Curious how folks are thinking about using the internal expansion options (particularly the M.2 B-keyed slot, and the Qwiic connector).
I usually use a phone hotspot so haven’t gone down a modem route on laptops for a long time, and I’m wondering how else I might use the “spare” M.2 slot when my Hyper arrives. Also considering the Qwiic options, and wondering whether it would be straightforward to use that for additional metrics display or something (yet to consider how that would be physically connected or arranged externally).
Incidentally for the MNT team, the reference to the Qwiic connector at section 7.2 / page 66 of the guide points ahead to the Advanced Topics for guidance on using it, but that section has no reference to it.
Qwiic is connected to the system controller, an RP2040. This one have direct UART access to the SOM/processor and the keyboard. The keyboard is another RP2040 which have access to the internal USB hub.
I would like to add a nfc reader to a pocket so it can read security token like a yubikey, probably with an antenna built into the area between the headphone jack and the standby power switch. I see two way to do it, either forward what the data from qwiic to the keyboard then have the keyboard advertise over usb its new rfid capabilities or have the rp2040 send the data to linux over UART and maybe add a driver for that?
Maybe the m2 slot would be an easier entrypoint for adding RFID as it have direct access to the internal USB hub but I would like a modem in my pocket
I’ve literally just tried this out with an i2c device in the qwiic port and was able to demonstrate that it was enumerating by adding the i2c_scan function just before the main loop in the system controller firmware and then flashing it. Saw an address that was enumerated when plugged in and removed when it wasn’t!
I’ll probably have a punt at reading some data and relaying it over serial over the weekend. For the plan I have in mind it only needs to read every few seconds anyway so it shouldn’t be too spammy.
this is really cool to know, although it would be great if there were some way to have a passthrough without having to rebuild the system controller. Very interesting stuff. I have a bunch of Qwiic sensor boards from other projects, now to figure something interesting out
