Do I need to connect to Pi for notecard to work?

Hi, I’m just trying to get the card running by itself (Notecard + Notecarrier Pi).

When I plug in USB to the Notecarrier, I don’t see any LED. Do I have to actually connect to a Pi first?

Thanks

Hello @gojira! We are grateful to have you in the community!

To answer your question directly, YES a Pi is required.

Unlike other Notecarriers, the Notecarrier-Pi has a known host (the Raspberry-Pi 4), which has sufficient power to power the Notecard. Therefore, to reduce complexity, we elected to draw our power exclusively from the Pi.

We already have a ticket in our backlog to investigate the modifications required to enable powering the Notecard from USB and facilitate tinkering. We will consider your feedback as a vote for taking the hardware in this direction!

Thank you for posting!

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Thanks @zfields!

It would be good to make this clear in the quickstart: Quickstart - Blues Developers

That is great feedback. I’ve already logged a documentation bug for Monday. :smiley:

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