the lack of USB 3.0 is a missed opportunity. If I would buy this kit I would need to design a "cape" to replace the HDMI one with some USB 3.0 interface (Cypress FX3, FT601 or similar).

Also, I don't get this business with the MIPI switch on the cameras board. I know they wanted to feature their product, but is this really a switch so only one camera stream at a time, or some MIPI stream combiner? I was thinking about using this kit for Stereo Vision and in this application I would ideally have 2 streams from sensors running as much as possible in step (clock, settings etc).