Does anyone have any experience building apps with Unity that run on low-powered or low-capacity IoT devices?
Can Unity be used in such scenarios in a viable way?
Does LWRP make it possible?
Thanks,
-c
I am not sure, If Unity is right tool for Internet of Thing devices. Unity made applications are too resource hungry, for such devices.
At best, you can look into Project Tiny.
My understanding based off of the threads that I’ve read and taken part in is that the major problem with running Unity apps on low-end devices isn’t that the devices are low-end but rather that the platforms supported by the game engine don’t line up very well with the devices.
A Raspberry Pi, for example, typically runs Linux ARM. Unity has support for Linux x86-64 but it has absolutely no support for Linux ARM. Thus the only way to make it run is to use Android ARM but that introduces other problems starting with Android eating up far more resources and driver compatibility issues.
Unity just isn’t a good choice for this right now. Project Tiny (info linked below) might assist with this but again this isn’t just a problem with performance. It’s a problem with compatibility too.
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/12/05/project-tiny-preview-package-is-here/
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I would not recommend Unity for an IoT project. Depending on the hardware choices for your IoT project, you may even want to consider building for bare metal instead of building on top of an operating system. I have done some IoT projects where I literally used an 8 bit MCU to gather sensor data and feed it through a cell module (or WiFi module depending on project constraints). In a larger IoT project, an ARM running a minimum build of Linux can be used and then applications could be built on top of that. However, if you choose Unity for an IoT project, you would require more powerful hardware in general. It would limit your hardware choices and make the project more expensive per unit.
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Viable with jetson nano?
No. The Jetson Nano has the same problem as the Raspberry Pi. Unity’s supported OSes don’t align with the Jetson Nano’s supported OSes. If you need a single board computer look into the Udoo x86 series. Udoo’s x86 series is compatible with Unity as they use the same hardware as an actual PC.
Do you have any examples of what you are considering? IoT is broad, though it usually refers to purpose built devices/things that communicate with other things. While you might use Unity to run a game/simulation/other that makes use of IoT devices for a variety of uses, those devices don’t need to run unity, and would be extremely inefficient.
Running unity on devices that are connected together (and capable of running Unity) isn’t what IoT is, that is just a network of devices.
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I am struggling to see what you would achieve by adding unity into an IoT project? Why exactly do you think you need a game engine for this?
You should probably start OP by explaining what you are trying to achieve
EDIT: ignore this, didnt realise thread age
The thread is from 2019. It got unburied by Enumerator_T
A renderer for a device with a screen panel, for example.
However, given that IoT device might be running at 8 Mhz in immediate mode, it would make sense to cheat or create mini-software renderer instead.
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