Flipper One – we need your help
blog.flipper.net
blog.flipper.net
First one is simple and focused, the second one tries to be & do everything. And frequently never ships.
First time I've heard anyone call the Flipper Zero "simple" and "focused", most people seemed to have considered it a "swiss-knife" meant to just house a bunch of features and radios, meanwhile the One has less features but more connectivity and I/O.
But apparently you're not alone in feeling this, but I don't understand what from the submission makes you and others believe so, what exactly gave you this impression?
And this one is an 8-core Arm computer and the project has ambitions of some notoriously difficult things: no binary blobs, full mainline support (including a NPU), reinventing small-screen UI for more serious handheld computing, and supporting a ton of high-bandwidth interfaces.
This is not a simple step up in difficulty.
...plus a 2-core Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller.
On the other hand, this has been working pretty well for the first few Raspberry Pis! (Although they had the benefit of leveraging an existing smart TV based platform for that.)
The "custom os" part could also be done easilly enough with the correct approach.
Specifically systemd has a less-known feature known as system extensions intended for basically exactly these sort of scenarios. These system-extensions are basically disk images containing files in /usr and/or /opt that can be dynamically overlaid on the existing filesystem (the intent is that these are purely additive). Systemd also intends that all os provided configuration live in /usr, with /etc existing only for machine specific or admin applied configuration. (And which should enabling overriding anything specified by the package or OS.)
System extensions when used default /opt and /usr to be read-only, but you can enable mutability if you having write routing directories or symlinks in the right spot.
So for userland this whole os profiles things could literally just be a set a of system-extensions, a distinct /etc folder, and distinct set of write redirect directories for each. An initramfs can simply bind mount the /etc directory, and add the correct write redirection symlnks before systemd starts. Rolling back a profile is simply wiping its write redirection and /etc folders. If you also want each to potentially have distinct device trees and/or customized kernels, that would need additional bootloader work on top, but nothing that feels too extreme.
Now in reality, since not everything support systemd style configuration, these OS profiles would probably need to construct an initial /etc by copying files from a base-os template, and then copying in anything included in the system extension images (which can have these as systemd will ignore such folders), but that is straightforward enough.
Going with an SoC is much simpler than trying to set up custom communications between two processors, I'm not sure why they didn't think of that.
Don't underestimate the value of that integration.
With the hybrid architecture chips you get the vendor controls for managing the MCU with supporting documentation. ST is good at this.
This isn't the same thing. It's two chips running side by side. It's possible to set it all up so that the Linux chip can control everything you need to manage the MCU, but it's not easy. There are a lot of edge cases to think about and things that need to be handled manually.
Their TUI[1] is planned to use react(!), to share logic with their BrowserUI[2]. In the repos you can see how they struggle to get anything gpu backed done (which is required by the browser). Then falling back to wayland to do it for them. (This all seems a mess that LLMs can't figure out.)
Anyway, it does seem to end up in a custom linux desktop environment, with lots of sharp edges that makes it less hackable.
[1] https://docs.flipper.net/one/cpu-software/flipctl [2] entirely unclear why a terminal is insufficient for networked TUIs
Truly, a design only an LLM could love.
> We're asking the community to help us polish RK3576 support so we can build a truly open platform together. We'd be glad for any kind of contribution, not just code. For example, maybe you can find a way to convince Rockchip to open up that last blob.
Then it seems like they're inviting anyone to participate in the entire development process too, should you be inclined:
> Openness has always been our thing. With Flipper One, we want to go further — not just open-source code, but an open development process. We're publishing our task trackers, internal discussions, half-finished docs, and architectural debates. All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors.
Seems the post mentions a bunch of stuff people can help with, CTRL+F "help" shows 16 hits even, but I am afraid even this does require actually reading the content. It kind of feels like if you can't be assed to read enough to figure out what they need help with, maybe you don't actually want to help them with even harder and involved stuff than that?
Tangential but related; when I used to work for BigCo, I would get old acquaintances message me on LinkedIn. They would act like they're really interested in my life and I'd interact, and then after a day or two they would ask me for a referral for a job, I'd do it, and then they wouldn't be all that interested in talking to me anymore.
I wouldn't have had a big problem if they had just messaged me and asked for the favor, but I do find it pretty irritating that they're pretending to be my friend just to get a favor. I don't need more friends, I have plenty. Hitting the "refer" button and uploading a resume takes ten seconds of work on my end, but wasting my time with a pretend conversation takes considerably longer.
Nowadays when I ask for a favor from a friend or acquaintance I pretty much immediately ask for it. I might still want to converse with them afterward, but I figure it's better to lay my intentions out on the table immediately so there's no false expectations.
When I message someone on Slack, I usually do something like "Hey! I was wondering if you could help me with..."
There's no need to add an extra blocking factor with this.
There's a manifesto for this: https://nohello.net/en/
Having a few various RPi's (as one does), when they've been out of stock, I've looked into the huge variety of similar SBCs (OrangePi, etc) which can be even faster, with more ports and features for around the same money as an equivalent RPi. Many are powered by various RockChip SoCs, which extend up to desktop replacement-level, but the Linux driver support is usually lacking in some important way.
It's not Linux's fault, it's a small group of volunteers struggling with little manufacturer support or documentation. I don't get why RockChip doesn't budget the money in the business plan to fund full driver support for at least some of their more capable chips. I guess maybe too many of these chips are used in non-OS contexts to be worth it?
the biggest issue is that actually contributing to upstream is an *incredibly* difficult and painful process.
Margins are incredibly thin unless you're on the bleeding edge. It's not an easy business. You need to move millions and millions of chips to make a profit, and that means your FAEs are working directly with companies who are actually paying you for chips instead of trying to write perfect documentation for the open source community.
They have drivers in most of these cases; at a bare minimum the silicon was tested by the DV teams, and that generally includes running drivers.[0]
The issue is getting drivers upstreamed rather than just languishing in the vendor BSP.
And the answer for why they don't get upstreamed by the vendor is multifaceted. First off, the drivers in the vendor BSP are simply not at a quality level that would be accepted upstream. On top of that, even if they were at the quality needed, practically that coordination with upstream is a decent amount of work. Additionally, their customers don't really even care about upstream in the vast majority of cases, but instead prefer some vendor outdated fork billed to them as "stable".
[0] Apple for instance is rumored to have an internal Linux distro (or at least kernel fork) for DV of their Apple silicon chips to allow the hardware teams and macos teams to work with fewer cross department dependencies.
You're quite right, morally and practically. I can't help but wonder though, if the like of Rockchip or other big faceless chipmakers released whatever inadequate source they had, that it wouldn't somehow end up in a nice upstream high-quality driver.
It probably irked them to find the top comment had no mention of AI, but is still getting at the same root problem… the article is 2-3x longer than it could be, with lots of rambling and repetition, so it makes for a frustrating read.
Angry? I'm guessing it's the last part that made me seem angry, I'm not though, just human, and tired of people who say they want to help yet seemingly reading is too much. A bit of straightforward language seems more effective at communicating this, than dancing around the issue.
And why on earth would I care if the top comment mentions AI? I don't even read HN comments in the "points" order, I read comments in chronological order...
Why the vendetta, did I say something annoying to you in the other thread or what's going on?
Namely, we see a AI DDOS'ing blog entry, 20 pages text, 35 with images, thats a mishmash of specs and requesting help with...Linux kernel coding!? to support their selected SoC? For hardware they're already accepting preorders for?
Then, someone reframing confusion as many people failing to read, which is about the most incurious and thought short-circuiting idea possible, even before it is used in discussion.
This question is only more forward in my mind after noting you're taking things personally. (vendetta?!)
It is worth noting this is the second time in 18 hours HN is dealing with their AI spam.
Yesterday's was a preorder page with multiple "needs verification" and "needs clarification" markers, including in the darn spec sheet. (via ChatGPT's system prompt for non-coding writing tasks)
Yeah, if you bring up completely unrelated stuff I've said elsewhere in a different context, to bring up where it's off-topic, then how is that anything else than personal, even the assumption about what feelings I'm feeling? Reply to what I said in that thread, if it's so damn important for you that I read what you write.
Fine, I understand the two of you really, really want to discuss if this article is AI or not, and how much of it is AI, and what what other Flipper pages were submitted to HN, but do you really need to discuss that in every sub-thread in this submission, can't that conversation happen where it happened before?
(Happy to accept beta-testers if people are curious, email in profile, available for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and Android currently, more coming soon :) )
Or it kind of feels like if a project can’t be ‘assed’ to communicate clearly, that’s an issue.
Edit: and to the sibling commenters as well
Heck, if nothing else, the lack of a clear CTA would be on brand with OSS Marketing.
I agree there is not much of a clear call to action. As a firmware engineer who has worked with bluetooth amd wifi, this is a key phrase. It’s also a big fantasy. FCC compliance is a big headache, and part of why people buy a given chip is the FCC certification comes with it. For instance, if I throw an ESP32 into a product and use wifi, I don’t need further certification. That can only happen if “there is no way” you can make the radio do what the FCC doesn’t allow. A general stategy for this is for the company to give a binary blob for radio related functions that limits the radio capabilities that you need to link to in your final build.
So that means there is almost zero chance the chip makers will ever publicly move away from binary blobs. At best they might quietly support reverse engineering efforts by open source driver projects.
That said, I would love it if all the chips I worked with had a battle hardened non vendor alternative. One major downside to these binary blobs is that they can be buggy. We were recently able ro rewrite our Bluetooth firmware to use an opensource version which greatly sped up the data throughput since it didn’t have a bug that killed byte transfer. But we don’t use this code lightly. FCC violations are crazy expensive and not something you take lightly.
If there has to be no way to change the radio's functionality, would that mean that simply using a binary blob wouldn't be enough. Wouldn't device vendors have to sign it as well?
Also, that makes me wonder about the one Wi-Fi chip I know of that does have free firmware: AR9271 [2]. I wonder what makes that situation different. Maybe I'm misunderstanding and there's firmware on a separate chip stored in ROM.
[1] http://www.fcc.gov/documents/compliance-guide [2] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/AR9271
So when I say "there is no way", what I'm referring to, are the functions that configure drivers don't accept out of bounds values. And functions that ultimately drive the antenna can't drive them hard enough to be in violation. The main reason I know any of this, was that I found a function when working on firmware for the ESP32 on a commercial device, and I thought I could set the power to a level that I thought was too high. Well, that's when I learned what the binary blob that Espressif supplies was for. The guardrails are baked into the API for that blob.
So, does that mean you can't go out of your way to subvert those guardrails? No, but you would be incredibly foolish to knowingly create a device that will get the attention of the FCC. Similarly, there's nothing stopping you from building a circuit that amplifies the signal the device sends to the antenna. But when you're potentially talking about fines per event, and fines per device, it's wise to make sure you play nice.
If the wi-fi chip you're using has free firmware, where none of it is obfuscated, it's very likely that the limitations are baked directly into the chip, such that there is no register combination that would allow it to be out of compliance. Also, I'm not sure that all chips have transitive FCC licensing, so it might be wise to look into that before releasing the device commercially.
And keep in mind, I'm not even talking about creating accidental radios from poorly designed analog circuits, or unshielded high frequency digital circuits. That's a whole other can of worms.
Sounds like nonsense to me, at least from past reading of the regulation. These devices are supposed to be type-accepted-- your entire product is supposed to be certified.
Is the FCC really allowing this? (not that I'm complaining, the FCC certification burden is outrageous).
Contains FCC ID: 2AC7Z-ESP32WROVERE.
TL;DR With Flipper One, we're reimagining what a Linux cyberdeck can be — it's a huge
project. We're opening up the development process and asking the community for help.
We're asking the community to help us polish RK3576 support so we can build a truly
open platform together. We'd be glad for any kind of contribution, not just code.
For example, maybe you can find a way to convince Rockchip to open up that last blob.
Openness has always been our thing. With Flipper One, we want to go further — not
just open-source code, but an open development process. We're publishing our task
trackers, internal discussions, half-finished docs, and architectural debates. All
the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors.
We're also hiring a Developer Portal Manager — someone to act as a proxy between
our dev team and the community, help shape the Developer Portal, and engage with
contributors. Apply for the Developer Portal & Community Manager role.
If you're into wireless work — auditing, monitoring, injection, mesh, anything —
we invite you to come test it with us: read the Wi-Fi Testing page on the
Developer Portal and help us decide whether this chipset is the right call,
or whether we should look elsewhere before we lock in the design.
Links
The Flipper Devices team is small. The project is large. We can't do this without you. Here's how you can get involved:
Flipper One Developer Portal — the entry point into every sub-project. Browse sub-projects, find tasks tagged help wanted, read the contribution guides, and subscribe to our developer-focused weekly digest.
X.com/Flipper_RND — project updates and announcements.As I read it they are simply out of their depth in terms of what their aspirations are and what they feel they are able to accomplish. The goal of "replacing binary blobs" with open source is a good one, I'm all for it. But my experience is that "binary blob" means "licensed IP, protected by patents and NDAs." So pretty challenging. You have to 1) reverse engineer something that someone has protected (potential DMCA violations), and 2) publish it without getting sued (just generally annoying even if it is an understood risk).
I'd love to see the Flipper one get built, I'd certainly buy one. That the Rockchip folks are unwilling to disclose to them sufficient documentation for them to re implement their binary blobs from scratch is a huge red flag.
However, I don't think they need to be prioritizing the local AI features, which are cool...but models get far smarter when you run them on a proper Mac/external GPU vs a small battery powered Flipper device. I think it might be helpful on the go, in the field, etc, but the usability with no dedicated keyboard will be rather poor.
However, I think they should keep focusing on the Zero for a possible Zero 2 to match the capabilities of this One device. I love my Zero, but I think it is missing key features like full support for garage door and RFID rolling codes, and some other protocols. The WiFi dev board is very limited, and there is no simple way to capture/playback BLE remotes IIRC. Of course, it depends on whether you consider BLE to be layer 0 or layer 1.
There is feature creep, and lost the plot. I feel like either this is the latter, or they vastly surpass my imagination.
Either way, I am not convinced enough people want in pocket PCIe that would not be contented with rasp pi or laptop form factors to make this worth it.
ESP32-S3's have been doing on-device AI for years. That's a 240MHz processor with 512KB SRAM, 16MB PSRAM and no GPU, and AI works great on it.
Define AI, and define "great"
Great is the not-sucking.
If it is great, then it does not suck. If it sucks, then it is not great. To be great is not merely to be good, it is to actually not suck. Then you are great, in the most minimal, barely clawed yourself over the line way.
Of course, if you had a custom trained one that's different but then that brings me back to how are you gonna type with it easily?
The (EDIT2: maybe not) AI writing doesn’t help.
EDIT: looking more, it seems like the goal is to be a fun project like Playdate, except a Linux multi-tool instead of game console. Which is actually great, a step towards healing today’s corporatized tech culture. It’s unfortunate that the website non-explains this with AI and marketing speak.
EDIT2: I wrote too soon, AI is making me too cynical. My only remaining critique is that they explain the motive instead of just stating features and repeating “we’re doing something exciting and important [for reasons not really explained]”
As a current Zero user, I'd definitively get a One once available, just the addition of the PTT-button feels worth it to me, but almost all the other changes are good (IMO) as well, don't really see any drawbacks from the design they're aiming for now, besides the modularity will make things slightly more complicated, but also comes with a ton of obvious benefits.
What am I missing? What do you use yours for?
If I didn't have the Flipper or some other SDR device I'd probably have assumed it was bad and left it at the recycling station. If I'd lose the original remote I can use the recordings on the Flipper to either control the sockets or create a new remote.
I've also looked into how the key fob to my car works and investigated tens of RFID and NFC cards, some of which I could probably have talked to with my phone but I like the format of the Flipper and it has very few distractions except Snake.
When traveling I sometimes bring it up just to check out what radio stuff I can find and think about what devices might be sending.
Mostly around debugging and troubleshooting networking (WiFi+Zigbee network) at home, which the Zero is nice for this as it's easy to bring with me to any area in the house/yard and test stuff wherever. I used to use a laptop+radio for this, but I no longer have any laptops and the Zero does the trick nicely enough.
I also tend (try) to duplicate any keyfobs/cards I come across too, as backups, which helped me just the other day as we've lost the card we got for the municipal trash, so now I'm using the Zero to unlock them as we still haven't recovered that card.
Some months ago I used it for moving a bunch of AC+IR remotes to be connected to my Home Assistant installation by first reverse-engineering the IR protocol then building my own hardware for it with a little IR transmitter, now I can remotely control the old AC unit regardless of where I am in the house. I'm pretty sure it's a fairly standard protocol I didn't need to reverse-engineer myself, probably well documented on the internet already, but way more fun to do so yourself.
Why do you say there is AI writing?
> Flipper Zero and Flipper One operate at different protocol layers [below a graphic with features like "Power Bank". Do they know what a "protocol layer" is or do I not?]
> Flipper One isn't an upgrade to Flipper Zero — it's a completely different project with its own goals.
And lots of em-dashes.
But looking closer, I actually suspect it’s not AI, the author just integrated LLM-isms into their style.
I think his native/first language is Russian -- em dashes are widely used (e.g. most definitions start with it, look at any Wikipedia article), quite a lot of people learn how to type proper em dashes and do so even in casual chats (a bit of self-proclaimed elitist sign).
edit: actually switching languages on Wikipedia and it almost seems like some USSR influence -- Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Uzbek and Tajik language pages start with em dash. Turkmen, Kyrgyz and Lithuanian uses eN dash. Armenian, Estonian and Latvian don't start with dash.
For non-ex-USSR countries/titular languages I found only Polish to start with eN dash.
They work at different layers, the Zero is physical, the One is network. There is almost no overlap between the two, so one doesn't have an advantage over the other.
> RPI
It has a battery, with attention given to power management, and is a complete unit, not just a board.
> Linux machine
You mean like a laptop? You can probably do all this on a Linux laptop PC, but the Flipper One is a smaller, more specialized device, with a firmware as open as the manufacturers will let them.
> My only remaining critique is that they explain the motive instead of just stating features
Go to this page for this: https://docs.flipper.net/one/general/features
One idea I have (but realistically will probably never build) is an e-ink notepad with a microphone that I can ask to generate custom note-taking templates. As a niche example, I'm imagining I'm at a baseball game and I can tell my tablet "hey give me a baseball scorecard template" only for it to generate one for me. Then if there are a ton of subs or the game goes super long, I can modify the template in place with follow-up commands like "add more rows for player substitutions" or "make it support up to twelve innings".
I imagine having a chip like the RK3576 fully supported in the linux kernel could make building a device like this much much easier.
If it were to manifest as a commercial product it might unfortunately just become an app on a souped-up e-reader. But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad either; anything is better than the laptop/smarphone local minima.
The success of Flipper Zero was mainly of design, the lineaments of the product being previously understood, but hopefully if the ‘One’ succeeds in its more difficult task it will encourage innovation in more exciting devices.
Packing lists, grocery store runs, playing tic tac toe / connect four, taking notes during conferences, etc.
Like an old palm pilot, but for the modern era. Take my money ;)
but, yeah, let's hope we see more of these chips gain broad usage with low level support added.
I sincerely hope I work out a way of getting someone else to buy the thing for me. And the push towards all in-tree source is fantastic. Genuinely impressed.
To me it seems like the opposite, it has more connectivity and I/O than the Zero, but also scaled down, while using better materials, like they decided to outsource the project scope creep to the community, which makes sense to me.
Scope creep to hell and back. Could just let the device get turned off like literally any other device on earth, and not have to build a whole new fucking OS to get it running.
They even - for some reason - want to waste time "training their own AI model because general ones don't cut it" (which no one is likey to use). Could just build a normal RAG + context stuffing pipeline in an afternoon but nah, let's devote a few months to this completely unnecessary non-feature.
100 bucks say this doesn't see the light of day before 2030 (if it ever does!)
This is actually quite common in embedded devices and even elsewhere. Every Apple device does this, for example (the Secure Enclave is a completely separate OS running on a separate computer).
If you think about it, most laptops have been doing something like this for decades as well for things like brightness control etc., not with a different CPU but definitely an OS-like thing (i.e. the BIOS, using SMIs etc.)
The idea of the "single OS, single CPU computer" has been a myth for a while now.
At least since they started running Java on SIM cards.
The Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chipsets usually have their own CPU as well.
God knows if they'll end up scaling back their goals, but the vision isn't "just" a few custom integrations.
I think we've developed software with "ROI" in mind for so long, that by now most people forgot how it was to use devices and interfaces that were made with passion and by taking your time, experimenting and finding the right way, rather than just rushing through stuff and optimizing everything for money.
I remember Flipper Zero had a ton of doubters early on too, myself included. I think I'm now willing to give them more slack to actually experiment and create something even more ambitious, as they successfully executed it the first time most doubted them.
It's not rare at all.
The reason you don't see those projects is because they don't make it very far. Big projects take a lot of effort and people and most people expect compensation for their effort. You can't compensate them without ROI.
As an open-source project they have some benefit of getting contributors to do some of the work. The hardware still needs ROI to exist. Making those custom parts requires up-front capital, which is going to need ROI to pay back.
sewing and maintianing clothes was one of them, for example, so thats why it has a punch. They'd need to be able to open cans, as that was the most common long term ration, and they'd need to be able to maintain their rifles which had screws, thus screwdrivers.
a version with a wine bottle opener was made for officers and became common
Never realized opening a bottle of wine was so common to Swiss soldiers
Also why would you want/need someone else to purchase it for you? Because of your country's import laws, or reasons related to privacy/anonymity?
Compared to any piece of "proper" test and measurement equipment even if Flipper 1 is $1k it's a steal, for example. Heck, the last thing I put on a grant application was a 220 GHz AWG that was something like $1.5m. Admittedly quite different from a single m2 plugin socket but a 1 GHz spectrum analyser starts at $2.4k and everything fancier is "price on application" [0].
I realise this is not the same piece of kit as Flipper One, but with the right daughter boards, hackability, and <s>graduate student</s> labour I imagine you could do a lot (I am interested in RF at <1 GHz for NMR reasons as well as electronic Larmor frequencies at ~100 GHz frequencies). Their SDR daughter boards are designed for communication but there's a whole world of academic nerds who do weird things and would love a genuinely open, hackable broadband SDR (they exist, with limitations! I have a lime SDR somewhere…)
[0] https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/products/test-and-measureme...
What would you consider surprisingly cheap?
Their last product announcement was the BUSY bar, a desktop timer with a display to show that you're busy. Pre-orders launched at $250 but they dropped the price to $219. Has not shipped yet: https://busy.app/
The Flipper One specs are significantly more expensive to manufacture than the Flipper Zero or Busy Bar. I don't think this will be a surprisingly cheap product.
I do think it's cool that they're building the product they want to build and letting cost be a secondary factor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat
(Naw - the CueCat was better, at least it was a generic barcode scanner)
So yeah, ahead of its time to be sure
Plus, CueCat used some dumb proprietary encrypted tag format that needed to go to their servers to look up the code as they thought the marketers would want to pay for their codes.
Too early. Too proprietary. Too greedy.
When I read that, my brain flipped thinking surely that has to be a typo. Then, "he motor is seemingly custom to account for the exceptionally high rated power (stalls at 5A at 330V DC, which is hard to believe, possibly even a misprint on the motor casing)"
So if it's a misprint on the motor, they designed a power supply for something totally unnecessary. Otherwise, if it's not a misprint, that's one helluva motor
Examples: - the cellphone (obviously) - my TV - my refrigerator - my oven - music players - tablet computers - laptops (well on their way) - cash registers->PoS sales machines - handheld game consoles
Carcinisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation)
The same seems to be true for trees too (arborescence).
This is what you've all been asking for, right?
They design a completely new product and suddenly announce a collaboration?
Not a fan but the new project looks cool.
There's a big category of tools that people buy because they're cool and feel like they come with limitless possibilities, but then end up in a drawer. Raspberry Pi became this for a lot of people. It took a lot of years and a lot of market saturation before everyone realized that they're not a good deal if you have a specific need for a general purpose computer, despite their usefulness for specific applications.
The Flipper Zero felt like a tool with infinite possibilities, but it takes a while for most people to admit that they don't have infinite use cases, or that application-specific hardware can often do a better job for less. Exactly like when everyone was buying Raspberry Pis as general purpose computers. But it's a cool product and it had a lot of viral marketing going in its favor.
But accepting help does take time and attention. Launching anything means splitting attention between supporting what you created and using what you learned to create something new.
Pre-v1-launch is a wonderful time because it is so focused. But you can’t go home again.
Too true, and one of the reason I like to use x86 for Linux when I can. So glad to see them push for this!
So, if you have kids just be aware that while we all know these are just SBCs with some neat SDR peripherals, the first Google hit a school administrator sees may be some mainstream media article with a click-bait headline.
I don't see the AI 'tells' in this article. What are you noticing? They use a lot of em-dashes but they use them in a very human way.
The fact that using correct typography makes people label you as an AI is just sad and it's just an overused accusation at this point.
Every list is a set of 3, and most lists have a bolded intro phrase, one even has the famous slopperific emojis
> Honestly? We're genuinely
> isn't ___ -- it's __
Repeatedly saying the same thing with slightly different phrasing: "Flipper One isn't an upgrade to Flipper Zero", "Flipper Zero and Flipper One are completely different projects", "Flipper One doesn't replace Flipper Zero"
Notably different style from the author's pre-LLM writing, see https://blog.flipper.net/introducing-video-game-module-power... or https://blog.flipper.net/electronics-testing/ for example.
If you have specific complaints about the text and content, bring those up instead, and we could discuss those or even correct the linked page itself, as it seems to be a wiki. But general complaints that could be copy-pasted for any submission, just so you can feel heard about that you think this was AI written, gets so tiring to read for every submission.
On the other hand, I have two real problems with AI writing.
1. LLM prose is genuinely unpleasant to read. Its the exact same way that I strongly dislike reading LinkedIn posts or email marketing copy. It's all the same slimy tone that's using a certain sentence structure and rhetoric to try to be interesting without real substance.
2. Sometimes it feels like someone asking you to read an article with no punctuation or grammar: the author couldn't put in time/effort to make this enjoyable to read, so now I have to spend more time/effort reading it.
Personally, I don't read through all marketing copy to see if "this one is going to be good", nor do I want to spend time providing constructive critical feedback on it.
What exact parts from the submission are "genuinely unpleasant to read" right now? Highlighting those could make it better rather than just filling HN with "LLM texts is boring to read".
> Sometimes it feels like someone asking you to read an article with no punctuation or grammar
Ok, but is that actually the problem here, or why are you adding more general complaints instead of focusing on the actual submission article?
If you don't like it, don't read it, don't contribute to the discussion, I don't understand this obsession with "must let others know I don't like LLM writing, although I'm not 100% sure this submission actually suffers from the issues I don't like with LLM writing".
Part of my point is that the line between "written by an LLM" and "written for marketing" is so blurred that you can't always tell anyways.
I like to read, but some writing is more enjoyable than others. If you want to contribute to their wiki, you can do so.
I mean, I personally wouldn't specifically on HN, since it's generally unproductive conversation, but yes? You say this as if there is some gotcha or contradiction there, but there is not. It is far, far, far less work to write a short comment than to read pages and pages of AI slop.
Is 'whataboutism' your counter argument? Really?
Every single fucking article with 20 lines of introduction before you get a chance for actual content. LLM slop then dilutes the information, and LLM slop always read the same way. You know, how easy it is to spot LLM generated content, it is actually refreshing when you can tell it's a human.
Regarding padding out word counts, I see this more often in newspapers and magazines than I do in AI-land. It’s like Netflix shows trying to meet an 8 or 10 episode minimum - horribly boring with unnecessary filler.
Agreed, but you know how others solve this problem? We close the tab, move on with our lives, without feeling the need to leave the generic "This seems like it was mostly written with LLMs" slopplaint HN comment.
Which is what i usually do, but if in that moment i am particularly fed up with it i will also leave the comment.
Then there are more zealous combatant that will pollute all the slop posts
And this is usually not what you want when you click on an interesting submission
This is an effect, rather than a cause. The root cause is often (but obviously not always) that the submission was written with AI to begin with. In instances like this, it is useful to focus on the root cause, not a proximal effect.
> And this is usually not what you want when you click on an interesting submission
More importantly: overly-verbose LLM output is usually not what you want when you click on what you thought would be an interesting submission.
In general, reading comments written by actual humans about how a submission is AI, is preferable to reading a long submission written by AI. If I wanted to talk to AI, I can do that without HN. HN is where I come to discuss things with people.
Not as in general as you think.
I don't care who writes comments/article - be you human, LLM, anthropomorphic android, nexus five or six, or my neighbors dog. It definitely doesn't affect anything - if your thoughts are interesting to me, I will be interested in reading them.
I'm deciding to read something not by answering question "is it LLM written on by human?". But by question - "is it good and interesting?". With the same thoughts I will skip LLM slop as well as humans slop
I'm viewing HN currently in a client that renders the HN comments completely flat and in chronological order, so I don't get subconsciously biased by the order anymore... https://i.imgur.com/wZ7s6Ow.png
Seems like a huge logical leap to make, based on things that it seems you cannot even exactly quantify here, as you're still not pointing out what's wrong with the text, just saying that the text is somehow "lacking of soul" or something like that.
A simple fix I use for AI writing is disclosing it. Here, a simple note that “this article was translated with AI assistance” would have made it much less distracting.
Up to a couple years ago, the latter was essentially a product of lever-less human attention.
It’s like submitting a 10 page pull request to someone and then getting mad because the person didn’t give comments on every single snippet of code. The issue isn’t the snippets of code, the issue is the attitude that led someone to believe a 10 page PR is appropriate to begin with.
But how would that make the "I won't read this because it feels like AI" comments more interesting to read?
No one is forcing you to read this stuff, no one is forcing others to read this stuff as well. When I come across text that isn't great, for whatever reason, then I close the tab and move on with my life. Do I have to make it clear to the world what I think of the text in that specific article? Not really, it'll continue spinning like before, and people who want to read it will read it, others like me will just close it.
It sucks that even if the topic of the submission is interesting, here we are now stuck yet again going back and forth if it's worth saying "I don't think that article was human written" or not in the comments, although I'd hope it'd be considered vastly off-topic.
The front page of HN is limited real estate. I visit HN to discover and read interesting and quality content. Whether or not I am “forced” to read it, every piece of AI vomit that’s on the front page is taking a spot away from the real human content that I (and others) really want to see.
> here we are now stuck yet again going back and forth if it's worth saying "I don't think that article was human written"
I genuinely find this discussion in the comments to be of more value than reading the AI content in the article.
People will discuss the content in front of them. If you don’t want that discussion to be about AI content, then the solution is to not submit (or upvote) AI content.
Even more precious than HN real estate is the time of (how many HN readers are there?) unknowingly spending their time to read something that wasn't even worth 1 person’s time to have written themselves. (In OP’s case they said it partly came from Russian and provided the first draft so I'm more understanding.)
At the risk of being flip... maybe close this tab and move on?
>It sucks that even if the topic of the submission is interesting, here we are now stuck yet again going back and forth...
Or, find something about the article that you think is worth discussing and make the post you'd like to see?
> No one is forcing you to read this stuff, no one is forcing others to read this stuff as well. When I come across text that isn't great, for whatever reason, then I close the tab and move on with my life. Do I have to make it clear to the world what I think of the text in that specific article? Not really, it'll continue spinning like before, and people who want to read it will read it, others like me will just close it.
I think the point of those comments is to save others that time.
Do you really think it's reasonable to expect every single person to read some piece of slop, and independently make an effort to evaluate it to determine if it's worth reading?
Agreed, a 10 page PR is not on. But the original article, though evidently touched up, was appropriate in length and scope. What's your real criticism here?
> because one of the main issues with AI content is the ability to generate an overwhelming amount of it.
So then let's focus on that, and not whether it's generated by AI. Yeesh you people are hard to please.
It's not just short-sighted of <these commenters you hate>; It's self-destructive!
* It's the job of the consumer to correct and edit the content they consume
* Content creators have it hard enough ——— prompt-crafting and imagining transformative and disruptive new horizons in tech
* So what if the prose is 4x longer than it should be? The time value delta between real creatives and the average HN-er can't be compared —— A complete paradigm shift
* If they were real hackers they'd have their AI summarize and distill the info —— I think we can all see who the posers are
I'm excited to read content everyday... 'slop'? That's a coward's word, I see past the prose into the core of the data space, and I'm stronger for it.
No. And the reason is pretty simple: if you couldn't bother to write it, why should I bother to read it?
And that's the problem with AI: it creates floods of that stuff and makes it hard to differentiate the good-faith use from the bad-faith use. The default can't be "reader, waste your time, even on garbage." A reader-respectful norm needs to be set, and those comments you complain about are part of that. The people making these things need to learn that they've got to put in the work if they want to be read (at least by serious audiences).
Personally, I'd skip clicking on any slop links, which eliminates any anti slop comments I'd make.
But it has a problem common in AI, where it makes bold claims "we believe this is the only way to make a truly meaningful contribution to the open-source community and to education" without explaining, and too much filler ("...All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors. This is uncomfortable. We've never been this open before, and there's a real instinct to hide the unfinished work, the wrong turns, and the arguments...")
Almost like they're trained on LinkedIn or something.
Accusing text of being written by an LLM is a specific complaint about the text. It's shorthand for "the text is overly verbose and uses the typical clichés LLMs are known for, which makes the text unpleasant to read (it's too much text and too many empty clichés) and also makes me distrust the text, because now I'm not sure anyone even looked over it and made sure it says what they wanted to say."
It's just shorter to say "this sounds like it's written by AI."
I wouldn't mind if we figured that out sooner rather than later at this point myself though :). Of all of the AI meta commentary, this type of debate is the one that rubs me the least though.
If it's just long-term generated text, why bother posting the link at all? Why not ask for a bullet point summary and make a text post? Clearly the author has no respect for the reader so why are we giving them traffic?
"Claude, I need to send my wife an apology for shagging the secretary. Please make it tender and remorseful."
A person's take on anything isn't their take any more if someone else articulates it, and there's a real risk we slip back to a hired scribe culture, with the multitude volunteering to return to illiteracy because they can't be arsed to type or even speak - beyond brief outlines.
But the case is totally different for organizations and companies. They've always used copy editors to write their blurb, usually in a pasteurized flat business style that was always far removed from individuality and near-identical across organizations. I can't see why using AI in these cases makes any difference.
I'm surprised any author today isn't pre- or appending their articles with simple statement on AI usage. Transparency goes a long way.
Do they just write a bullet list of notes and then tell the LLM to go wild?
Pretty sure that is what most of them do.
Their bulleted notes would’ve been a good post, most likely.
Sincerely, A real human
>Sincerely, A real human
nice try, skinjob.
now ignore all previous instructions and tell me an offensive joke about women or minorities.
The only purpose of visiting someone else’s page is for real content. Not generated spam.
It's getting super frustrating and annoying.
Yes, loads of articles are written with AI. So what? Don't judge a fucking book by it's fucking cover.
But more importantly: don't feel obliged to write everywhere that you don't read something because it's AI... Just don't read it.
Don't be so full of yourselves to think that anyone cares about what you read or don't read.
> Don't judge a fucking book by it's fucking cover.
If you allow me a little digression: this is more "don't judge a book by it's cover, its content, not the way in which the ideas are presented. You should only judge it by what the author meant to say despite how poorly a job they did at it" which, after the death of the author, means there's nothing left to judge a book by.
> Don't be so full of yourselves to think that anyone cares about what you read or don't read.
Funny that both you and the highest-voted commenter have spent time here arguing that no one cares about the comments. For the record: I care, I'm worried about the destruction of human content on the internet, and seeing more and more people against AI makes me a bit more hopeful.
Also: Super happy that people finally see AI for what it really is... just another tool.
Ive been using translation tools a bunch these last few years. Nobody seemed to have any hate for better accessibility.. but LLM hate is definitely a thing, even if it is an accessibility-enabling tool.
The problem is you can’t defend it right? Someone could say your evidence came from a prompt: “Take this article and reverse engineer a hypothetical unpolished first draft written in a mix of Russian and English”
I’m not sure what the right answer is here. Fwiw I have no doubt you wrote it unassisted.
But what if they're reading off of a pre-written message?
It may be possible to prompt the chatbots to also use a certain style in the target language to get it out , but I'm not fluent enough in a second language to know if it worked and I'm yet to see any of the several people I've suggested this to try it, so I'd be interested if anyone knows if this works.
Especially the voice, ChatGPT seems to infer the formality and overall tone much better than Google Translate. YMMV.
I barely spend much time in the comment sections nowadays - once I stopped visiting this website I started following a bunch of makers on youtube and printables, and got looped into some discord groups and meetups. It was a breath of fresh air - would definitely recommend.
I just don't relate to a lot of the upvoted content here, so instead of singing my soul trying to make sense of things, I moved on. Perhaps it's not my place to be any more. These new places I have joined are much easier for me to talk in, and there are no upvotes/downvotes so people tend to be pretty chill and genuine, even if it causes friction sometimes.
That describes HN
Not everyone needs to be magicians with language.
Edit: Since this is possible, I think it's important to start to ask "did you use AI and disclose it?" as it sets the tone better.
Edit: Also, speaking as a trans person, the analogue would be looking at a trans person and noticing that they are trans. Which is not a transvestigation. (You wouldn't normally announce that said person is trans, because it's usually not relevant. It often is relevant if an article is written with AI.)
The emojis used in the bullet points (which are missing from your original text, but were added in at some point) are also dead giveaways that AI was involved here.
It is perfectly possible, and even easy, to write e[nm] dashes manually. With compose key sequences it's barely more effort than typing a normal dash/hyphen, even. (Just compose key + `-.` for en dash, and `--` for em dash.)
In Russia, we have many typography keyboards/addons, because, well, it historically looked very silly to use double-minus or "-quotes instead of «»-quotes.
I've no idea how some countries got their typography standardized on the PCs and have it from the very beginning (Germany with their quotes for example), but the other countries need to setup external software and configuration. Apparently, US also didn't got their "third level" keyboard as a standard.
Ignoring references, just in article text: 5800 words (spaces); 78 em dashes (1.3%); 0 en dashes; 90 hyphens (1.5%).
English version of same timeframe: 16000 words; 0 em dashes; 32 en dashes (0.2%); 262 hyphens (1.6%).
> The emojis used in the bullet points
They're used in one list, where sub-projects are listed. Emojis used in that list are consistent with ones used for same sub-projects on Wiki https://docs.flipper.net/one Someone thought it would be better than plain text, that's it.
The other day I was criticized for posting a comment people thought was AI but was actually not.
I’m starting to notice that more often with others as well. Happens sometimes to those who were always using emdash, sometimes to those who happen to have traits that these machines themselves learned from how to write, and now they sound suspicious.
I don’t think this means we should never call out slop or lazy writing, but it does seem our ability to detect this stuff is on a spectrum. Some of it is obvious. But beyond a certain point, for example with this article, the signals can become too weak to make any strong claims.
It’s disconcerting to admit that we’ve come to a point where it’s possible to be completely fooled one way or the other by what’s human or AI. Lots of stuff we can still detect, and sometimes it’s obvious, but at the margins we can no longer reliably discriminate.
AI can produce interesting thoughts just like you can produce meaningless flamewars.
There are several valid reasons why AI could have been used - e.g. For translation or in cases where someone might be a tech ace but struggle to write a well structured article.
This is not a forum for literature or poetry. As long as it is readable and accurate, that is what counts.
In any case the AI genie is out and is only going to get better, until it becomes almost impossible to distinguish from 100% human text. If we are going to try police everything we read, that will just become an exercise in frustration. There are bigger things in the world to worry about.
Or they are not a native speaker. I guess it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation". Use a LLM to clean up your own prose? Bad. Post your unedited (or self-edited) prose? I guess it is "not human".
I've ordered gizmos from Lilygo in the past and found their support/documentation/updates to be very poor. Once a product is out the door they seem to do little further with it.
Churning out new products seems to be their forte.
Also, what's a "survival desktop"? I've never heard that term and I couldn't find it used elsewhere.
A desktop you can stick in your back pocket and take on the run?
Sadly, I totally get why they didn't. The nix way still isn't ready for "hey everybody, I'm making a thing, let's work on it together."
The hurdles are just too high for non-nix-nerds to pick it up while simultaneously trying to learn the underlying project.
It's a better way, currently only for those primarily in search of a better way.
On the practical side, "learn Nix" is a _massive_ onboarding task. Without Nix, I'd probably pick one up assuming I'll find something to do with it. With Nix, I'd wait until I have a project I know is worth figuring out Nix.
If this were my project, I'd probably go with the absolute most simple answer: multiple SD card readers. Install the base OS on one card, allow hot-swapping the other card, do some mount point stuff with the other card (like maybe it auto-mounts to /usr/local, and have packages install into /usr/local). Or maybe some kind of overlayfs with the other card. SD cards are cheap, and I'd rather glue an SD card holder to the back of a Flipper than learn Nix.
> I don't really understand why would the team that already got a full plate decide to also invent a whole new Linux system while they're creating their hardware device.
Honestly, I just wouldn't solve that. Nix makes the product way harder to sell, and home-building a solution is either a) an entire product all by itself, or b) shitty, in the "it only works on very specific happy paths" sense.
I also frankly just don't think it's a feature worth as much to consumers as it costs to make. At worst, it's a minor inconvenience to reflash a Pi card. If I'm really lazy, I just disable systemd services for whatever was on it and layer the new stuff on top. It's like 5 commands to get it back to "close enough to fresh".
However, I applaud their goal of opening up things in the ARM world. I'm still bitter after failing to use and having to discard an Arduino Giga. I wanted it because of its juicy CPU, but boy ARM hates hackers with small pockets. STM32CubeProgrammer will raise its nose in disdain if you do not use one of the purebreed and expensive dongles it approves. For my current project, I'm honestly considering to link several ESP32-xx as if I were crafting an old Nintendo, even if a single Cortex M7 would more than have enough power for what I need.
Product naming is not a problem. Anybody interested in these devices knew the differences and the plans for each product.
It won't be identical, but as long as the A->B test loop can be closed I've had 100% success rate.
Generally, unless a similar license or legal terms are required to be agreed to by the end user, nothing stops the end user from reversing said binary blobs. But before you attempt this, be sure you fully understand every legal document which was presented to you by the device vendor. Click-through EULAs included.
RF is a world of black magic, especially at the frequencies, symbol rates and encodings used for stuff like RAM. And the higher in frequency you go... the less "conventional wisdoms" apply.
There's in fact a very old article from 2007 [1] describing the issue from the other end. Some researcher tried to have a primitive form of what we'd call "machine learning" a few years later write FPGA bitstream to get a tone discriminator. Turns out the algorithm and test harness got a working bitstream... but it made no sense at all, it was very finely tuned to individual physical characteristics of that chip.
Link training blobs on modern chips do something very, very similar, at each link initialization they evaluate a lot of different parameters per pin to account for the current state the device is in to get the best (i.e. highest stable bit rate) possible link. And the parameters, value ranges and timings all vary between different chips, so if you write a blob for one combination of SoC and memory, it might very well be possible that you need an entirely different blob for another combination. And that is what the BSP vendor does and what is inside the blob... a tuned version of parameters that this specific board's firmware can use to achieve a working good link in the shortest possible time.
It's one hell of a ride that Flipper is on, and I seriously wish them all the best. There's a darn good reason this stuff has been proprietary, at best you'll get a high-level summary like [2].
[1] https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
[2] https://www.ti.com/lit/an/snla415/snla415.pdf?ts=17793056953...
You need a testing lab with easily 500k worth of gear and construction cost if not way more than that to probe the data buses and obtain the parameters, we're talking about 1.6 GHz (RAM) or, and here it gets dark, up to 16 GHz (PCIe) frequency here. A scope alone that's capable of digesting such signals runs north of 250k from what I hear, you need calibrations, test probes, the room needs to be extensively shielded in order to not get disrupted by RF emissions of, say, the microwave two floors away.
And the people needed to do that are short in supply. As said, RF is dark arts, and I'm a mere radio amateur - I know people who do own such class of hardware though. They make bank. And I stay away as far as possible from anything higher frequency than LoRa. Don't got the brains for that.
Is there something I am fundementally misunderstanding?
Yes. The binary blob handling the link training procedure needs not just the firmware portion implementing the link training (i.e. generate test signals, observe link quality) but also the pre-obtained measurement data.
So, to re-implement it you need to have a deep understanding about the entire hardware stack, knowledge that isn't even made available under NDA.
Especially the loss of IR, which is great for kids to play with and get immediate feedback
I like that they try to push for everything open source, let's see how that goes.
I wish there was a LoRa module, that sounds like a nice portable device for that.
Also, 8GB RAM is barely enough these days, whereas the GPD comes with upto 64GB RAM - and an X86 CPU too, which means you can run your favorite Linux distro and all your apps without any compatibility issues.
I really don't see a reason why I should buy the Flipper One.
I'm also not sure what I'd do with more than 8GB of RAM, I could literally run my entire OS + dekstop environment + the current applications I have open on my workstation desktop right now with that, and still have room to spare.
And of course, the One will be cheaper than a full-fledged x86 handheld, but if you're willing to spend a bit more, you can do so so much more - it becomes a more practical device.
Remember the "easy money" scene from Terminator 2[1]? Ever since I watched that as a kid, that form-factor has been my dream cyberdeck. As I grew older, I went on to own the HTC TyTN and the Nokia N900 - and loved them to bits - but I always felt constrained because of the ARM architecture and low specs. Like, you couldn't realistically brute-force any decent complexity passwords back then, and I bet the neither can the Flipper One with today's passwords.
After being bitten by the various limitations of compact ARM devices, I wanted to get my hands on one of those OQO pocket PCs that ran a full-fledged Windows XP, but never managed to try out. Also missed out on the Sony VAIO P-series. So when the first GPD Pocket came out, I jumped on to it straight away even though it was from some random unheard of company at the time. And I loved it, and haven't looked back since then. I finally had a decent, proper computer in my pocket.
So for me, a keyboard would be a bare minimum on a cyberdeck, and if it's got oodles of RAM and compute, that's even better. And the newer GPDs have also been able to play AAA games on the go, like Cyberpunk 2077, and I think that is super cool.
I find it hard to disagree with you though - I like what the flipper team is doing but I think yeah I would be hard pressed to find a use for a device that doesnt have a keyboard when I have my phone already handy
As for cargo pants, that's usually what I wear (along with cargo shorts during summer) so I don't really see it as a problem - they're big, they're comfy, they've got big pockets - what more could a hcaker ask for? I mean, can you even call yourself a hacker if you always wear skinny jeans? Where/how would you carry all your essential gadgets?
Phones have not been communication devices for a decade unless you want to extend the definition to social media and media consumption, in which case there would be little reason not to extend it to also cover what the Flipper One purports to support - not much of that is not covered by a phone
It's clear you want something else, go buy that instead of shitting on other projects maybe?
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/21/flipper-unveils-a-linux-po...
This isn't true it's more like a modern Rasbperry Pi 5 level system with half single core performance and relatively similar multicore.
The exciting thing about the system isn't the chip it's the connectivity, form factor and extra hardware around it. But let's not pretend it's comparable to the power of phones and laptops which are way ahead.
Although with inflation and supply chain issues I'd be shocked if this ships under $450, but if they pull it off I think you'll get your moneys worth compared to comparable Pi setup.
"Hey Flipper, log onto Wi-Fi SSID FooBarAir, pick the free "messaging only" plan, and set up an IP-over-WhatsApp proxy exposed over the second, encrypted SSID" :)
https://hackaday.io/project/202522-cyberdeck-handheld
Trying to make my own too. Ordered some prototype keyboard PCBs. No idea if I'll get anywhere but I'll try.
And just personal imo, for coding on the go something like macbook air seems to be a way more comfortable option. I know that you wrote that you fit gpd in you pants, but man, you know that this use case is even more niche than flipper zero
Are they upstreaming opensource HDMI 2.1 support? I mean I'm sure they're not, since they paid the toll, just feels they're not totally sticking to their guns. It's the kind of choice that shows if you really mean what you say. The more that won't license, the better chance of actually getting open drivers for common technology.
None of this takes away from how awesome this looks. Very excited by all this.
Go to any store, and look at what cable they use to connect their POS computer to the display. It's probably HDMI.
For better or worse, HDMI is extremely ubiquitous.
> https://flipper.net/pages/warranty-policy warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship for a period of one (1) year
but not complying with either UK nor EU warranty laws.
https://flipper.net/pages/b2b-and-tax-exemption-policy
and unable to B2B in EU/UK? Will any of my money go to russia when buying Flipper One?
If they had a "preorder" button at the top I would give them money and be done with it.
Love the idea of a hackable ethernet tool though.
It's an incredibly ambitious plan, but buy would I be in the market (unironically!) for an offline, LLM-powered, voice-controlled, satellite-connected, tactical pocket Linux set top box.
I wish someone sent me one of theirs gathering dust for free, lol
to add on to this: you can definitely make great UI's for small screens and unconventional controls -- Playdate [1] builds their UI around a physical crank on the device, and it feels fun to use it :)
Flipper One's hardware designs and constraints are very compelling. I would have preferred an additional physical switch to disable all emissions.
That said, if they can pull of the initial software stack it will be a strong platform for a broad set of use cases.
Living in Japan I've avoided Flipper Zero due to the law basically saying "It is illegal to own tools primarily used for crime" (think lockpicks, etc). With Flipper Zero primarily being a RFID hacking tool, you are one officer knowing what it is and considering it a tool for crime away from being locked up - at least for the 21 days they get while they investigate you.
Now Flipper One seems like something probably legal.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/getpebble/pebble-2-time...
This reminds me of that in a good way – a small Linux device that doesn't have to maintain a screen all the time (power) or focus on real-time but has physical buttons, connectivity, a microphone and a sealed case so it can be thrown in your pocket would be... an absolute dream.
Counter to some others here, I would buy this at whatever cost if it lived up to that intent!
Love my flipper zero!
Were blobs a big problem before?
However, the problem with binary blobs is that they are binary blobs: no sources, can't make changes, can't adapt them to work on a new system, can't audit them. Free folks have always argued that a computer will never be free if there are binary blobs in there
(well: the last part is not really true, there is always a way to have a custom firmware, or make an audit, but the manufacturer will do that only for elite customers. Not for open source folks.)
* ssh * cc (and git, ruby, shell, bc, vi) * screen with 80x25 unicode text (meybe greyscale or orangescale ;D ) * keyboard with minimal 16 keys (hex, t9 input text) * a week working time on one charge time (meybe solar panel) * usb A and C (minimum one host)
system fuzix, or Sugaros, or Serenity, haiku, minix . (any open source)
I no need * (network, reticulum, lora, wifi etc) * sound * camera * faster procesor than 333MHz
Doesn't look like this is gonna be cheap, so getting rid of 20USD worth of hardware that previous generation was known for doesn't make sense
Fixing this is a noble goal but won't sell a lot of devices by itself. And it will only fix the one specific hardware configuration used by Flipper. This seems to be the only interesting part of the project and the actual hardware is otherwise completely uninteresting. Not sure how they expect to succeed here.
Oh and then you got the question of the bandwidth of the filter. Ideally you want as low of a bandwidth as possible (e.g. Meshcore is 62.5 kHz, Meshtastic 250 kHz), but the SRD band in which you can legally run LoRa in Europe is 821-870 MHz... yeah good luck, you can't really do that, you need hardware for any serious usable filter that doesn't get stuffed over by nearby disruptors.
The antenna question is a different thing. That one is easier to solve as you can just ship different antennas tuned to different bands to different country SKUs, but it is nonetheless a pain to deal with.
Edit: Oh and I forgot, LoRa is proprietary IP from Semtech. There's lorarx written by some hams that can work on your average rtl-sdr... but as the name says, it's receive only, I'm not aware of anyone doing SDR transmission for Lora.
Like all unicorn chip products, setting up a link in SDR is not officially supported without violating IP rights. =3
Even with peripheral DMA this idea sounds terrifying.
Except they themselves were never around to "help" their own community, instead opting to tear down creators of competitor devices and influencers who they did not like instead of trying to work with anyone. Many 3rd party board makers and app contributors could have been spotlighted, but it was all ignored over the years. Now they just want to once again extract free labor.
I imagine you dump all the config registers of a running system, and then adjust everything that looks like some timing or drive strength parameter upwards till it stops working properly, downwards till it stops working, and then choose a middle value.
Do that repeatedly for every parameter pre-boot, and then use that config. Perhaps redo that every few hours or when the temperature changes.
Since this is an unencrypted binary, I'm sure it won't be difficult to reverse engineer. And it will definitely be open source sooner or later. But first, we'll try to convince Rockchip to open source it. Especially since the RK3576 has other proprietary parts, such as OP-TEE and some registers. Also it has a Cortex M0 core, which is also not documented.
I think a general purpose model would actually cut it pretty well if it has access to proper documentation and search. Since everything will be OSS, the model can have "full" introspection of the system.
Rockchip have not fully open-sourced the DRAM DVFS support in BL31, but it's key to achieving full run-time battery life on portable devices - see https://xnux.eu/log/083.html
And the system suspend implementation that Rockchip did open-source in upstream BL31 lacks some functionality compared to their binary BL31, mostly about powering off as many peripherals as possible to save power.
I'm not saying don't bother opening the DDR training, just that these two things are much more important for a portable battery-powered device.
What do ya'll think? over-under $500? Longer than 2 years to market?
Not even the Pi foundation could manage that. Why not go RISC-V if compatibility is the main goal? This thing does not need bleeding edge horsepower.
This project looks similar to Librem 5 to me. The same goal of open drivers and minimal blobs everywhere.
does anyone know how much they're thinking for Flipper One?
>> Flipper’s goal is to sell the device for around $350.
Just sayin'.
EDIT: The above is a perfectly factual statement about the Flipper. The downvotes are presumably coming from the pro-Russia bots and shills.
Speaking as someone who watched the first flipper prototypes being soldered by hand.
Terrible to always see misinformation from people who don't even check basics.
Confirmed in the Dev Portal. https://docs.flipper.net/one/hardware/wifi-bluetooth
In my experience... cost, availability and power.
Not BLE, but Bluetooth. For BLE you can have nordic nRF chip.
I'm curious if someone experienced here have some recommendation.
Thank you.
I look at it as a platform for solutions to technical problems, where either or both the solution and the problem are temporary in some sense. You could plug it into an ethernet port and have it automatically sniff the network for a while, or be your television box in hotels, or a leaner companion to some Kraken style SDR device than a laptop, or whatever.
Once you have a purpose which is more permanent, then you'd probably switch it out for another device.
This remote sent signals right in the middle of the flippers range.
The flipper didn't work for shit, was fucking weird, and had piss-poor documentation. The promise was democratizing radio hacking digital signals. That was, in the most charitable light, an oversell.
So for the low price of $200, I found out I could just buy a replacement remote off ebay for cheap rather than hacking up my own receiver.
Also, you can BUY a flipper, but you can't SELL a flipper.
Anyways, that's my flipper experience, I wish them the best but also I don't give a shit.
Once you see this phrase, you know it's AI written.
a huge part of the problems they have are issues they set for themselves, they picked the hardware first and are now trying how to make it work, usually when making a hardware product you start backwards from which hardware you can actually support and then pick from there... rather than expect someone else to solve your problems....
if they would opensource the hardware and all of the software, I'd agree with the request for help... but they seem to want to have the cake and eat it too...