Comma.ai's $249 eGPU Dock Runs Open-Source Firmware
Chestnut – eGPU dock with open-source firmware
Comma.ai, known for its open-source driving assistant openpilot, has released Chestnut, a USB4 eGPU dock with open-source firmware. Priced at $249 for the dock alone or $799 with an RX 9060, it's designed to boost compute for driving models but also appeals to PC builders who want to audit and reflash the bridge chip firmware. The dock uses an ASM2464PD controller, and the firmware is available on GitHub.
That is the part worth paying attention to: eGPU enclosures have always been closed boxes, but Chestnut breaks that open.
- serf
the picture of that GPU installed on the side of the firewall tunnel reminded myself and my husband of a gadget they would have shown off in the original Batman series.
"Golly gee whilikers Batman, what is this high tech contraption?"
"It's a car tracker my good lad, see how sleek and easy to hide it is?"
- ijsmtmmwiu
What I tried was based on theory (I haven't seen real device),
bought Oculink dock, connected Oculink to M.2 connector, USB4 M.2 SSD Enclosure to connect to thunderbolt, whole thing costed 150euros :)
- alex0com
I had my C3X audio device fail a month or so past warranty. It literally couldn't detect the sound card anymore. My car is not supported, and I've been on a fork since the beginning. Few line of code changes to get it working again and it's almost two years in use. And yes, I tried flashing any and all available releases/forks. The sound hardware was not visible in the kernel on all.
I've given up on the latest models and don't bother with the automatic cruise control. But just the lane centering is extremely helpful.
When people ask me about the device, I tell then it's the next version of power steering. And if one has never driven a car without power steering, one may not understand how much easier it makes the drive.
Thought about upgrading to the C4 as the original owner I could trade mine in for a discount. But the first thing I noticed on reddit threads were the C4 H/W failures, and that made me not want to bother figuring out what's needed to get the C4 running on my car. Wish they figured out how to bulletproof the device, would love to add the GPU.
- socratics
I find comma.ai’s work pretty fascinating compared to the bigger fish in the self-driving world. There’s something quite human about it versus the Waymo’s and Tesla’s of the world.
- trebligdivad
This bridge - does it actually support host PCIe->thunderbolt->PCIe device - my reading of it is that it's just handling USB commands that the bridge is turning into separate PCIe commands to the GPU?