I love my mAPs but I think some enhancements could improve it´s popularity.
1./ make the micro USB port behave like a USB attached NIC - it already works in this way with a powerline adapter, which I especially love about the mAPs, keep this functionality please
2./ make the network port capable of PoE input
3./ get a new low power cpu, preferably 2 cores so that this device could support sthg like 500Mbps
4./ more Flash (maybe bit more RAM, just to stay ROSv7 future proof)
From here on follow some wilder dreams, theese ideas might be just too expensive and or power consuming:
4./ make the Network port and the PoE Adapters 1G capable
5./ LTE modem or USB port supporting an USB LTE dongle
6./ 5GHz wlan
7./ add a battery (user replaceable and optional)
Maybe there could be two mAP2 versions:
mAP2: supporting 1-7
mAP2 lite: supporting 1-4
Keep the great magnet in the chassis.
And of course: keep them below 100$
Yep I missed that, my fault! (I am in fact using my mAP lites since long believing they are incapable of PoE and never trying it… RTFM to myself.)
So still most important would be: connecting a mAP via a single cable (USB port acting as USB Ethernet port) to my laptop.
i think its very hard to get a more capable soc inside a so small enclosure because of thermal and power requirements
to do that you will need a soc build around state of art litography so it will be very expensive
once you see the map lite disasembled you can see that the other ideas are hard to accomplish because of the limited space
The first thing I do with all my electronic/electric devices is usually disassembling them (that includes my washing machine).
I know all of this, but the mAP was probably released a few years ago ( I dont actually know when) and SoCs have been improving quite fast in the past years.
A few years ago you could find big routers with 10Mb ports in racks…
when i see how hot (in temperature) is hAP ac2 i see that in that platform will not be feasible a new map or map-lite,
hap ac2 is based on ipq 4018/4019 build on 40 nm lithography
but
maybe with a qualcomm IPQ6010, IPQ 6028 Networking Pro 400 Platform supporting wifi6 which is build on 14 nm FinFET lithography we can expect big power reduction
Well I might even consider paying a bit more than 100$ for that.
That would be perfect! And it supports Wifi 6 as well, so let´s hope until mAP2 gets available, the then newest ROS7.44.3 with the new wifiwave3 prerelease package will support Wifi6 (maybe together with roaming…)!
