What we've been reading in February (2025)

Here are the articles, videos, and tools that we’ve been excited about this February.

What have you been reading? Share in the comments or on the Interrupt Slack.

Articles & Learning

• FreeRTOS to Zephyr Porting Overview (WP560) | AMD
  FreeRTOS-to-Zephyr porting guide, including a table with links to the common features in each platform (tasks/threads, mutexes, etc.). － Noah

• Breaking into dozens of apartment buildings in five minutes on my phone – Eric Daigle
  A walk through of the shockingly easy hacking of an apartment’s access control system. －François

• It is not a compiler error (2017) | Hacker News
  Great embedded debugging anecdotes in this thread. Remote debugging is always hard (unless you have Memfault 😉), but local debugging can be hard too! － Noah

• Coredump 03: Pebble’s Code is Free: Three Former Pebble Engineers Discuss Why It’s Important (Part 1)
  This popular Memfault webinar features former Pebble engineers discussing the open-sourcing of Pebble’s firmware, its technical innovations, and its significance for the embedded community.

• Lessons from Pebble OS Memfault Webinar | Magpie Embedded
  I really enjoyed the PebbleOS talk hosted by Memfault and I’ve written up my notes from it, sprinkled with plenty of links. Thanks to all those involved in making it happen, it is great to have such honest discussions out in the open! － Tim Guite, Interrupt Community Member

• The Miserable State of Modems and Mobile Network Operators
  This was a fun bug to figure out. Ah the joys of binary blobs! － Jonathan Beri of Golioth, Interrupt Community Member

• binsider.dev | Analyze binaries like a boss
  CLI tool for ELF binary analysis. Static/dynamic inspection, hexdump, linked libs, and string extraction. －François

• wader/fq: jq for binary formats
  A command-line tool for parsing, analyzing, and transforming binary formats using jq-style expressions. － François

• nopnop2002/esp32-idf-sqlite3: sqlite3 for esp-idf
  Someone actually did it - sqlite on the esp-idf. － Jonathan Beri of Golioth, Interrupt Community Member

News & Announcements

• Release 2.1.1 · raspberrypi/pico-sdk · GitHub
  The RP2040 now supports a 200MHz clock, up from the previous official maximum of 125MHz. － Noah

• esp-hal 1.0.0 beta announcement · Espressif Developer Portal
  esp-hal, which enables writing rust for ESP32 series chips, releases v1.0 beta. － Noah

Interrupt Live

• Friday, Mar 7 | Interrupt Live with Steve Noonan
  Tyler Hoffman catches up with Interrupt author Steve Noonan to unpack the journey and reasoning behind his latest Interrupt contribution: Why std::this_thread::sleep_for() is broken on ESP32. Join us on YouTube Live at 9AM PT | 12PM ET | 6PM CET.

• Friday, Mar 28 | Interrupt Live with Mark Schulte
  On this episode of Interrupt Live, Tyler is joined by Mark Schulte, author of A Schematic Review Checklist for Firmware Engineers. They’ll discuss key aspects of firmware reliability, including architecture, unit testing, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing, automated testing, firmware rollouts, monitoring, and user feedback. Join us on YouTube Live at 9:30 AM PT | 12:30 PM ET | 5:30 PM CET.

📞 Ask our speakers a question! Join the Interrupt Slack and post your question in the #interrupt-live channel.

Events

• March 11-13 | Embedded World 2025 – Don’t Miss Tyler Hoffman’s Talk
  Embedded World, the world’s leading embedded systems conference, returns to Nuremberg, Germany, from March 11-13. Join Memfault’s VP of Field Engineering and Interrupt author, Tyler Hoffman, on March 12 at 10:30 AM for his talk, From Defense to Offense – A Paradigm Shift in Error Handling. Learn how offensive programming can help you track down elusive firmware bugs, improve security, and debug efficiently in production. Memfault will also hold demos at the Zephyr Booth (#4-170) - come say hi! Demo schedule:

  • Tuesday, March 11, 12:00 - 15:00
  • Wednesday, March 12, 15:00 - 18:00
  • Thursday, March 13, 9:00 - 12:00

• March 19 | Coredump 05: The Current Realities of Cellular IoT
  Join Memfault founders and Fabian Kochem, Director of Product Strategy at 1NCE, as they explore the evolving landscape of cellular IoT, including technologies like NB-IoT, 5G, eSIM, and iSIM, offering insights into successful adoption strategies. Register today.

• April 15 | Coredump 06: Pebble’s Code is Free: Three Former Pebble Engineers Discuss Why It’s Important (Part 2)
  Back by popular demand! The discussion continues with former Pebble engineers François Baldassari, Thomas Sarlandie, and Brad Murray, delving deeper into Pebble OS’s technical innovations, debugging strategies, and lessons applicable to modern embedded development. RSVP to get the recording sent to you.

• April 23-24 | Hardware Pioneers Max 2025 – Visit Memfault at Stand #C4
  Hardware Pioneers is the UK’s largest exhibition and conference dedicated to cutting-edge technologies, solutions, and tools for innovation-driven engineering teams. Memfault will be exhibiting from April 23-24 at Stand #C4. Use the promo code SPEX50 for a 50% discount applicable to core tickets. Get your tickets.

Gillian Minnehan is a firmware solutions architect at Memfault. Gillian previously worked on embedded software teams in space and defense.