Hey Product Hunt!
It's David here, leader on this project. Ocean is a small linux server that you can fit in your pocket. You can order one right now from our site:
https://getocean.io
Ocean is a battery powered linux computer you can take anywhere. You can access it remotely over our dashboard, collect data about your environment with Bluetooth or Wifi, and build incredibly cool software applications for. It combines the best of the "new breed" of small linux computers like the Raspberry Pi, and adds a whole lot of features, (battery, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, USB power management, wireless charging, etc) and puts all of that into a beautifully designed box. We've started referring to it as a "mobile server".
We have a very limited number of beta devices to sell right now, with plans to release updated versions later in the year.
PRODUCT HUNT PROMOCODES (valid until end of next week):
oceanbeta - $15 off the Beta version (shipping in about 2-3 weeks)
ocean32 - $20 off the 32GB version (shipping April)
ocean64 - $30 off the 64GB version (shipping April)
I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you have!
Thanks!
@david_petrie First of all, congrats! I know how long and hard you have worked on this.
Could you give us an idea of some common use cases you envision people using the Ocean for?
As an engineer, what aspect of the Ocean are you most proud of?
@skrypt@david_petrie Thanks Nick! You were there in the early days!
Some common use cases are:
- Performing mobile diagnostics (e.g. like iTechs at iCracked do for customer phone diagnostics)
- Home Bluetooth IoT hacking, as I described in my reply to @vadivelk
- Mall kiosk type solutions where you run a web server on the device.
- Set and forget wifi monitoring.
- Wander down University Ave and collect info about all the Bluetooth and Wifi devices (I would never do this!).
I've also always wanted a product that is a combination of a mobile phone and a linux computer. I don't like that I have to use eclipse or Xcode to get code on a computer that I take with me. It should be possible to write python code on a computer that you can use while you walk around.
@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!
@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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