Wireless Oscilloscope Feedback

[jrward]

Hi,

A friend and I are developing a battery-powered pen-sized wireless oscilloscope probe that syncs to a tablet or phone. I've been mainly a lurker on this forum but wanted to try to get your feedback on the project and any ideas for features we should add.

From the very beginning, we wanted to make a "real" scope and not a toy. To that end, the scope has a 500 MSPS ADC and 100 MHz of analog bandwidth. It has nine voltage ranges from 20 mV/div up to 10 V/div and can measure signals up to +/- 40V. It uses Bluetooth LE (BT 4.1) for data transfer. A lot of people are incredulous about this, but our secret is to put the entire scope inside the probe. The wireless link is just used to send "video" frames and control information.

We support iOS right now and plan to support Android and other platforms in the future. If we get enough interest, we will accelerate things to support Android at launch. Is lack of Android support a deal killer?

You can see more at www.aeroscope.io

[TheAmmoniacal]

Looks unrealistic, got working prototypes?

I personally won't but anything that relies on a phone OS to work. (I own neither iOS or Android devices)

[tggzzz]

Since you are shipping in 6 months time, no doubt you already have a working prototype.

Can you please show us an example of a 100MHz signal that has been captured and displayed by your device.

[jrward]

We've been working on this part-time for close to 2 years. In that time, we've had many rounds of prototypes including a wireless version over a year ago. Getting it to work wirelessly was much easier than developing a low cost, low power 100 MHZ BW front-end.

We chose phones and tablets for now because we've never had a good experience with PC-based instruments. Also, one of the main advantages is portability. We might develop a windows or os x version in the future.

[jrward]

tggzzz, we don't have sinc interpolation implemented yet so the waveform will be kinda sparse sample-wise. Do you really want a picture of a waveform and then take my word for it? It seem like you really would want a video of a sweep in frequency.

[tggzzz]

tggzzz, we don't have sinc interpolation implemented yet so the waveform will be kinda sparse sample-wise. Do you really want a picture of a waveform and then take my word for it? It seem like you really would want a video of a sweep in frequency.

Naturally you don't have to provide anything, but anything you do provide will tend to prevent people even wondering whether this is vapourware.

We can learn a lot from a photo of the scope's response to a square wave input, i.e. a waveform where the risetime is much less than the scope's bandwidth (<1ns is easy to achieve with, say 74LVC1G* output). If the frequency is, say, 10MHz then we can see the complete step response before the next step occurs.

Any "suboptimalities" can be accepted if you note them, and preferably give the reason for them.

As for sinc interpolation, quite frankly I feel comfortable if the scope shows just the sample points without any interpolation. Sinc interpolation can sometimes be very misleading, e.g. with eye diagrams.

[ebclr]

I would suggest supply an SDK and open protocols, with this people, can add other platforms, and will create new markets and applications for free, just offer free access to the wireless information with a clear well-documented protocol, and unthanked applications will pop around,

[Jeroen3]

Looks great. But I'll wait until Dave handled one in Mailbag. You are sending him one, right?

[garnix]

From the very beginning, we wanted to make a "real" scope and not a toy. To that end, the scope has a 500 MSPS ADC and 100 MHz of analog bandwidth.
 
You can see more at www.aeroscope.io

BTW, what happened to the specs? It looks like you released it with 20 MHz bandwidth and 100 MSPS samplerate?

[abraxa]

You know... with such a big case and tiny OLED displays available, it would make sense to make this an all-in-one "just show me the signal" unit that *also* can send the data to a phone. I don't really understand the use case otherwise. One channel? 4k record length? For 200 bucks?!

And btw, every single use case I see on the kickstarter is moot.
Attaching it to a mobile vehicle - moot because of the 4k sample length.
Working outdoors - why would someone *debug* stuff outdoors? Replace the unit or take the unit to the lab and fix it there, or do those people also take wireless soldering irons with them?
Working on a table at home - seriously?

The one - ONE! - use case I can think of where such a device is perfect is when galvanic isolation is needed for personal safety. Think SMPS debugging. And THIS use case isn't covered because of the input voltage range and lack of a suitable divider probe.

[el_dooderino]

I am one of the creators of Aeroscope. Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm surprised to see this old thread get some renewed interest. Here are some responses:

ebclr: We do have an open source protocol. You can find the protocol documentation here: https://github.com/aeroscope/AeroscopeProtocol

Jeroen3: We haven't sent one to Dave yet but we do plan on doing so in the future.

garnix: For our first product, the lower BOM cost makes more sense for our small company. The higher cost 100 MHz version required more volume and up front cash and just didn't make sense from a financial point of view for our first product. We also found that a lot of our first customers are electronics hobbyists who are more concerned with price than performance. We still have a working design for the higher performance model and plan on releasing it in the future.

abraxa: I think that our $200 price point for an ultra portable, 20MHz bandwidth, isolated scope is compelling. I'm sorry that you don't have any use cases that would benefit from such an instrument. Regarding the input voltage range, Aeroscope's input impedance is compatible with standard passive probes. You can use a 10x probe to expand the measurable input range. http://www.aeroscope.io/10x-probe-demo

Thanks again for the feedback.

[David Chamberlain]

I'm also a little confused about use cases for this product. Lets say your a field technician 50 feet up a pole (as some of your promotional photographs suggest) holding you iphone in one hand and your Aeroscope in the other doing the sort of diagnostics that take hours in a normal lab setup.

Lets say your in a lab setting but you do frequent standup's at the whiteboard and immediately need to probe a circuit someone hands you spontaneously. Yeah that could happen. Lets say your at a party and everyone had a few to drink and the lights start flickering, suddenly we're the hero of the party. Good times.

I Actually think it's cool that you made this as a hobby project but that does not automatically mean taking it to a consumer level product is a good idea. If you look on digikey or element or others handhelds at the 100MHz range go start from $2000 upwards, but then they have performance specifications to back up the price tag.

You should really flesh our your spec sheet as it currently reads like sales person talk, much like your previous post and as this is an engineering forum your really going to need to come to the party with some concrete data to be taken seriously even aside from the whole marketability of the product.

That probably all sounds a tad negative but consumer electronics is hard, you have enormous price pressures from cheap Chinese scopes who also give vague and unpredictable specs on products (not all do I should add). If you are going to compete with that you need to be really open and honest and cut the PR BS and every one here will be more then keen to see you do well.

Beginner electronics customers are looking at the < 1MHz cheap scopes to look at serial/digital and low frequency analog stuff. By the time they are advanced enough to KNOW they need 100MHz or more then they already know enough to avoid handhelds or pc scopes and invest in a decent bench scope. So given that your market seems constrained to people who have lots of money and no idea what they are doing or, or I can't think of another or.

Companies that purchase portable scopes are just going to drop $3K on the best handheld write if off under some tax rebate and not even care if it gets lost or broken so I really think that in this product space being cheap is not a good thing for your business.

Again sorry if that all sounds harsh, but that's what helping looks like.

[el_dooderino]

Hi Pixelator

Thanks for the feedback. Aeroscope is a specialty tool for situations where users require the portability and isolation that it provides. For most users this won't be their primary scope. I challenge you to find a similarly sized, battery powered, isolated scope at this price point anywhere else on the market.

Here are a few example applications where we think Aeroscope is a good fit: diagnosing problems on complex assemblies that aren't easily brought to the bench (vehicles, aircraft etc), measuring voltages on mobile electronics while they are underway (e.g. measure voltages on an automobile or robot while they are driving around), making measurements in cramped environments where you can not easily bring a full sized scope, students looking for a low cost scope to do work in dorm rooms.

Here are some applications that customers have expressed interest in: servicing anti poaching sensors in remote locations in Africa, working on avionics systems in cramped aircraft, projecting their scope screen from their iPad in a classroom environment (i.e. showing the entire class a signal on a student's project so they can help debug), general interest in a galvanically isolated low cost scope, field service techs that want to travel as light as possible, one customer wants to bring it to burning man to debug his electronic art installment.

I agree that for a large company price is of little concern, but most large companies aren't interested in buying from an new and unknown company anyway. However, I do think that there is a market for people looking for a low cost, portable, and isolated scope for in field use.

Do you have any specific specs that you feel are missing from our spec sheet?

[David Chamberlain]

I think I'm getting board with this, other forum members have asked for some technical feed back to questions such as simply posting an image of a trace response at limits and in return are just getting PR spin.

If you want to see what data sheets look like just look at your competitors products and do likewise. It would take you a day to assemble the information if you had it so why just not admit that you don't?

Because I am such an amazingly nice person here are some examples.

FLUKE 125B/EU/S
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/2014461.pdf

FLUKE 190-504/EU/S
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1812332.pdf

ROHDE & SCHWARZ RTH1002MSO
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/2197902.pdf

[el_dooderino]

If you'll notice, that request was from over a year ago. We have posted the step response in another more recent thread. Here is a link to the more recent thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/aeroscope-wireless-oscilloscope-probe/and the step response in question https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/aeroscope-wireless-oscilloscope-probe/?action=dlattach;attach=303730;image

I'm not sure what PR spin you are talking about. You said that you didn't understand the application and I gave you a list of applications. If you wanted to see the step response you just need to ask. You mention that our data sheet is all PR spin but can't tell me any specs that you think we are omitting. I am the first to admit that our datasheet doesn't look as professional as a Fluke or Rhode or Keysight data sheet. Those are all multi million dollar companies with hundreds or thousands of employees. If you have any specific feedback I would be happy to hear it. Here is a link to our datasheet: http://www.aeroscope.io/s/Aeroscope100A_SpecSheet.pdf

[David Chamberlain]

Apologies @el_dooderino I was not aware of the other thread on this topic.

[JPortici]

You know... with such a big case and tiny OLED displays available, it would make sense to make this an all-in-one "just show me the signal" unit that *also* can send the data to a phone. I don't really understand the use case otherwise. One channel? 4k record length? For 200 bucks?!

And btw, every single use case I see on the kickstarter is moot.
Attaching it to a mobile vehicle - moot because of the 4k sample length.
Working outdoors - why would someone *debug* stuff outdoors? Replace the unit or take the unit to the lab and fix it there, or do those people also take wireless soldering irons with them?
Working on a table at home - seriously?

The one - ONE! - use case I can think of where such a device is perfect is when galvanic isolation is needed for personal safety. Think SMPS debugging. And THIS use case isn't covered because of the input voltage range and lack of a suitable divider probe.

check the prices for a tek tps, or other (if any) scopes with true isolated channels.. TEK and R&S ask more than 3.5k plus options for scopes with a very tiny amount of memory. I'd be inclined to pick one of these up instead of a much more expensive differential probe

[fcb]

Nice overall design. Good luck with it.

Perhaps it would be nice to do a unit with a 2nd channel and higher input voltage range. I could see that being very useful when debugging HV supplies.

Also - on your video you mention that it has an input "compatible with standard probes" - can you elaborate? I haven't seen any probes that terminate in SMA.  I ask this because at 00:36 there appears to be a CAD drawing of a custom probe-tip for the SMA connector.

 

[el_dooderino]

Thanks fcb. I agree that would be useful for HV stuff. We will consider it!

Aeroscope's input impedance is "compatible with standard probes" - maybe I should have been more clear on that in the video. You will have to use an SMA to BNC adaptor to adapt the probe connector to Aeroscope's SMA input connector. Here is a demo showing how you can adapt Aeroscope's input to a standard 10x probe: http://www.aeroscope.io/10x-probe-demo. As you noticed, we did make a custom designed SMA probe tip that comes with Aeroscope but this tip doesn't provide any additional attenuation.