8 ms·
FlipperZero: 1 Month Battery Life with Firmware Update
- antirez 4y agoThe only fatal problem of the Flipper Zero is that they didn't add a LoRa chip such as the SX1276.
- sowbug 4y agoI agree it would be nice, but if you wanted to make do with what you have, I wonder: since LoRa bandwidth is so low, could there be a companion LoRa device that connects to the FZ via BLE? Not as convenient, but again, I'm working with what we already have.
- frowin 4y agoIt's kinda strange, I tried to sell my Flipper Zero and was wondering why people name them weirdly. As it turns out, ebay doesn't allow to sell it. If anyone has an idea where I can offer it (Germany, Europe), let me know.
- micheljansen 4y agoWhat a cool device. Small word of advice to whoever maintains the FlipperZero website ("webmaster" in the old days): clicking on the logo on any of the Blog pages leads to the blog index, which is not terribly helpful for someone who – like me – landed on a blog article page and then was wondering what this was all about. It would make more sense if the logo, like the "Home" link in the navigation, consistently lead to https://flipperzero.one https://flipperzero.one instead of https://blog.flipperzero.one https://blog.flipperzero.one. Same thing goes for https://shop.flipperzero.one https://shop.flipperzero.one fwiw.
- jvdvegt 4y agoAnd to that same webmaster: the site looks awful in Firefox on Android.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y agoLooked perfect for me on Firefox Android, responsive and all. Any broken page in particular?
- Brian_K_White 4y agoLooks fine to me on firefox on android.
- rPlayer6554 4y agoNo issues here with ff on android
- srmarm 4y agoThis is a minor annoyance of mine across the internet. Usually on pages that are some kind of subsystem from the main site - i.e support pages, blogs etc.
- anaselkhaloui 4y agoCan this device really be of any use ? I mean, is it just a beautiful gadget to play with antique tech that is not used anymore ? Or can you really have fun and make it work on stuff you have at home or around you ? Does it work with "real" 2000's stuff ?
- mordae 4y agoWhat do you mean? Besides from Bluetooth and USB: - 433MHz is very much alive (various RF-controller lights, gate openers and such) AND can be used to remotely control another Flipper. - Both 3.56 MHz and 125kHz are alive in door locks and RFID tags. - IR is still alive with most TVs. So yeah, it's missing 2.4 GHz ISM stuff. But given hardware they packed in, it's a rather good multi-tool.
- logifail 4y ago> I mean, is it just a beautiful gadget to play with antique tech that is not used anymore ? Antique? Three separate providers have handed me access cards which turned out to be MIFARE Classic 1K in the last month.
- justsomehnguy 4y agoThe reports of the technology progress are greatly exaggerated.
- tiberious726 4y agoCards that aren't vulnerable to this attack are 10x-20x more expensive. I think it's great that a tool like this is being deployed widely into the hands of children (way better than chameleons/proxmark being in the hands of people who know what they are doing and everyone else thinking you're are a paranoid madman for knowing they exist), however it probably means that hotels are going to start charging you for not giving back your room key again before too long...
- tiberious726 4y agoThe only access card system I've personally encountered that my flipper can't copy is the one I deployed myself (modern HID iClass/Seos), specifically with attacks like this in mind, and the vendors still tried to encourage me to pick stuff that would have been vulnerable (this was ~7 years ago).
- Codesleuth 4y agoI've been installing some home networking for the past year and made changes all over, meaning I have to install inline connectors everywhere. These fail a lot, without warning, and it's hard for me to work out why. Kits like those provided by Fluke are REALLY EXPENSIVE and it got me thinking here... Can I use the Flipper GPIO to build my own network tester? I would love to be able to test continuity, failures, and even do a 10Gbit line test. Anyone know if this is possible?
- simonjgreen 4y agoYou could definitely build a continuity checker with it, but that requires something on the far end to loop back the pins. The GPIO won't switch fast enough to act as a TDR though, that requires specific ASICs.
- dfc 4y agoIt's worth considering pulling new cable. I don't know how many inline connectors you have installed but at some point you are going to have to grab some fish tape&pull rods...
- tiberious726 4y agoYou could test simple continuity with a multimeter. The flipper has can generate nowhere near the frequency needed to test 10gbit Ethernet. Every time I've needed to use one of those fluke things, I've been able to rent one for a few grand. If this is in your home, I agree with the other comments, you should probably just bite the bullet and rerun everything.
- tuatoru 4y ago1.5 mA still seems like a lot for "deep sleep".
- jdiff 4y agoSeems perfectly in line with what I can glance at on the MCU's datasheet.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoIt's in line, I think it might seem high because there are well known microcontrollers which can deep sleep with µA-level current. For example, the ESP32 consumes 0.15mA if the the ULP processor is on, and 10µA if it's off. I'm pretty sure the STM32WB can go as low as 2µA though. If I recall correctly it has STOP and STOP2 instructions, with the former being what FlipperZero is using and the latter requiring even less power. I think it's really complicated to manage the deeper sleep state and the radio with STOP2 though, and that might be why they stuck with STOP. (edit: whoops, they cover this and more in their write up)
- mmoskal 4y agoOn STM32 you typically need to go to STOP mode (called deep sleep in places) to get significant power savings. I had F0 and G0 waking up at 100Hz plus on pin interrupts (with maybe 30us latency) consuming 50-100uA (compared to maybe 20mA without sleep). I’m pretty sure you can do better on the WB since it’s actually a low power part, but it all depends on how complicated your software stack is. For example, to get the low latency wake up required only using the low level HAL and custom clock configuration. Nordic parts are easier - they actually have low power sleep that is fairly automatic.
- andoma 4y ago> Nordic parts are easier - they actually have low power sleep that is fairly automatic. Came here to say this. Started with the STM32WB5x for a BLE project but got so frustrated with it so I switched over to NRF52. Never looked back. I love (and use) the STM32x for many other applications but the STM32WB BLE-solution is just too opaque with the (close sourced) BLE stack running on the secondary core while still requiring a lot of low level collaboration from the main application core. Would have been a lot easier if was more isolated and just provided a standard HCI interface or something. I suppose one could argue to use a dedicated BLE IC in this case. Anyway, I'm very happy with the NRF52 I'm using. The events, tasks and peripheral interconnects is also a really nice feature. Documentation is stellar as well IMO. My main gripe with it is that it only comes with one UART port. Two would have been nice. Perhaps the NRF52 successors comes with more. Haven't checked really. EDIT: typo
- milleramp 4y agoVery cool, it already had a impressive battery life to begin with. I just used my son's zero to debug a ceiling fan remote. Of course he uses it to turn off TV's and open Tesla charge doors..
- karlgrz 4y agoWhich ceiling fan remote? I've been fighting with our bedroom fan, we like the performance but the remote works maybe once out of every 100 presses unless I climb up on our bed and extend my arm into the middle of the fan housing.
- InCityDreams 4y ago>but the remote works maybe once out of every 100 presses unless I climb up on our bed and extend my arm into the middle of the fan housing. Confused: if it (even irregularly) works under those conditions, have you tried not doing such, and see if it works more often?
- micromacrofoot 4y agoCaution for other readers in the US getting an idea: the flipper zero can read radio fan remote signals, but the FCC doesn't allow it to transmit them. I was hoping I could have an "all the remotes" device with the zero, but radio is fairly limited. Perhaps someone will region unlock these.
- nickthegreek 4y agoSounds like you want one of the 3rd party firmwares. https://github.com/djsime1/awesome-flipperzero https://github.com/djsime1/awesome-flipperzero
- micromacrofoot 4y agoI was hoping someone would point me to something like this, thank you!
- 4y ago
- gymbeaux 4y agoLast I heard US customs was seizing these at port. Can I realistically get one of these in the US?
- Shank 4y agoThis was due to the “hack the planet” stickers in the box. They’ve since removed the stickers. https://twitter.com/flipper_zero/status/1621064579349639170 https://twitter.com/flipper_zero/status/1621064579349639170
- Firmwarrior 4y agoLooks like they just sell out quickly in the US https://forum.flipperzero.one/t/buying-a-flipper-in-the-us-what-is-up-with-it-selling-out/14323/5 https://forum.flipperzero.one/t/buying-a-flipper-in-the-us-w... Do you need one? I thought this thing was open source, so you could theoretically make your own clone just without the cool case
- gymbeaux 4y agoI definitely don't need one... but god damnit I want one.
- snapetom 4y agoThere was one batch stopped last year, but they've been flowing fine for a while now.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoThey're on Amazon.
- wnkrshm 4y agoI can order nunchakus on amazon but they're a 'banned item' in my country - you cannot own these in Germany.
- khedoros1 4y agoI heard they were banned a few weeks ago. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/flipper-zero-banned-by-amazon-for-being-a-card-skimming-device-/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/flipper-zer...
- Szpadel 4y agoI didn't find this in the article and I think this would be a nice context to have: what was battery life before?
- sintezcs 4y agoAbout a week
- arm 4y agoIt’s mentioned in the first paragraph: “We are proud to announce that starting the firmware version 0.82, your Flipper Zero's battery life will last up to 1 month! It took us 2 years to resolve all firmware issues that prevented Flipper Zero from switching to power-saving mode, resulting in the same power consumption baseline in both idle and active states. As a result, Flipper Zero's battery life was approximately 1 week instead of the intended 1 month.”
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lgats 4y ago[flagged]
- smcl 4y agoTo me it just reads a bit like it was written by an ESL speaker - "starting the firmware version 0.82 ..." is a bit of a giveaway (should probably be "starting from version" or just "from version...", unnecessary "the" is a common mistake made when someone's mother tongue doesn't have articles). ChatGPT doesn't tend to do this in my experience. But I should stress that it's still perfectly readable and a very minor mistake.
- lloydatkinson 4y agoI don't know why HN is so paranoid about this. Nothing about that feels gpt to me.
- Animats 4y agoThis is standby time. In standby mode this thing does nothing, right? An off switch would accomplish the same result.
- slau 4y agoYeah, I was surprised when I received mine that it doesn't have an "off" mode, by default. Granted, the battery lasting over a week is fine, but considering I only use it a couple days a week, it feels a bit wasteful. I might modify it and add an inline power switch. Who needs RTC anyway.
- Fnoord 4y agoI want RTC. Say I capture some packets. I want a timestamp on it when I archive them. Because else I need to remember from when it was manually. This is why I added a RTC to my RPi3 + battery pack + HackRF + Portapack. Anything the RPi3 does must have proper timestamps.
- warp 4y agoSettings -> Power -> Power OFF seems to be a real "off" mode. I turned it off like that a month or two ago and put the flipper back in the box. When I turned it on just now to get this update, battery was at 82%.
- coolspot 4y agoEasier that that - just hold small “back” button until it prompts for confirmation to power off.
- detrites 4y agoThis is a good example of a problem that's easy to talk about but difficult to fix: "tell CPU to sleep!" versus this whole lengthy article. Wondering now if the issues with Linux laptop sleep are related or have similarity.
- lloeki 4y agoLinux should generally have no problem with CPU&al sleep, the problem is often devices around, waking up in weird orders or states, or not waking up at all, or not going to sleep. > The furi_hal_os_sleep() function performs tick suppression inside the OS domain. Reminds me that many eons ago I witnessed the introduction of CONFIG_NO_HZ in Linux, is it the default now? Combined with timer coalescing this makes for big energy savings. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickless_kernel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickless_kernel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timer_coalescing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timer_coalescing
- csdvrx 4y agoDo you use timer coalescing? Can you provide more detail? I'd be happy to return the favor with my use of NO_HZ and NO_HZ_FULL!
- lloeki 4y agoOn macOS, ever since Mavericks. Back then the update gave me +1~2hrs of battery life with my usage pattern. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/06/how-os-x-mavericks-works-its-power-saving-magic/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/06/how-os-x-mavericks-w...
- azubinski 4y agoIt's a very basic task in any kind of professional embedded development.
- bradfa 4y agoIt's a very common task in embedded development to need to reduce sleep or idle power consumption but in my experience it's never basic nor easy to do it right. Lots of times engineering teams just punt the issue and the customer gets less than great battery life or some other poor compromise is made. Generally the hardest part is simply making sure that the device can wake up correctly and quickly enough under all situations. Also, tracking down unexpected power draws gets into a nice crossover between electrical and firmware design teams which can either be great or extremely frustrating for either side of that interaction.