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Rotary Un-Smartphone(tm) Kit
A cellphone. You know... for making CALLS.
[RUSPBanner]
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The Rotary Un-Smartphone is a followup to this personal project. It's
a production-ready ground-up design with all new parts (yes, the
rotary dial too) and many neat bells and whistles.
Pocket-sized
Full LTE connectivity. Obsolescence-proof for at least another
decade.
Access and call your personal contacts faster than with a smartphone
Use your own SIM card with your favorite carrier's "Bring Your Own
Device" option
Real (mechanical) ringer bell made gold or silver-coated brass;
externally visible
Receive basic SMS messages and send pre-typed messages and numeric
strings
2 displays: Front-side OLED and back-side ePaper
Physical disconnect switch for the microphone
Mechanical power switch
MicroSD card stores contacts list as a text file
TRRS headset jack
USB-C charging port
Incandescent-like indicator LEDs
Weighs 163g [6oz]
Injection molded parts available in several striking colors
Documentation:
Manual: An actual manual with everything you need to know in one
place
Build Instructions: The primary assembly guide for this kit
Video: Coming soon
Pictures: Photos, renderings, and more
Open Source Files:
Firmware: Arduino-compatible
Electrical:The KiCad files
Mechanical:STEP files and PDFs
License: Read before forking
[RUSPP3_Spl] [RUSP_OnlyP] [RUSPP3_SIM]
[RUSPP3_Mai] [RUSPP3_Mai] [RUSPP3_Elx]
READ
Q: Do I need to know electronics? What skills are required for
assembly? Can anyone build it?
A: This was designed to be an easy-build kit. No soldering is
required, nor glue, nor cutting. One should be able to put it
together in a short afternoon with a screwdriver or two, tweezers,
and a careful hand.
Q: What comes with the kit?
A: Everything you need to make a complete, working phone. Just supply
a SIM card from your cell carrier.
Q: Will a ready-built version be available in the future?
A: I think so. There are bureaucratic reasons that this is not
straight-forward (i.e. FCC licensing). Besides, selling a
ready-to-use cellphone would warrant a level of customer support
which I'm not currently able to provide.
Q: What size SIM card does it take?
A: The typical "Mini SIM" size.
Q: Who designed this?
A: All design -- electrical, mechanical, and software -- was entirely
by Justine Haupt (Sky's Edge is my creative outlet).
Q: Can I order specific parts (not the whole kit), and make the rest
myself?
A: Sure! Or, if you love doing things from scratch, you can use the
design files to make the entire thing on your own. It's open source.
Q: Everyone's talking about 5G. Why is this a 4G phone?
A: This is a fully-modern LTE (4G) device supporting Voice over LTE
(VoLTE). 5G mainly adds mm-wave high-bandwidth service capabilities
for extremely fast data rates, but this is not a useful feature for a
voice-only cell phone like the Rotary Un-Smartphone. Because LTE will
remain the backbone of the modern cellular infrastructure for voice,
text, and lower-bandwidth data transfer for at least the next decade,
there's no disadvantage to using a 4G phone, despite the wireless
companies' seeming desparation in pushing 5G.
Q: My region is still using 3G, and will be for some time. Will the
RUSP work for me?
A: Yes, the Rotary Un-Smarpthone will fall-back to 3G if LTE service
is unavailable.
Is that battery replacemable?
Considering it's a "kit" phone, I would argue that it's replaceable
by default, although it does require disassembly and easy soldering.
This phone will run on any single-cell LiPo battery that will fit in
the space, whether it comes from Sky's Edge or wherever.
Q: What's the chipset?
A: The microcontroller is an AtMega2560 running an Arduino
bootloader. The cellular module is a uBlox TOBY-R200 (global version)
or TOBY-R202 (N. American version). The global version also works in
N. America. The N. American version will also have global
functionality, although with reduced band compatibility with respect
to the global version. All things considered, the global version is
the more desirable variant.
Q: In what ways is it a more functional telephone than a smartphone?
A:
* Better reception because the antennas aren't packed against the
electronics.
* You don't have to navigate an operating system to get to the
phone "application".
* You can assign two buttons to be hard-coded for quick dialing
your favorite people. Your spouse, parent, or child can be a
single button-press away.
* The point of the phone isn't to use the rotary dial every time
you call someone, which would get tiresome fast. You can store
your contacts list and then dial up your friends with just two
spins of the dial. When the less frequent need to dial a new
number arises, the novelty of the satisfying-to-use rotary dial
is fun rather than annoying.
* Previously, phones with physical keys required a clamshell (flip)
form-factor to prevent unintended dialing. Rotary dials are
naturally resistant to butt dialing.
* Nearly instantaneous 10-segment display of signal strength or
battery level. Compare to typical 4-bar signal meters.
* The rear ePaper display (for displaying contacts) is bistatic,
meaning it doesn't take any energy to display a fixed message.
* The power switch is an actual slide switch. No holding down a
stupid button to make it turn off and not being sure it really is
turning off or what.
* Physical cut-off switch for the microphone. Thank you Edward
Snowden.
~Justine
$390 USD
(PRE-ORDER)
RUSPKP
Chip Shortage Update: Pre-orders placed now will be shipped around
November of 2022.
Region:
[N. America $390.00 USD ]
COLOR
[White ]
BELL FINISH:
[Silver]
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For updates, email justine@skysedge.com with the word "subscribe" in
the heading and whitelist this address in your spam filter. Your
email address will never be shared.
The name Sky's Edge comes from the Revelation Space universe by
Alastair Reynolds,
Skysedge.us created and maintained by David van Popering &
Justine Haupt