[HN Gopher] Nokia E63 phone converted into LoRa messenger
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Nokia E63 phone converted into LoRa messenger
Author : RcrdBrt
Score : 144 points
Date : 2021-07-12 08:41 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnx-software.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnx-software.com)
| thombles wrote:
| Great choice of outer hardware. My old E63 was the last phone I
| had where I could legitimately touch type, and I still miss it.
| simlan wrote:
| I had the e61. Also a lovely piece of hardware. Lasted a long
| time until the feature phones tarted dying.
| neilv wrote:
| I had a Singapore version of the E61, which included WiFi
| (unlike the US versions of the E61 where I live), and
| cosmetically was all-silver color (no odd-looking gray
| buttons).
|
| It was such nice physical hardware, one could type messages
| very rapidly. It was also very durable. (I bounced it off
| pavement 2-3 times, and literally only got a few scratches.)
|
| I would love a solid trustworthy opensource Linux handheld in
| pretty much that exact hardware physical keyboard design. I'm
| primarily interested in WiFi, but (isolated) cellular would
| also be nice, and maybe LoRa transceiver hardware would come
| in handy someday.
| stavros wrote:
| > literally only got a few scratches
|
| The pavement, you mean?
| bayindirh wrote:
| > The pavement, you mean?
|
| I think the pavement just disappeared on contact.
| girvo wrote:
| Mine was the Sony Ericsson M600i and then P1i: the rocker dual-
| letter QWERTY was the absolutely best input method I've used on
| a phone.
| Wildgoose wrote:
| I had a Nokia E72. Fabulous 'phone that I finally replaced with
| the iPhone SE (2016), the last iPhone with a headphone jack,
| (and thus the last one worth buying).
|
| I have an Astro Slide on order, so I shall be returning to a
| keyboard 'phone, but one that is rather larger:
|
| https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...
| Accacin wrote:
| Wow, yeah I loved that phone. I'm surprised you kept it so
| long! I replaced mine with an HTC G1. I would love a phone
| like the E72 again.
| Shank wrote:
| On one of the example phone displays, you can see:
|
| > Secure 4K encryption
|
| I understand wanting to have some kind of peace-of-mind marketing
| statement, but encryption has everything to do with the chosen
| cipher suite and implementation, and while 4096-bit encryption
| can technically be called "4k" this furthers misconceptions
| around key size and strength [0]. This seems like another effort
| to borrow the marketing effect of 4K displays.
|
| [0]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-are-some-keys-small/
| axegon_ wrote:
| > The schematics and PCB layout have not been released, so the
| OTG messenger is not an open-source hardware project yet, but
| Trevor says it may become open source if there's enough positive
| interest from the community.
|
| My disappointment is immeasurable.
| skrebbel wrote:
| The author doesn't owe you anything though.
| justinjlynn wrote:
| True. However, one can still feel disappointed.
| axegon_ wrote:
| Did I ever claim the opposite?
| Sophistifunk wrote:
| It means they're still looking into productising it themselves,
| and they won't release the schematics until a) they've got a
| shipment to sell, or b) they give up on dealing with the
| chinese scammers they're currently negotiating with.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I agree that's what it looks like but I wonder what the point
| is of trying to make a business around some old hardware
| that's got questionable amounts of them still around
| dmos62 wrote:
| I don't know. Personally, I've hesitated releasing designs
| and code that was messy, even if useful. It takes some work
| to release something. Maybe not much, but when it's a hobby
| project it's easy to put it off.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| True but this does look pretty ready
| sschueller wrote:
| "enough positive interest from the community". I don't
| understand that. How much work is it to release? If I make
| software I can see that if I hacked a giant crap of code
| together that I would want to clean it up before releasing it
| to public and save my self the embarrassment knowing I could do
| it better. However with hardware, you generally need to get it
| somewhat right or it doesn't work at all and you can't fix it
| quick.
| swiley wrote:
| At least with the company I'm at, I'm supposed to talk to my
| boss before releasing code from side projects.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Sounds like slavery or indentured servitude. Why do you
| accept it?
| swiley wrote:
| Because it was otherwise significantly better than my
| previous situation? A better question is "why is this
| legal?"
| geocar wrote:
| > If I make software I can see that if I hacked a giant crap
| of code together that I would want to clean it up before
| releasing it to public and save my self the embarrassment
| knowing I could do it better.
|
| I think hardware is the same way. There's also protocols to
| fabrication that may be difficult to explain. You have
| support requests and emails wasting your time.
|
| > "enough positive interest from the community". I don't
| understand that.
|
| I read it as opposed to negative interest.
|
| > If I make software I can see that if I hacked a giant crap
| of code together that I would want to clean it up before
| releasing it to public and save my self the embarrassment
| knowing I could do it better.
|
| You should _not_ be made to feel ashamed for giving something
| away for free. You should not even suggest that this should
| be acceptable. It isn 't. People who offer comments on code
| beyond how to add material functionality (i.e. more inputs),
| make it faster, or decrease the code size are trash humans.
| Delete and ignore.
| cdstyh wrote:
| >People who offer comments on code beyond how to add
| material functionality (i.e. more inputs), make it faster,
| or decrease the code size are trash humans.
|
| I strongly disagree. Making code more maintainable and easy
| to understand is very important. Enforcing style guides is
| important
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Depends on if other people are gonna work on it too,
| right? By barging in and telling people their indentation
| is messy because it's a mix of tabs and spaces which
| isn't consistent on your IDE, you take away the time they
| might otherwise spend on doing what they want. It isn't
| there for you, it's a passion project not a job.
| koksik202 wrote:
| As kid who grew up in countryside I would love to have one of
| these to talk to my cousin as we didn't have computer or
| internet, the year was 2004 and we used to send tons of SMS but
| were always short on credit
| Tepix wrote:
| It would be great if you could do voice via LoRa too but that
| would probably quickly exceed the duty cycle restriction.
| fsiefken wrote:
| it could be done with codec2, but duty cycle of 1% would limit
| it to push to talk brief sentences every minute or so, it might
| be better to stick to text. Perhaps handy when someone had a
| mountain accident and can only push and talk. Use a speech to
| text decoder and limit expressions to 140 characters, should be
| enough for every piece of conversation including this comment
| (with vowels stripped out). o wait, that's to little - make it
| 300 characters.
| retzkek wrote:
| It would be interesting to see if you could incorporate a radio
| module like a DRA818U/V [1] and provide short-distance voice
| over MURS (VHF), FRS/GMRS (UHF), or similar bands.
|
| [1] http://dorji.com/products.php?CateId=14
| bri3d wrote:
| You can channel hop LoRa to massively increase the practicable
| duty cycle. I think voice could be in the realm of possibility.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| What is the licensing issue with this? It is like Ham radio
| license ? Something else? India has started banning drones
| outright and walkie talkies are banned unless you have prior
| police verification. I think they demand that radio exam, Morse
| and all but im not sure. Where does this fit? Is it like cellular
| connection?
| z3t4 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa
| bri3d wrote:
| It uses a LoRa module, which is approved by the radio
| regulators as an ISM-band device in some jurisdictions, for
| example in the US:
|
| https://fccid.io/2ASEORFM95C
|
| No idea how the regulators in India work but yes, this is more
| similar to a cellular connection than an analog VHF/UHF walkie
| talkie.
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| There's different types of regulation to consider.. There's
| spectrum licensing, radio user licensing, and product
| certification.
|
| 2.4 GHz is considered an ISM band meaning it's license free
| meaning you do not have to purchase a license from the
| government to use that physical chunk of spectrum. There are
| certain chunks of spectrum (frequencies) that are auctioned off
| by the government. This gets you exclusive usage to that band,
| across a country or in certain parts. The government will (is
| supposed to) enforce the spectrum so unlicensed users aren't
| clogging things up. You may not need a spectrum license for ISM
| band usage, but you still need to be using certified products.
|
| Next you have user licensing like HAM radio operators. Amateurs
| are legally required to have licenses to operate the radios.
| I'm not sure whether a HAM radio license also includes a fee
| for spectrum.
|
| Last (but I'm sure there's probably more regs), you have the
| certifications for the product itself. If you're in the US,
| this means doing FCC testing and getting an ID for your
| product. Each country typically has their own regulatory body.
| A certified product means your OK on duty cycle, TX power, etc.
| There's other tests as well especially if you're dealing with
| wearables but that's a different story.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > 2.4 GHz is considered an ISM band meaning it's license free
| meaning you do not have to purchase a license from the
| government to use that physical chunk of spectrum.
|
| This is not necessarily true: some governments demand that
| ISM frequencies be used for Industrial, Scientific and
| Medical purposes only, so it is not license-free for personal
| use in all jurisdictions.
| Reventlov wrote:
| There is no licensing issue, you can use LoRa without a licence
| (like Wi-Fi) in a few bands depending on the country / zone
| you're in (915MHz, 868MHz, 433MHz...). You have to respect duty
| cycles restrictions (not emit more than 1% of the time, for
| example) though if you're not listening to avoid collisions.
| mixxit wrote:
| isn't also that all communication is required to be
| unencrypted?
| detaro wrote:
| Outside ham bands such rules are rare.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Depends on local laws. For where I am, LoRa radios fall
| into similar requirements to Wi-Fi, where devices must be
| certified but encryption require no license.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| LoRa = Long Range
| myself248 wrote:
| (c) (tm) (r) (patent-encumbered)
| [deleted]
| ggpp wrote:
| Discussion from 2 weeks ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27659105
| squarefoot wrote:
| Interesting, although using an already usability challenged
| platform like a cellphone to me isn't the best choice around. But
| I'm biased by having big fingers and some problems reading those
| small screens without my 2nd pair of glasses.
|
| I'm still hoping the project below shows one day it's not a pile
| of vaporware.
|
| https://pocket.popcorncomputer.com/
| baradhiren07 wrote:
| Github link: https://github.com/TrevorAttema/OTGMessenger
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(page generated 2021-07-14 23:03 UTC)