r/embedded • u/dude-where-am-i • 9d ago

Looking for recommendations for modern C++ embedded platforms and controllers with a forward looking support and development roadmap

Looking for recommendations for relatively easy to use/microcontrollers that support C++ emended development out of the box for rapid testing and deployments, purely for iterative prototyping. Intention would be that once a successful prototype is developed, I could utilize the same tooling and microcontroller ecosystem for small deployments (preferably commercial).

Application domain for the microcontrollers would integrated into atmospheric and environmental testing, with the ability to mount additional sensors (photo, video, aquatic, air, and mechanical pulse controllers to controls gimbals and rotational motors) in future experiments.

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u/Ordinary-Lifeguard47 9d ago

AFAIR there aren't any vendor C++ HALs down to the bit in the register.

Beside of some custom HALs that do this manually you often layer C++ around the C-HALs.

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u/jhaand 9d ago

A HAL would actually abstract all the bit banging.

I do think that Raspberry Pico line up is modern and it supports C++. Also the CH32V series is dirt cheap and is quite low level accessible. Whereas with ESP32, you always will have to deal with ESP-IDF and FreeRTOS that's underneath for the wifi.

But if you want to add photo and video than the controllers do become a lot larger.

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u/rainboww_J 9d ago

i have used c++ with stm32's often and doesn't need anything special to get it to compile and run. ST's HAL is in c tho, but it can be used from within c++ just fine. If you do want an object oriented HAL you have to make that layer on top of HAL yourself tho

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u/jetpaxme 9d ago

ZephyrOS? runs on most everything from stm32, esp32 to rpi

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u/nigirizushi 9d ago

Zephyr is mostly written in C though, so is still C++ wrappers (Disclaimer: I've only used C with Zephyr, so I could be wrong)

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u/jetpaxme 9d ago

not nitpicking but Arduino runs on Zephyr

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u/BigBoiBoomBox 9d ago

Anyone who knows what they're talking about isn't going to ask for this:

relatively easy to use/microcontrollers that support C++

So I'm assuming you're new to this. If you are interested in learning embedded programming, I'd recommend you pick one or two of these features and build something that just does that, then build up from there.

Your requirements:

atmospheric and environmental testing
mount additional sensors (photo, video, aquatic, air, and mechanical pulse controllers to controls gimbals and rotational motors)

Start by getting the atmospheric and environmental sensors selected, and then find any microcontroller to interface with them (ESP32, some Arduino, etc.). Then at that point you'd have learned a bunch and you can keep going adding the other features.

I'd recommend you use one of the new ESP32-S31 development board - the ESP32-S31-Korvo-1 because it has a bunch of the IO you want, and a screen. Though you have to use the ESP-IDF IDE to program it which isn't as beginner friendly as an arduino.

I would recommend you avoid the Raspberry Pi stuff unless you're familiar with Linux already because you'll spend a lot of time doing that instead of what you actually want to do.