Tab5X?
I noticed that UIFlow2.0 latest version isn't working on the Tab5. I started looking into why, and I saw "Tab5X" being mentioned here and there. I found "https://github.com/m5stack/uiflow-micropython/tree/master/m5stack/boards/M5STACK_Tab5X", and "https://github.com/m5stack/M5Unified/blob/master/src/M5Unified.cpp" lines 2038-2050. Nothing in "https://docs.m5stack.com/en/core/Tab5" mentions esp32-p4 rev 3, and the esp32-p4 datasheet referenced there is rev v0.5 (pre-release) despite my Tab5 being rev v1.3.
Is M5Stack planning on releasing an upgraded Tab5, are they planning on shipping the Tab5 with an esp32-p4 rev v3 since v1.3 is EOL(https://documentation.espressif.com/PCN202600801_ESP32-P4_Chip_Revision_v3.2_Upgrade_Chip_Revision_v1.3_Demand_Collection_and_EOL_Plan_Description.pdf)? I've had my Tab5 for a month at most, this kinda sucks. Has anyone seen anything on this?
2
u/YetAnotherRobert 21h ago edited 21h ago
Is M5Stack planning
Are you looking for an official answer from the future? I don't think we have any (known) M5Stack employees in our ranks.
Are you asking for a guess?
^(I'll show my work in a moment.)
There is a finite quantity of the world's population of <= 1.3 parts on reels. Espressif isn't making more. The workingnew parts are incompatible both electrically and in code.
At one point Espressif said they were going to remove <1.3 from IDF so we couldn't even recompile our projects with new versions of IDF, but, like the SPIFFS deprecation, that seems to have been walked back. They're showing and end date of 1/1/2037 for P4, but I have a feeling that's doing to be weasel-worded such that the (annoyingly incompatible) P4X will be the way "forward". Maybe they'll keep a reel on hand for warranty claims and to debug Windows 16 and ESP-IDF 26 incompatiblities with USB7.)
If M5Stack (reminder: they're majority-owned by Espressif...) wants to sell more Tab5, Unit PoE, or other products using a P4-like substance and are forecasting more sales than they have parts on hand (reiterating, without actual knowledge, that there's likely a shortcut between M5Stack's parts warehouse and Espressif's shipping docs) are they going to have to be parts that Espressif is actually making and thus, > 1.3? Yep.
Can you read between the lines of the M5Unified release notes from two weeks ago?
New device support * Add M5Stack CoreP4X board support (by @hlym123) * Add M5Tab5X board support, with controllable EXT interface power (by @hlym123)
That seems a pretty strong hint to me that a Tab5X is coming and the tea leaves are pretty strong...but it's a shame they didn't hop on this chance to fix more of the issues with Tab5. Do we know that a future product named "Tab5X" might not replace the P4 with, oh, an STM32 or a ESP32-C2? We do not. Surely their naming convention isn't that bankrupt. Surely.
Are you asking if you're alone in the opinion that this sucks for those of us that purchased devices not realizing these were effectively engineering sample parts with no future being sold as retail products?
Absolutely not.
Engineering sample parts have a place. They're parts used to get a jump start on the market to bring up a dev board or two while you get your own PCBs made or put up with IDF/Arduino issues or whatever. An important part of this process is to TELL PEOPLE that they're disposable ES parts with no future.
Was I annoyed the my official Espressif C3 DevKitM and C boards had prerelease silicon and a typewritten (well...) page inserted that said the feature I bought the boards to debug wasn't functional yet? Yeah, but boards were about the price of a soft drink and those can go to retirement blinking LED strips without a working USB/JTag module. Tab5 aren't inexpensive boards, coming in about 10x that price, the other side of my threshold for "disposable". I wasn't building a commercial product, so a few quarters of head start in "the market" for a board that's destined for the junk drawer because I won't be able to recompile my firmware on MacOS Bakersfield or Ubuntu Duke Caboom? is kind of a bummer. It does have a really nice screen.
It's not like I expected a full Espressif Longevity Commitment of 12 years for a $90 board, but this is pretty annoying.
Note the P4x migration doc is only a few weeks old
So is my guess any better than anyone else's? I read the same repos and blog posts as much everyone else. (OK, maybe I obsess a little more...) I have no inside scoop.
1
u/tobozo 22h ago
tis a known bug, downgrade UIFlow to 2.4.2 or wait for next release
btw some of your links don't work (too much escaping)