Integrating Phoenix with Nerves Without Umbrellas or Ponchos

Alex McLain discusses the common methods of using umbrella and poncho projects to integrate Phoenix with Nerves for embedded devices. Traditional umbrella projects organize multiple applications at the top level, while poncho projects separate firmware and web applications, avoiding the top-level shell application. McLain identifies challenges with the reverse dependency issue and the perceived necessity of separating UI and firmware projects for ease of development and versioning. He introduces an alternative approach where Phoenix runs directly within the Nerves project. This setup resembles a web-based Phoenix project but adapts to handle firmware-specific tasks. McLain acknowledges the initial complexity of merging project generators but emphasizes the long-term benefits of this structure. He provides a walkthrough for combining Phoenix-based UI into a Nerves firmware project, directing readers to the 'Naked Phoenix' runbook on Redwire Labs' Nerves Guide.