[HN Gopher] Show HN: Beepberry - a portable e-paper computer for...
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Show HN: Beepberry - a portable e-paper computer for hackers
Hi. I heard HN likes e-paper gadgets so I wanted to share a little
side project I've been working on with @sqfmi. We're building
Beepberry - a portable e-paper computer for hackers, designed for
chatting on Beeper. My day job is running Beeper [0], but I will
always have a soft spot for building hardware. I wanted to create
a 'weekend' device that would let me stay in touch with friends and
family, without the distractions of a full smartphone. I imagined a
tiny, hackable e-paper screen with a physical keyboard, powered by
a Raspberry Pi, that I could use to chat around my home...and
pretty much nothing else. Before Beeper, the idea probably would
not have gone anywhere. Most chat apps do not have an API, making
it practically impossible to hack something like this together.
Enter Beeper, with connections to 15+ chat networks. Built on top
of Matrix, Beeper is fully hackable. You can write alternative fun
clients [1], bots [2] and more! Today, sqfmi is starting to take
pre-orders at https://beepberry.sqfmi.com for the first batch. It's
$79 (or $99 including a Pi Zero). Specs: Sharp Memory LCD (same
display tech as in Pebble!), Pi Zero (BT/WIFI), physical keyboard,
2000mAh lipo. On top of being an amazing Beeper chat device, it's
basically an e-paper Cyberdeck that fits in your pocket. It's a ton
of fun to hack on. Keep in mind - THIS IS NOT A REAL FINISHED
PRODUCT. It's basically a devkit. More info in the blog post:
https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-x-sqmfi-beepberry, or join the
Discord/Matrix channel https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/docs/getting-
started#join-the-be.... I'll hang out a bit here to answer
questions as well. [0] https://beeper.com [1]
https://github.com/tulir/gomuks [2]
https://github.com/maubot/maubot
Author : erohead
Score : 298 points
Date : 2023-05-17 15:13 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (beepberry.sqfmi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (beepberry.sqfmi.com)
| user3939382 wrote:
| To borrow from Jerry Maguire: you had me at physical qwerty.
| ano-ther wrote:
| Excellent idea. Am close to ordering.
|
| You say e-paper, but the technical drawing "Sharp Memory LCD"
| which sounds different to me.
|
| And it would be great to have a case, or a 3d file.
| erohead wrote:
| STL for the case https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/docs/enclosures
|
| e-paper != e-ink (which is a specific type of e-paper)
| masukomi wrote:
| so, if e-paper != e-ink is e-paper "a digital screen you can
| read text on" ? or.. I'm confused. (actual question not being
| a jerk)
|
| I, too expected an e-ink screen and was disappointed to find
| it was an LCD.
|
| Wikipedia seems to think that e-paper and e-ink are in fact
| the same thing:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper
| googlryas wrote:
| I read it as the screen maintains the last contents written
| and generally operates with low power requirements while
| screen content is not being written. Per the data sheet, to
| have the screen in a state where it gets all of its pixels
| written once every 30 seconds, it consumes 135mW of power.
| ZiiS wrote:
| https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/docs/enclosures
| boomskats wrote:
| Awesome, you're my hero. I just ordered two of these.
|
| It looks to be using the same Q10 keyboard as a few of the other
| hacks (i.e. Fairberry[0], but with the addition of the
| dial/hangup buttons. Are you only using them for the trackpad?
| Any ambitions for a touchscreen-only variant?
|
| (if so, I've got like 15x of those Q10 keyboards scattered across
| my desk)
|
| [0] https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry
| sqfmi wrote:
| The dial/hangup buttons map to modifier keys and power control,
| and the trackpad can be mapped to mouse/arrow/scroll keys. No
| plans for touchscreen yet :)
| hemmert wrote:
| How cool is that! Pebbltastic!
| rsre wrote:
| This is amazing! A hacker friendly Cybiko/TwitterPeek with the
| power of Matrix. Feels like the ultimate chat device.
| sqfmi wrote:
| I miss the Cybiko, it was ahead of it's time and was so much
| fun to play with. They can still be found on eBay.
| focusedone wrote:
| I miss it too! Ya know what can't be found on ebay (or even
| IRL when new)? Other people nearby to play games with.
|
| Those things were so cool!
| sqfmi wrote:
| Get the Beepberry and play games with friends across the
| globe (via WiFi)!
| anonzzzies wrote:
| Lovely little thing. When you start selling cases as well, please
| can you set up a mailing list or post again when you start
| sending including case? Without case I am sure I won't use it
| (blew up far too much stuff with static electricity in my life).
| sqfmi wrote:
| Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/sqfmi and join our
| Discord https://discord.gg/QERrSferdF ! We'll share the latest
| updates on Beepberry development there.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| I'm surprised you don't push people towards open standards
| like an email newsletter or a Matrix channel. _Twitter_?
| _Discord_?
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Ordered two.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| nmstoker wrote:
| Seems to only mention Zero W directly, but would a Zero 2 W also
| work? Kind of expecting it would but thought it better to check
| deegles wrote:
| I would love to hook this up to a LoRa receiver and use it around
| town, will be fun to hack on.
| erohead wrote:
| I recommend the PineDio USB LoRA adapter from Pine64!
| https://pine64.com/product/pinedio-usb-lora-adapter/
| digging wrote:
| FYI the FAQ page gets a 404: https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/docs/FAQ
| Animats wrote:
| At least it's only $99.
|
| Sadly, it's not a shipping product yet. It's a "preorder".
| mortenjorck wrote:
| So that appears to be an actual Blackberry keyboard - are they
| reclaimed? OEM surplus?
| AlphaWeaver wrote:
| I recently switched to Beeper and as exciting as this looks, I
| wish that the team spent a little bit more time working on their
| primary app rather than working on what appears to be a toy
| hardware project.
|
| Beeper is supposed to be a "universal messenger" that acts as a
| central place for all your messaging apps. I originally signed up
| because I wanted to be able to iMessage on my Android device,
| which has worked relatively well. In order to use the app's SMS
| bridge though, you have to set the app as your default SMS app
| (an Android requirement, no getting around it.) Unfortunately,
| it's just really difficult to compete with the system-level
| messenger app.
|
| I've been chatting back and forth with them, and their support
| team has been pretty responsive, but I'll likely stop using it
| soon. Their app is just too buggy to be such an important part of
| my workflow as a default SMS app. No RCS support, notification
| issues, totally missing SMS messages entirely with no way to
| recover them? (Rare, but destructive.)
|
| Love the idea, but needs a good bit more work. (Sorry to the
| team, I know some of them are here on HN.)
| bandedetrappes wrote:
| A bit disappointed to see the only message mentioning the
| primary app here is a bad review, so I though I'd chime in and
| say we (I and three friends) absolutely love it. It's the only
| app with such versatility, with almost 24h support, and it's
| getting better every week, on every platform. The UI is really
| nice for an invite-only product. Your review is mainly based on
| SMS, which is a fraction of what the app can do. Congrats to
| the team, keep up the great work !
| erohead wrote:
| Tough to penalize us because Android does not expose RCS APIs.
| If the only part of Beeper that you don't like is the SMS part,
| I would recommend disabling that - go back to using Google
| Messages for SMS and use Beeper for the 14 other chat networks
| that we support.
| drabbiticus wrote:
| Hey just found out about Beeper through this post and it
| looks like it could be a very nice fit for communicating with
| Apple friends/co-workers while on Android. It is very nice to
| find out about this app.
|
| > Tough to penalize us because Android does not expose RCS
| APIs
|
| As someone speaking from a genuine place of ignorance, the
| Google page relating to RCS https://jibe.google.com/ seems to
| imply that RCS is just a universal specification and there
| are a number of documents that seem relevant after a search
| for "gsma rcs specification".
|
| Is this an Android permissions thing where the only practical
| way to implement RCS support would be through a Google-
| supplied API?
| vinodhn wrote:
| I could be wrong but the only app that can send and receive
| messages through RCS on Android is Googles own messages
| app. Since Google runs their own RCS instance, they're the
| only ones interfacing with it. There's currently no API to
| allow for third party apps to make use of RCS.
|
| That being said, RCS is designed to be an open standard.
| It's just that only Google is really pushing for it right
| now and running an instance of it. If I'm not mistaken,
| AT&T ran their own instance for a while but it was shut
| down in favor of Googles instance.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| RCS should work between different instances; AFAIK,
| Vodafone and Google are exchanging messages, for example.
|
| Of course you could implement a full RCS client in your
| own app, deregister RCS in the Google Messenger app and
| then interface with your server of choice that way.
| However, this is significantly more work than just
| accessing the normal text messages on a phone. You'd also
| need to implement Google's extensions on top of RCS
| yourself (like E2EE encryption) and set up some kind of
| notification system (because you can't poll a server or
| listen on a socket without getting killed in the
| background).
|
| It's all theoretically possible, but it's a lot of work.
| This is one of the reasons why Signal decided to drop SMS
| support all together in their app. Google could expose
| RCS messaging like they do text messaging, but they
| just... don't. Unless you're Samsung, of course; Samsung
| is allowed to call into the RCS APIs but other apps
| aren't.
| copperx wrote:
| I'm sure young me would have found a ton of use cases for this,
| but now I'm old.
|
| Can someone tell me one or two things this could be useful for? I
| want to buy it just because it looks awesome.
| traverseda wrote:
| Daylight readable display and physical keyboard make it
| excellent for all kinds of field work. If you're out doing
| things in real life this thing seems like a good choice to me.
| Quick calculation when you're building a chicken coop, use as a
| glide computer or a biking computer. Lots of outdoor stuff
| really.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| using the GPIO. But you'd need to build some piggyback
| connectors. In fact if this had a JST or other connector it
| would be a lot better. Things like reading resistance values
| from sensors and displaying them back is pretty trivial, and
| being able to just load up different scripts to do that instead
| of, say arduino where you really would need to flash a program
| for each sensor say, would make it useful.
| jbm wrote:
| -edit- As pointed out below, there is an early access program for
| developers a little further down on the order page that I missed.
|
| Original comment below ----v
|
| I love the product but I take issue with the term "Order now" on
| the website.
|
| > Below is the shipping timeline for Beepberry: > Beepberry
| without Raspberry Pi Zero W: ~ August 2023 > Beepberry with
| Raspberry Pi Zero W: ~ September 2023
|
| I think it would be more helpful to call it a pre-order on the
| button. If I click "order now", I'd expect it in 6 weeks, max.
|
| Regardless, I like the concept and look forward to buying it
| after a few people try it out.
| koinedad wrote:
| It says 50 are available in the site
| jbm wrote:
| Ah, I see what you are talking about now.
|
| > Beepberry Early Access Program > We have 50 units available
| to ship immediately to developers and hackers. If you would
| like to be one of the first to receive a Beepberry, please
| fill out the form below after placing your order.
|
| I'm not sure how I missed that, thank you for pointing it
| out!
| conor_f wrote:
| I love the form factor here. A few questions:
|
| 1) Have you considered how this could be made more mobile
| friendly? Most places I could see myself using a device like
| this, I wouldn't have access to WiFi. Is there an equivalent of a
| USB SIM card adapter that would fit here?
|
| 2) What sort of battery life can be achieved with this?
|
| Looks great though! Am very likely to order an iteration of this
| :)
| erohead wrote:
| 1) maybe? this is just a hacker device for now. You can easily
| add a USB LTE modem if you'd like.
|
| 2) battery life will depend on which OS you use, peripherals,
| software duty cycle etc. It's a hacker device, don't expect it
| to work without putting in the effort to tune/tweak it.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > You can easily add a USB LTE modem if you'd like.
|
| Would you like some help with that?
|
| I was only planning to add sixel support, but I could prepare
| you a simple configuration to use a cheap 4G module like the
| Quectel EC25 ( _) at least for sending /receiving SMS, and
| maybe acting as an access point.
|
| (_) Other options would also be possible, like Qualcomm SDX55
| and SDX62/SDX65 for 5G, but the Quectel has more community
| support since it's also used on the linphone
| f1shy wrote:
| I like it! But I wouldn't buy it... What I would totally buy, is
| a HHKB keyboard with a Raspberry inside, as the ols home
| computers. Like the R Pi 400, but with a MX keyboard, and HHKB
| layout...
| [deleted]
| MrBruh wrote:
| Could someone tell me how many hours of battery life you could
| get out of it?
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I continue to await my beeper invite, but this looks great. I
| have been itching to tinker with e-ink for a while and this seems
| like a great entry point. Cheers, I'm in for $99!
| corn13read2 wrote:
| It's an LCD, poor titling.
| rglover wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to put this together. Just snagged
| one. Can't wait to play with it.
| vhodges wrote:
| A lot pricier of course but there's
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor too for the
| same kind of uses this is for.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Have been wanting to get a device just like this for a long time
| to do live-coding (Glicol) on. So glad you had the foresight to
| expose the rpi pins so I can just stick an audio hat onto it to
| get audio in/out
| bg0 wrote:
| If we order it, can we get access to beeper lol
| igetspam wrote:
| I do not need this. At all. Not one bit. Not for a second. It
| would be foolish of me to spend money on this.
|
| Two, please!
|
| Very cool.
| rwl4 wrote:
| I've ordered my share of little Linux gadgets. I said no more
| because they were wholly impractical. Well, congrats, you just
| caused me to pull out my wallet and buy. This looks incredible!
|
| You should sell a case as well for people like me who don't want
| to bother with 3D printing.
| sqfmi wrote:
| Thanks! We plan to offer 2 cases (CNC aluminum and clear
| transparent plastic) once we're happy with the design
| Zanovis wrote:
| Do you need support with this design? Happy to help out!
| sqfmi wrote:
| We'll be sharing the STEP model of the device and the
| enclosure here https://github.com/sqfmi/beepberry-hardware
| Feel free to hack away!
| Pawka wrote:
| This piece looks really nice and I almost want it!
|
| But have no idea what to do with it. What are your plans folks?
| How you are using similar hardware?
| traverseda wrote:
| I want a "forever computer" and I think this fits the bill. I
| don't actually expect it to last forever, but with unix command
| line tools we've got one lineage of computing that has lasted
| more than 30 years. I want to put a solar panel and a lora
| modem on it, and have a little computing device that will last
| the rest of my life. An artifact that will be as useful in 40
| years as it is now, like how old calculators with nixie tubes
| still fundamentally work as calculators.
|
| Might even try finally learning orgmode, maybe use vim-orgmode
| one it.
| resize2996 wrote:
| For similar reasons, general future proofing, I recently
| started using orgmode for my todo lists, journaling and a
| light project management workflow. I'm a vim person, and
| using spacemacs with evil mode has been good for learning. I
| imagine I'll eventually start from scratch and only keep the
| pieces I like, but it's been a reasonable starting point.
|
| This looks great for those purposes, it should interact
| nicely. There's a decent chance I'll pick up the watch today.
| (Can I make it buzz for pomodoro? Hmm.)
| csdvrx wrote:
| I would use it to ssh and tmux to my servers, to display
| stats/logs and start simple scripts when needed, like a
| "wireless KVM".
|
| I understand many people use smartphones or tablets for that,
| but I don't like the idea of having a smartphone with me at all
| times: I have one, but in a drawer. I charge it and use it when
| I need to travel. It's too intrusive otherwise.
|
| I can use ssh from my laptop, but I like a distraction free
| environment: most of my apps run in full screen, to help me
| maintain my concentration.
|
| So a separate device I could turn quickly, check what's
| happening, and type commands, would be very valuable.
|
| I would certainly try to find a way to add sixel support to the
| terminal (BSD console terminals have that) then have gnuplot
| display some key measurements like latency scatters on top of
| the moving averages.
|
| Another role would be very natural thanks to being cheap: the
| USB port could help me check devices without having to fear
| hardware damage to my laptop USB ports (voltage issues etc) or
| software issues (virus/trojan etc)
| rchaud wrote:
| Very cool! I was just recently feeling that I have LCD fatigue,
| and wondered what it would be like to have a mobile computing
| device with a similar screen as a Nokia from 20 years ago.
|
| Can I ask why you copied the classic Blackberry keyboard almost
| entirely? Even the symbol on the "Menu" button is BB's. There are
| keyboard phone OEMs like Unihertz that specifically changed their
| keyboard design to not resemble BB so as to avoid patent
| disputes.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This is almost certainly an actual BlackBerry keyboard. There
| have been a number of recent hobbyist projects using them, I
| don't know if they're old parts lying around warehouses or
| gutted from unsold phones... but they're out there.
| kragen wrote:
| i almost didn't open this because it said 'e-paper' and i've sort
| of dismissed e-paper for this kind of thing
|
| this is much more interesting than an e-paper device; it's a
| memory-in-pixel lcd device, which means 100 times better refresh
| rate and 1000 times better power consumption than e-paper. the
| lcd in question (ls027b7dh01, i assume, though that information
| is missing from the web pages) is supposed to run on 175mW at
| 20fps, so you can get a full usable computer system in
| submilliwatt territory, so the 2.2 kilojoules in a cr2032 can
| power it for weeks
|
| however, i think that, as a low-power device, this is probably
| fatally flawed. the rp2040 dooms it; the rp2040 lacks a
| reasonable deep-sleep mode; its lowest-power mode is nearly a
| milliwatt, so it will drain the battery flat when it's not being
| used
|
| also it's unclear, in this design, how much the rp2040 can do
| without powering up the pi zero, which is a humongous power hog,
| using over 1000 milliwatts. so instead of weeks of active use
| from a cr2032 (and months of standby if you use a low-power micro
| instead of an rp2040) you get hours
|
| what's the point of using a super expensive memory-in-pixel lcd
| to get the display power consumption down from e-paper's 10-100
| milliwatts into submilliwatt territory if you're just going to
| burn a thousand milliwatts in a raspberry pi? just use a
| conventional lcd then, maybe one with nice 24-bit color. old
| nokia lcds will run on a milliwatt
|
| maybe an esp32 would be a better middle ground if you aren't
| willing to go all the way to an ambiq apollo3 or something, which
| can (hypothetically) give you submilliwatt power consumption with
| workstation-class performance, as long as you don't need virtual
| memory; you probably want an esp32 or equivalent in there anyway
| for wi-fi
|
| usb-c is a great way to be able to hook up a full-size external
| keyboard, but speaking usb-c to a keyboard is also probably
| beyond the capabilities of the rp2040, and so would also need to
| power up the giant power hog pi zero
| deepspace wrote:
| Spot on. I was so excited to see the form factor, and then my
| excitement was deflated as soon as I noticed the component
| details.
|
| Note to any hardware hackers out there: I would buy the crap
| out of a unit in this form factor with an ESP32, LiPo charging,
| and proper deep-sleep oriented circuit design (I have seen too
| many circuits with cheap voltage regulators leaking many tens
| of mA).
| dheera wrote:
| I'm not too sure of this trend of rebranding 1980's monochrome
| LCDs as the "new" e-paper.
|
| The refresh rates are nice but it's really not the same, and in
| direct sunlight on a hot California day you can see a world of
| difference between the contrast and glare of a high school
| graphing calculator and a Kindle.
| xpe wrote:
| From what I understand, memory-in-pixel LCD technology is
| relatively new to the market. Does it rely on the same screen
| as "1980s" LCDs?
| myself248 wrote:
| Aye, the "diagram" shows nothing of the topology. Can the
| rp2040 run the show with the Zero not even attached? That would
| be interesting.
|
| Furthermore, there's no radio other than what's on the Zero?
| That whacks it right into useless territory for me. What's the
| point of a low-power device if all it has is high-power
| communication?
|
| My first/only care for this would be a LoRa backpack. Or even
| some Nordic thing, or BLE, I don't really care, just anything's
| better than wifi.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > the rp2040 dooms it; the rp2040 lacks a reasonable deep-sleep
| mode; its lowest-power mode is nearly a milliwatt, so it will
| drain the battery flat when it's not being used
|
| Low tech solution: add a power switch cutting off the battery.
|
| Bad for the RTC, but it's nothing that NTP or even rdate can't
| fix (or just don't use the switch if you need the RTC)
| knodi123 wrote:
| > its lowest-power mode is nearly a milliwatt, so it will drain
| the battery flat when it's not being used
|
| Add a hardware power button?
| atentaten wrote:
| With all the excited responses to this post a feel like a fool
| because I don't understand how one would go about using this.
| Admittedly I'm knew this type of product, but I want to be
| excited too or at least be able to come up with some use cases
| where I can make an informed choice on whether this product is
| useful or not. Is there a list or site with ideas on how to make
| use of products like this?
| souwecera wrote:
| A PocketChip built by the same person that made the Pebble Time
| Steel 2 that's on my wrist right now.
|
| Take my money. Again.
| souwecera wrote:
| 'Doh, original Time Steel (my P2+HR died a couple months ago).
|
| If you have any Time Steel 2s laying around...
| ecliptik wrote:
| I loved my Pocket CHIP until it just stopped working a few days
| ago, and this Beepberry post today is a perfect coincidence.
| Since it's an RPI0w can use it as an ad-hoc serial terminal
| too.
| StrangeATractor wrote:
| The only gripe I have about this is that it appears to be
| dependent on a microsd card for storage. Is there an alternative?
| I've been burned one too many times by corrupted storage on those
| to go there again.
|
| Other than that, I want five of these.
| sqfmi wrote:
| Corrupted storage is a pain :( The Beepberry firmware can
| safely shutdown the Pi before disconnecting power, so hopefully
| that will help with SD issues. raspi-config also has a read-
| only overlay filesystem option now.
| bityard wrote:
| I started buying high endurance SD cards years ago and have
| never had a problem with them.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| Trying to determine if this is really more hackable than an
| actual BlackBerry 957. This appears to have the keyboard from the
| BlackBerry Classic, where the straight-across rows were not very
| desirable. The real BlackBerry 957 is a 386 with 512KB of RAM, a
| serial port, and a battery life measured in weeks. As a "for
| hackers" device it is hard to beat.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| What interesting things can you do with a 957 at present?
|
| Can it run a Matrix client at present?
| anoncow wrote:
| Looks very good. Can we have a more polished version? And please
| remove the blackberry logo from the keypad.
| askvictor wrote:
| Looks like it might be an actual blackberry keyboard.
| razerbeans wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of Squarofumi. I've bought two Watchy kits and
| have absolutely loved coding all kinds of interesting things for
| them. Given that it's powered by ESP32, it makes development
| super easy.
| opan wrote:
| Sad to see such a cool project using Discord.
| sqfmi wrote:
| Hey SQFMI here! Happy to answer any questions :)
| traverseda wrote:
| As you're going to see in this thread everyone wants to turn
| this into it's own device. Personally I think it's great for
| field work, I'd like to see a GPS module, lora, and a solar
| panel.
|
| Given that everyone wants a slightly different hardware
| customization I'd just like to say I think if you do a version
| 2 you should seriously consider having some kind of standard
| expansion cards system. Something like arduino/rpi "shields" of
| adafruit feather's "wings"?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Stemma/ Quiic would be absolutely insane
| wferrell wrote:
| How did you manage to keep the BOM so low. Very impressed!
| sqfmi wrote:
| Low margins :) This is a passion project and we wanted to
| make it accessible
| wferrell wrote:
| Well done! Its just so hard to keep costs low.
| loganmarchione wrote:
| Are you the same people behind Watchy? Very cool!
|
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/sqfmi/watchy
| sqfmi wrote:
| Yes! We made Watchy as well, we love open source hardware :)
| antoineMoPa wrote:
| This looks quite epic!
|
| Is this an original used blackberry keyboard or a new one build
| specifically for this?
|
| Who owns the trademark for this blackberry icon nowadays? Is
| there risk that a random company owning the trademark will sue
| you?
| syntaxing wrote:
| Love the idea but a Zero W is pretty underwhelming. I have couple
| and it's barely useful because of the single core limitations.
| I'm guessing it's a supply chain issue?
|
| Also, does this have to work with beeper? What if I have my own
| synapse running?
| giobox wrote:
| People have built essentially the same idea before but used the
| far more powerful Pi CM4 boards, which aren't really that much
| bigger at all than the Zero:
|
| https://www.clockworkpi.com/uconsole
|
| That said, I ordered a uConsole when it was announced and have
| heard nothing, I should really chase this...
|
| My guess is the decision here to use a Zero wasn't one of
| availability, they sell it without a Zero too so you can roll
| your own. There is probably less complexity in using the Zero's
| GPIO support to attach to the host device vs the CM4's much
| more complex pin out which may have been a bigger factor.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Wow the Devterm looks amazing. Unfortunately according to
| reviews, the quality is extremely subpar. I get it's niche
| but at that price, it's probably a better financial design to
| get an iPad mini with a small keyboard.
| giobox wrote:
| Yep, I weighed the risk of the poor Devterm reviews when
| deciding to preorder the uConsole. My hope is with the
| uConsole being a simpler device with a traditional 4:3
| display etc there will be more scope to just treat it like
| a plain ole Linux computer, but absolutely it's a niche toy
| for me too - neither of the devices make financial sense as
| a work tool!
|
| I also love the design of the Devterm and would absolutely
| have bought one if reviews were better.
| BirAdam wrote:
| The hardware quality is actually decent. The software
| support isn't unless you get the pi version. I've owned
| two. First, the A04 and then the R-01. I actually used the
| A04 frequently, until I bought a SteamDeck. I've since sold
| it. I would use the R01 more if the HDMI out worked.
|
| Clockwork will ship, it takes them some time. The software
| support isn't great, and the community does a lot of the
| heavy lifting.
| ecliptik wrote:
| I have a DevTerm R-01 and it is basically a beautiful $200
| novelty cyberdeck that sits on my desk. The R01 version in
| particular is greatly under powered and is really only
| usable with twm and a Xterm.
|
| I mostly use it to read gopher:// and the kids love
| printing things off using it's thermal printer.
| syntaxing wrote:
| How is the keyboard? I have pretty small hands and it
| does not look like I can use it comfortably.
| ecliptik wrote:
| It's not great but not absolutely horrible. Two-finger
| typing most of the time and the overall feel is stiff,
| but not too stiff.
|
| I usually hold it with my hands and use my thumbs, like a
| Game Gear. Re-mapping the "d-pad" joystick and "yxba"
| buttons to arrow keys and hjkl [1] makes it easy to read
| and navigate text content on it (hence of gopher://),
| especially with the wide and high resolution screen.
|
| 1. https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/mapping-
| devterm-r-01-gamepad...
| danielnoiz wrote:
| It's size is what turned me off most about the devterm. I
| would be much more tempted by a device just a bit bigger.
| This[1] blog post has good pictures, one next to a DVD
| case for size comparison.
|
| [1] https://www.talospace.com/2022/05/mini-review-
| clockwork-pi-d...
| nickloewen wrote:
| I'm waiting for a uConsole too. Here's the latest shipping
| update: https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/update-uconsole-
| shipping-rel...
| erohead wrote:
| It's basically impossible to get any Pis these day - we were
| able to score a bunch of Pi Zero W so that's what we're
| including for now, but it's fully compatible with any 'zero'
| form factor SBC.
|
| Works great with your own synapse too!
| syntaxing wrote:
| I hear your pain, I've been trying to get a zero 2W for a
| reasonable price for almost 3 years now. It's so
| disappointing how it's still an issue today.
|
| Super tempted to try one of these out since I run my own
| synapse anyway. Paired with tailscale running, I could do a
| lot with it on the fly but probably would need a Zero 2W to
| handle everything I'm imagining.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| The Zero and Zero 2 are both coming into stock on almost a
| daily basis now if you follow rpilocator. Things seem to
| slowly be getting better.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| This seems super cool; have you considered selling a model with a
| battery and case? I would think that would be far more useful to
| most?
| sqfmi wrote:
| It comes with a battery. No case included for now, but you can
| 3D print your own with the STL files. Later on we will offer 2
| cases (CNC aluminum and plastic).
| andai wrote:
| Very cool project. How is the battery life?
| sqfmi wrote:
| We haven't done extensive testing or optimizations (i.e.
| sleep, idle power down, etc.) yet. But with the stock
| battery of 2000mAh and Pi Zero @ ~80mA idle, it should be
| around ~20h always on. We're estimating a week of battery
| life once the optimizations are implemented.
| iFire wrote:
| Does this have any relation to
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor 's comms
| app?
| sqfmi wrote:
| It does not, but both use the same display technology
| https://sharpdevices.com/memory-lcd/
| landgenoot wrote:
| LCD and e-paper are different things. E-paper keeps its content
| without power.
|
| You are using both terms. What is it you are using?
| numpad0 wrote:
| Sharp "Memory LCD" is just reflexive LCD with SRAM(?) bits
| integrated to pixels. Visually more cold in tone than typical
| displays, somewhat of black chrome on satin. Agreed that
| calling them "e-paper" is a loose usage of the term as it does
| require power to hold display content.
| erohead wrote:
| There is no legal definition of e-paper, but I have been using
| this term for over a decade to refer to Memory LCD and it's
| worked out fine. This definition nitpicking is getting oooooold
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3828249
| Malcx wrote:
| No this nitpicking is people wanting to know the specs of
| something they might buy. What most people on HN probably
| think of as e-paper is not the same as and LCD tech.
| eichin wrote:
| Part of the problem is there's some use of e-paper to mean
| "e-ink but we don't want to trigger their trademark
| lawyers" polluting the space. (The part of the description
| that actually _made sense_ to me was where it said "same
| display tech as in Pebble!" ... which is pretty neat, and
| not-at-all-eink...)
| epiccoleman wrote:
| This is ridiculously cool!
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Non-hacker here. Is there any possibility of this being made into
| a non-touchscreen 5G/4G-VoLTE phone that can be carried in a
| pocket without damage?
| csdvrx wrote:
| It should be possible to alter the case to support a slide
| cover, like for graphing calculators: slide it off, put in on
| the back when in use. slide it off, put it on the front when
| not in use. It should be resistant to puncture damage to the
| screen and prevent keypresses.
|
| For LTE modules, as long as you have USB, you are able to
| connect one. If you want 5G, check the Qualcomm SDX55 and SDX65
| (submm wave + 5G SA) on Telit. The easiest way is to get a
| Telit EVB + a Cinterion module.
|
| The only difficulty would be routing the audio pathways and
| maybe IMS registration for VoLTE, but you could use a Quectel
| EG25 like on the pinephone: the module can be controlled by AT
| commands and the existing work for audio routing could help you
| get started: check https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro
| and the audio part of
| https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html like
| https://xnux.eu/devices/feature/audio-pp.html#toc-voice-call...
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(page generated 2023-05-17 23:00 UTC)