mallets

Impossible as there are so many chemistries, but hopefully we don't run out of water for pumped hydro.

The big advantage of the ESP32 discovery is its availability, while this device is a unique configuration that isn't available in most places.

Sipeed teased a similar hack using some (undisclosed) USB-wifi chip, though I don't take them seriously as none can get their hands on the chips they tend to use.

Many cheap USB 3 Wifi 5/6 dongles out there, based on RTL8852BU and such. Just one QFN IC and XO. Their "firmware" seems to be a binary blob loaded over USB. I'm skeptical that these "testmodes" can be figured out with just bruteforcing, wonder if they load custom firmware for compliance testing or just leave those routines hanging around in release firmware too.

Too bad the coreboard is OOS everywhere, I was interested in S31 before this just for GigE. That, and possible Linux support.

They could release new binary blobs to block this. Useless at this point but could amount to trying their best.

Closed binaries aren't much of a deterrent these days, we might see more such "discoveries" for a lot of devices.

Shhhh. Just some AI hallucinations, nothing to see here.

Legal for end-user, sure. But Espressif might run into trouble with regulators like FCC.

So many $1 wireless ICs have a powerful "SDR", but will never be documented due to certification/compiliance/export-control reasons. The projects listed here rightly limited the scope to RX-only but Espressif might be forced to "patch" this away if arbitrary TX too is possible (or starts making headlines). Hope it doesn't come to that, more cheap options for RF-to-bits is always welcome.

On a technical note, not much I can find about the signal quality. Phase noise, images, DC Offset, etc. Have to get my hands on one, ESP32-S31 seems promising.

It's breaking EXISTING free trade deals that's angering people. And also using them as geopolitical cudgels against allies. Every country has protectionist measures in various sectors, trade deals are decades-long work to chip away at them in a way that's agreeable to everyone involved.

Liberals and progressives don't agree on most things related to (free) trade, but agree on not "bullying" allies for no reason and little profit.

Political pressure works? The immediate pain from tariffs is quite different from the long-term loss.

I don't know about all that, but I use Marsaglias for generating noise samples in MCUs like Pico. It's the fastest option there is for such devices.

Being a tyrant has little to do with term limits or office duration.

Oh wow, the AD936x series was impressive for its I/Q calibration. Still is I guess, because there's been no compelling alternative even a decade later.

As I mostly deal with single channel applications, I get to use double superhet and avoid runtime calibration. Not an option here, Zero-IF has too much in the Pros column for multichannel.

Yeah, jitter doesn't matter too much at low frequency IF. I/Q calibration is more likely to be the bottleneck. That and close-in spurs from the fractional PLLs.

I have very little experience with MIMO / phased-arrays, this application likely doesn't need ultra high SFDR.

The really intriguing part is the "Custom ADC" here, seems like some kind of 1-bit ΣΔ oversampling ADC (704 MSPS?). Single differential transistor, and captured by FPGAs LVDS RX.

Neat way to reduce cost and pin-count? But I think the typical FPGA clock tree has poor jitter performance. Not using the internal PLL(s) might help with spurs but the clock buffers are unavoidable.

The documentation mentions it's likely further degraded by noise from switching regulators. Oh the joys of hunting RF noise sources.

Only if the difference in signal power is high (>40 dB). It’s like saying collisions aren’t a problem in situations where no collision actually occurs.