Wanted: Pocket PC going 24/7

[Andy Sjostrom]

I am looking for an implemented Pocket PC solution that requires the Pocket PC and application to run 24/7. Obviously, a Pocket PC with such a solution must be hooked to both power and network all the time. The reason for asking is that I am looking into an electronics monitoring scenario and wonder if anyone has seen a Pocket PC running 24/7. Have you?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/24_1.jpg" />

[Kre]

24/7? Yeah, I have. A pocket pc was programmed with a script to drive a robotic arm designed to feed Pavoratti and Elizabeth Taylor.

[shk718]

Why not set the media player for repeat mode and play a song over and over .

[renz]

Hi, a friend of mine has used his iPAQ for some measurements that ran for about 4 weeks without interruption. Doesn´t seem to be a problem.

[Venturello]

I am also a developer and I see no problem. There is a pocket pc web server somewhere that has been run for several weeks. You can even blank (turn off) the screen using APIs and some tricks. The OS is very stable and I see no limitation on run time if the app has no leak. Solution providers use the embedded version of windows CE all the time to run critial apps, many of them off the monitoring kind.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/

Windows Embedded offers all kind of solutions most of us in the consumer world know little about. If you want even more stability and robustness, you can get a dev kit to build the OS with just what you need. Take out the shell and so many unneeded things and you can get a realtime OS that will run your app using the API's so many developers know, very fast and realiably.

In the end it depend on what you/your customer need and how much you are willing to pay for it. If you want to use consumer grade hardware (say an iPaq) then the dev environment is free, tons of developers out there and the capacity of the device is quite good.

Good luck. Eh, if you need a freelancer for this job, I could be up to it! Done some work in robotics, using serial port on the iPaq, so I know a bit. Now working on PocketPC and Palm enterprise (database backed) apps.

[JMountford]

While I can not honestly say my iPaq has been on every moment since I bought it I can say that at the very most it is only off for about 10 hours a week max. I usually have it on at all times, but that is mostly because it is on the cradle most of the time or I am using it. I will say that my battery only has about 1-2 good solid hours of run time off of a power supply.

I don't know if this is what you were looking for but I thought I would pipe in.

[TinMan]

All PPCs run 24/7 (assuming you prefer having your data retained), so I don't see why this is even an issue. :wink:

[Jorj Bauer]

I am looking for an implemented Pocket PC solution that require the Pocket PC and application to run 24/7. Obviously, a Pocket PC in a such a solution must be hooked to both power and network all the time. The reason for asking is that I am looking into a electronics monitoring scenario and wonder if anyone has seen a Pocket PC running 24/7. Have you?

While it wasn't 24/7, I ran my iPaq (3635) for about 7 hours straight each day for 6 days (on my recent bike trip: http://binky.seas.upenn.edu/bike/). The environmental conditions were the only problem: don't leave it in direct sunlight or it will start having problems using the serial port (overheating). Ventilation is important.

[PResines]

I know of an automatic traffic speed trap that has an iPAQ at the center. These iPAQs store the pictures taken of speeding cars licenses plates. They run 24/7 and have been doing so for quite a time.

[jaybo_nomad]

While developing PocketStars (www.nomadelectronics.com) I've had 3 PocketPCs running continuously for about the last 8 months. PocketStars includes memory utilization monitoring and fairly intensive graphics (but no internet use). Since the application is a realtime star chart, it continuously recalculates the position of stars and planets and redraws them without user interaction. Here are some results:

Jornada 568 and iPaq run quite happily forever with no leaks, hangs, or any other problems.

Jornada 548 seems to burn resources and I need to soft reset about once a month, which I assume is due to a leak in an earlier release of WinCE 3, somewhere in the graphics subsystem.

- Jay