The Edison is intended for embedded applications - it has no display support built in (like DVI/HDMI), less USB support, and less "plug-and-play" ports.
SparkFun did a great write-up on unfair comparisons between the two platforms: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1603
As the SparkFun article mentions, with the cost of the Wifi, powered hub, cables, SD card, and Bluetooth adapter add up. The Raspberry Pi is meant as a low-cost teaching computer, whereas what I want is a SoC to hack on.
Maybe it's as simple as programming it with the board and then detaching it and powering it.
If I want a SoC capable of doing low cost user-interface type embedded tasks I need parallel LCD support (or at least LVDS). I'd get an NXP LPC18/40 or an STM32 at the low end or an i.MX5/6 at the high end. Way cheaper with way better application support.
If I wanted to do IoT sensing/reporting, this whole thing is just overkill. Again, a low cost LPC or STM coupled with a GainSpan or TI radio module (that I can bake directly to my PCB). To me, and I could be wrong here, IoT isn't about putting 500 MHz computing resources at the nodes and certainly not for a $75 BOM adder.
At least the LPC and STM are chips I can put directly down on my board and run out of the box. An SOM with a single-sourced connector (and Hirose is notorious for designing unique stuff nobody else wants to duplicate) is just commercial suicide.
At the end of the day I want something just like this, but with a net-installish base linux distro, and something with better temperature range than 0-40C! It's too complicated for tinkering, and the temperature range is too narrow for commercial products. It falls into the middle, where it's probably not great for anyone. I'm sure Intel can fix that.
You typically need an "Edison Block" (like an Ardunino Shield) to connect to things, see e.g. SparkFun's portfolio at <https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272/>.
Not sure how power is applied, it's not as obvious as for the Arduino (since the Edison is more highly integrated and more designed to be built into products than to be directly fiddled with, I guess).
its a gimmick, there is no clear market for it, no clear use scenario, no real documentation, a lot of design fails (230Hz GPIOs IF/when Intel lets you use buildin Quark, its TURNED OFF now)
Maybe the person who measured this hasn't used sleep modes properly?
Good to see you understand the purpose and design constraints oh so well...
I'm guessing the reason is cost (I think the quark chip alone is $9, + DDR3 memory + cost for BGA placements + 4 layer impedance controlled boards etc...)
I'd like a 'thing' that would attach to the back of a pair of bookshelf speakers and allow me to stream music through the speakers via Bluetooth. The 'thing' would also need to act as an amp. I had seen 'The Vamp' but this doesn't offer stereo.
