Flipper Zero: Tamagochi for Hackers

Their development blog is very detailed: https://blog.flipperzero.one/review-and-producing-plan/ . It's definitely past the "pipe dream" phase IMO, the drawings they've posted in the blog post demonstrate an awful lot of work and are a far cry from "idea kicking around." But, I also have pretty low expectations for the firmware for a while, and the delivery timeline as well.

I think they've decided to do the initial firmware development internally, which is a bit worrying but doesn't seem too unreasonable to me given that the signal-to-noise ratio for open sourcing this before it's done is probably pretty bad (while you may pick up a few contributors, responding to the "hax wen" crowd is almost certain to slow you down at first).

I participated in the Kickstarter last year, along with a gazillion other people, and am waiting patiently for my Flipper Zero pet.

They asked the Kickstarter funders a month or so ago for their CC numbers for shipping cost, as well as shipping address, color preference, and any additional accessory&unit orders. But I don't know how soon the main production run will happen.

(I did find that a little funny: the idea of a bunch of customers of a "hacking" gadget, earnestly sending their credit card numbers and home addresses to a group of other hackers. :)

They posted a video of a preproduction unit that looks pretty far along: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KDvdWo2h10c&feature=emb_title

Seems like a reasonable point to start taking preorders to me.

It's a kickstarter, so it's going to run behind. I consider it gambling for fun toys, sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. They've sent out a stream of updates over the past year so i'm really not worried about them defaulting. They've taken a step back and redesigned the hardware since they reached enough funding stretch-goals to include several kitchen sinks now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDvdWo2h10c

Over a decade ago I backed the Bus Pirate early on and even though I got a unit shipped, it never worked. Defective code shipped on my batch and it wasn't until a few years ago that I figured out that's what was wrong. Even if I had figured that out early on I don't have access to an expensive Pic programmer then so I couldn't do anything to fix it then. The Flipper is Arduino compatible so updating the code shouldn't require a programmer unless something blows up the chips bootloader.

They are hiring, if you speak Russian that is: https://www.flipperdevices.com/jobs

This makes a lot of sense. I was looking at this thinking "that is a shitload of feature" so it makes sense they're future-hopeful features.

The last update I got from them said:

> In the last two months, we have been actively working on hardware validation, covering all the use cases with tests, and now we are almost ready to lock the BOM and start Flipper's production in EVT (Engineering Validation Test) phase. Devices from the first batch will be sent to contributors who participated in the development.

That seems like they're pretty far along.

Is there a different tool that’s available now in non-tomagochi form that accomplishes more or less the same features?

I've seen SDRs that are roughly this size but they're the TV tuner ones that don't necessarily work well across a range of frequencies (not sure about specifics, but I imagine Bluetooth is pushing it). Some of the Flipper's advertised capabilities (infrared, NFC, RFID, 1-wire) are also beyond the scope of SDRs.

There is a SDR device for hacking that is self-contained. It's the HackRF+Portapack, (https://hackerwarehouse.com/product/hackrf-one-kit/) - which costs significantly more. It uses a FPGA to decode raw signals at up to 6GHZ. The Flipper uses dedicated chips to decode the specific protocols, with each chip having a specific protocol (NFC, LF RDID, 433/900Mhz), which allows a general purpose CPU to interface with other devices.

Interfering with a system over RF is going to get the FCC and authorities after you very quickly. The law is very broad and hand-wavey here, a lot of innocent fun could be interpreted as something worthy of a felony.

The FCC care about emissions criteria in various frequency bands. They are worried about undue interference with other devices caused by incorrect use of spectrum or inadequate and poorly made transmission equipment, not protocol level reverse engineering concerns.

If Flipper can supply a device to an FCC approved testing lab which passes the emission criteria in the emitted bands, I don't see why they couldn't get approvals in those bands. For example, for NFC, Flipper is no different from a normal Android phone with respect to compliance.

They'll have to get the 433Mhz "Tamagochi" feature compliance approved, and that gets them the CC1101 chip signed off to live in the device. Notice how the homepage cleverly does not mention any transmitting features besides NFC/LF RFID and the Tamagochi one...

Probably they will have to include a "locked" firmware with any arbitrary SDR transmission features above and beyond approved frequencies/bands disabled, and the user will be responsible for compliance past that point.

Not so fast. I’ve not yet seen a broken bridge with two cars suspended by chains.

> owns the rights to the name "flipper"

What rights do you imagine grant ownership of the word "flipper" exactly? I believe there's only four IP rights granted in US; Trade/Service mark, Patent, Copyright and Trade Secret? Which of those could possibly prevent a electronic device have same name as a TV Show?

Trademarks don't work that way. You don't get to own all uses of a word, only a word in a particular field (like the use of "Flipper" in names for TV shows).

Bonk

If you think $20 is high, wait until you find out that it's actually $170. The $10 for preordering is just to reserve a unit. The preorder does include a $40 coupon though, so the total price for preorders is $140 ($170 device + $10 preorder - $40 coupon) + shipping and taxes.

If this was $10 this would be the biggest steal ever. That is ridiculously cheap for this device. The device actually costs $129 (with pre-order) or $169. The $10 is just to reserve a pre-order spot/raise money for the company.

Note that the product is NOT $10. The $10 charge is for a pre-order ticket and a $40 off coupon on the actual product, which retails for $170