Hey everyone, we are back with more updates - this time we have combined June/July to sync us up and get ready for the August update next month around the same time. Also, this update would have landed earlier, but we have been holding off on this update for the last 7 days to get some clarity from our suppliers on a few important topics.

This may be the last major update that talks about hardware design for this generation of the Comet, as we sign off on the design in the next 7 days. After 8 revisions over the last 4 years, I still can’t believe we are finally wrapping it up 🖖

Let's jump right in!

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Hardware

IMX95 PCB (EVT) in production

The IMX95 PCB design for the Comet is finally in fabrication 🎉, starting this Monday. Because this is a new design, we spent some time getting all the engineering queries cleared by the PCB fab house. Typically, once your design is ready, you get the fab house to review your design and make necessary adjustments to ensure manufacturability with their equipment.

It didn’t release as early as we had hoped, but happy to see to it now finally getting through the door. The fabricated PCB is expected to be received by August 12th, which will immediately be followed by Assembly (SMT).

An update on LTE Ready-ness

In the last update, we spoke of how we are working on reducing the metal enclosure surrounding the LTE antenna area, while balancing thermal dissipation and EMI radiation.

We managed to improve the enclosure to get some clear space for the antenna, you can see that below, everything in red is metal, and everything in gray is plastic. To ensure this still gives us the same level of thermal dissipation, we have the vapour chamber directly connecting the metal frame.

We had review call just hours ago from now with our antenna designer, and though the reduction in metal has made design feasibility, we still haven’t resolved everything in the enclosure and PCB to achieve the kind of cellular performance that we would expect Comet to deliver.

🗓️ We still need few more days to get to the bottom of this, and you can expect a dedicated update for LTE posted in the next 5-7 days.

We are ready with procurement and ordering for the modems, the only reason we are not listing the add-on is to give you enough clarity before you make the purchase.

Explorations on the Comet’s Case Cover

In parallel to everything going on, we have also started explorations on the case and what it would like. Nothing is finalized yet, but happy to share some of the iterations that the ID team is working on right now.

Call for Feedback: We are still exploring, we will show the final version in the next update. Let us know your thoughts, all opinions are welcome!

Extensions

Keyboard extension re-designed and re-engineered

Over the past month, we've gone back to the drawing board for the keyboard extension. While the previous design was functional, we felt there was still room to improve the typing experience (I can be annoying), so we decided to redesign it rather than settle for "good enough."

The most noticeable change is the keyboard layout itself. We've moved away from the previous grid-style arrangement to a more traditional keyboard-style layout. Provides a more natural key placement, making touch typing and overall navigation much more intuitive, especially during longer typing sessions.

For the missing Arrow keys, The pointing stick will also act as arrow keys when combined with the Fn key, and additional support is also provided on the DZXC keys when combined with the Numlock (123 key)

Call for Feedback: Let us know what you think of this layout! All kinds of opinions are welcome, we really want to nail the layout.

The new layout also allowed us to increase the individual key size by 52%, resulting in a much more comfortable and forgiving typing experience. Larger keycaps improve accuracy, reduce accidental presses, and make the keyboard feel considerably less cramped without increasing the overall form factor of the extension.

As mentioned in our previous update, we've also integrated a pointing stick in the top-center of the keyboard. After experimenting with compact trackpads, we concluded that a tiny touchpad simply isn't a great experience when you're trying to navigate an entire display. A pointing stick lets you keep your hands on the keyboard while providing fast and precise cursor control.

The top row has also been refined with four dedicated utility buttons: Left Click, Right Click, Esc, and the Super Key. These are positioned for quick access and reduce the need for awkward key combinations during everyday use.

This is how the redesigned keyboard extension compares with the old one.

With the keyboard layout finalized, we're now working on the Keyboard’s DVT PCB. The PCB design is currently in progress, with component placement and routing being finalized. We'll soon be sending the PCB for production.

You can get a better visual feel of the old and new

Ohh and guess what, the Pointing Stick PCBs that we showed you last time, are ready and will be shipped to us in a day or two. Here is how they look (sorry for the low res, we will share better pics once we receive them.)

Gamepad PCB (DVT) in production

The Gamepad Extension's DVT PCB design has been completed and is now in production. We're looking forward to receiving the first boards in the next 2 weeks and begin hardware validation. Expect a demo in the next update!

Software

Expanding Kernel and Bootloader support

DDR Issue: We were facing an issue specifically on the 2GB variant of Comet where the system would crash unpredictably after running out of memory when booting through UEFI. Digging deeper, we identified that the EFI framebuffer memory was not being reserved in the device tree. As the EFI framebuffer memory was not reserved, the kernel could allocate that region to other drivers under memory pressure, causing memory corruption during the EFI framebuffer handover.

This fix eliminates the memory corruption during EFI framebuffer handover, allowing the 2GB Comet units to boot and operate reliably over UEFI.

Graphical Bootloader Menu: We have now also added a graphical U-Boot boot menu to simplify debugging and recovery without requiring serial access. The menu provides quick access to common development functions such as booting via EFI, enabling serial console gadget, USB mass storage mode, flash mode, interactive U-Boot shell, and diagnostic utilities.

Suspend-and-Wakeup on i.MX8MP: After shifting to mainline Linux, the suspend-to-RAM functionality wasn't working as intended and would leave the device stalled after waking up, requiring a reboot to recover. We spent quite a lot of time debugging it but couldn't immediately determine the cause of the failure. Eventually we understood that the Display, HDMI and Camera making up the multimedia subsystem; each suspended/resumed fine alone but not together.

This is an issue we're currently trying to resolve with the kernel community, and you can follow the discussion here: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAAPs2HTo=4+AEw1+vcU6c9vt_O2BfF+gv3FFvx9G3KLLzCOsHw@mail.gmail.com/.

As a simple workaround, we added a systemd sleep hook that unbinds the affected drivers just before the device enters suspend. This results in a clean suspend and wake-up sequence, giving us a reliable solution until the upstream issue is fixed.

Suspend to RAM i.MX95: We also validated suspend-to-RAM on the NXP i.MX95 FRDM platform running mainline Linux. Using rtcwake, we successfully suspended the system and resumed it via RTC wake-up events, confirming reliable suspend and wake functionality.

The I.MX95 has a different architecture than the I.MX8M Plus. In the I.MX95, the CM33 is the primary core that runs the System Manager (SM) is responsible for managing the runtime state of the SOC.

Display Command Mode Progress: We are currently working on adding MIPI DSI Command Mode support to Comet's display stack. At present, the display operates in Video Mode which means that pixel data is streamed continuously from the display controller to the panel, even when the screen contents are static. While this is simpler to implement, it results in higher power consumption and unnecessary bandwidth usage.

Command Mode, on the other hand, allows the display controller to update only the portions of the screen that have changed. Luckily our display supports Command Mode. The panel stores its own framebuffer (data in its own memory) and refreshes itself internally, significantly reducing memory bandwidth and improving power efficiency.

We have already brought up the panel in command mode and are working through the remaining synchronization and update issues to achieve a fully functional and possibly upstream-able implementation.

Getting this to work end to end will result in significantly less power consumption in general usage. I am hoping to share the results in teh next update!

OpenGL Improvements for I.MX8M Plus GPU

The OpenGL (ES) 3.0 implementation for Etnaviv continues to see more improvements, with close to 78% completion for OpenGL 3.0. Christian from Igalia is continuing adding more improvements and fixes. We are hopeful that by the time the devices ship we should see full conformance on ES 3.0. Some of key PRs that have been merged lately -

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/42929
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/42899
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/42740
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/42448

The I.MX95’s GPU is already on Vulkan and OpenGL 3.2, nothing much to do at that front. But its panfrost driver continues to see improvements.

Mechanix Design System in works

Over the past few weeks, we've been collaborating with Studio Carbon to rethink Comet's interface from the ground up. Rather than chasing visual trends, our goal is to build a cohesive library of components that feels calm, functional, and purposeful—an interface that complements the hardware instead of competing with it.

We've been defining a set of design principles that guide every decision, from typography and spacing to interactions and navigation. The emphasis is on clarity, utility, and adaptability, ensuring the experience remains approachable while staying true to Comet's philosophy of openness and customisability.

We're looking forward to sharing more as the design system takes shape. Here are some slides on our design philosophy and some snaps of the team in action (and after).

Here are a few visual explorations we've been experimenting with. These aren't final designs, but they represent the direction we're heading as we continue to iterate, test, and refine.

Native App Early Demos!

While there is a lot of work going on the Mechanix GUI and Wayland integration, I wanted to highlight significant progress on two of the most important apps for the Comet - the Browser and the Terminal.

Mechanix Browser: We are building the browser using Flutter (e-linux backend) and CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework); as of now, we have finished implementing some core features -

1. Multi Tabs (with sleep support)
2. Bookmarks
3. History
4. Downloads

Here is the Browser in action! A lot of things are in progress, but we are getting there.

One of our team members has also contributed eLinux platform support for the Flutter webview_cef package - https://github.com/hlwhl/webview_cef/pull/212 🎉

(Video is on software rendering, and a make-shift speaker is attached)

Mechanix Terminal: Our terminal app wraps Alacritty (via libalacritty) in a native Flutter app, this lets us run the entire app including the emulator on the GPU. Alacritty is well-established and we didn’t want to re-invent the wheel.

The terminal app adds support for multiple tabs, theming and fonts support. We will later extend this implementation for more advanced input control optimized for the Comet. Here is a quick demo.

Prep-work for Certification

Now that we are close to design sign-off, we have initiated discussions with certifying bodies for the primary target markets that will be exporting to.

The below infographic showcases our primary certification coverage. We are working with them to understand the next steps around pre-compliance and actual compliance and their respective schedule.

Note - We will be looking at domestic certifications for 🇮🇳 India, we just haven't started figuring them out.

Supply Chain & Delivery

Working around the PCB Shortage

We mentioned this briefly on our last update, PCB shortage is becoming a real problem that we are now consciously working towards resolving. To give a background, due to the rampant and unrelenting data-center boom, low-loss PCB laminates (what Comet uses) have seen shortages due to overdemand but to add to that the US-Iran war has further expanded the shortage severely. Primarily, Iran’s strike on Jubail petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia has knocked out SABIC’s PPE resin plant that accounted for the world’s 70% supply.

(Read more: https://www.atlaspcb.com/news/news-sabic-ppe-resin-pcb-laminate-shortage-may-2026/)

Now to mitigate this - since our inception, we have always worked with a single trusted manufacturer but to avoid production challenges, we are now expanding to 2 more manufacturers for redundancy.  As of right now, each of them is going to fabricate our I.MX95 EVT PCBs, helping us evaluate them closely and qualify them for mass production.

Components have started arriving

A lot of the IC components especially the passives had their orderes placed as early as January, even before the campaign started. A lot of them have started arriving and are stocked at our offices.

We are now actively working with each supplier to close the procurement by September end-to-end. Here are now glimpses of some of the inventory stocked with us.

What’s Coming Up?

Our hardware design freeze got pushed to end of July, and we are close to clear now. Here is the item spread for July and August for our hardware design items, while our team continues making progress on the software.

Items planned for July

Items planned for August

When are we shipping?

We have had further setbacks - but we are literally doing everything we can to minimize further delay. On some days it feels like all the cards in the world have been stacked against us. As of right now we are still confident that we will be able to pull-off production in October, and start shipping towards the end of the month.

 The critical path for us is now closing the validation and getting to pre-compliance; once that is done, the rest of everything will fall in place.

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That’s it! It is a wrap for now. I hate the fact that we haven’t shown you something more physical yet, that will all change next month when all the goodies start arriving!

We are gearing towards a video presentation to accompany the August update! I honestly can’t wait. You will probably see more intermediary updates coming up as we start knocking out items on our validation list.

Thanks for reading! Your continued support gives us the strength to face all the obstacles our way. Till next time! 👋

Yours truly,

Shoaib & the entire Mecha team