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Show HN: Hacking a $20 4G wireless hotspot into a texting device
- xx_ns 2mo agoThis is a really cool project! A mini cyberdeck that doesn't seem too impractical to use. Repurposing the Clicks keyboard is a genius idea.
- dgf18 2mo agoReally cool!
- harhargange 2mo agoI often ditch my phone and carry my hotspot device for my internet. The only drawback is that for viewing my texts and OTPs i end up putting the sim in my phone or opening up the web interface on my laptop. This seems to work very well as a dumbphone per se.
- newhotelowner 2mo agoHow do you check sms/OTP/text using web interface on your laptop?
- notpushkin 2mo agoThis probably depends on your particular dongle model. Back in 3G era, some carriers offered USB modems with SMS locked out in the firmware, but you could flash a firmware from a different operator (also install their variant of software, the only difference being the added SMS tab and a different skin) and then you can text and even use USSD! (No calls, though.)
- knowaveragejoe 2mo agohttps://messages.google.com/web/ https://messages.google.com/web/ is one way I'm aware of, I'm sure there's others depending on the messages app used.
- notpushkin 2mo agoIt seems those modems run Android 4.x with the stock messaging app: https://github.com/u0d7i/uz801#screenshots https://github.com/u0d7i/uz801#screenshots But I guess you can install a custom messaging app that would sync the messages? (If there’s one that still supports such an old version of Android)
- harhargange 2mo agoyeah my vendor's dongle has this specific feature. A light also turns ON on the modem when SMS is received.
- blobbers 2mo agoIf you move to an Apple set up, the phone can act as a hotspot and there is no need to take out your sim. Also... you have a physical sim card? I thought those became obsolete.
- toast0 2mo agoPhysical sims are as obsolete as 3.5mm headphones. They both continue to work and have different tradeoffs than 'modern' alternatives and you have a different selection of devices to work with.
- EvanAnderson 2mo agoThanks for coming up with a very apt analogy. I wanted to reply but couldn't come up with something I felt good about.
- notpushkin 2mo agoThis is really nice! It so happens that I’ve just bought a $10 4G dongle [1], guess I’ll have to check what’s inside now :-) [1]: like this: https://img.joomcdn.net/ea91b4418997d83d802339fad0bbcf878b9d9084_original.jpeg https://img.joomcdn.net/ea91b4418997d83d802339fad0bbcf878b9d... --- Aside, but it appears some MSM8916-based dongles run Android UI despite having no display: https://github.com/u0d7i/uz801#screenshots https://github.com/u0d7i/uz801#screenshots
- kotaKat 2mo agoI did some funny software porting on one of those dongles. At one point, I had it connected to a battery pack for power, joined onto my home WiFi for LAN/WAN access... and had the stick running the Open5GS cellular core stack, allowing my CBRS LTE base station to serve users on an in-home private LTE network by connecting to the cellstick over WiFi for management. (No, the stick's own cellular modem wasn't being used here at all. Just scavenged compute for the tiniest LTE core!) So... so cursed.
- untitaker_ 2mo agoit's most likely UZ801 (mentioned in the article)
- notpushkin 2mo agoIt’s a weird one! [ro.build.description]: [msm8916_32_512-userdebug 4.4.4 KTU84P eng.huanghonghuan.20250226 test-keys] [ro.build.sw.custom.version]: [UFI003S_V03_ZX_DD_250226]
- djfergus 2mo agoPostmarketos works well on those and they have lots of info and links. [1] My biggest tip is to carefully back up every partition of the original firmware - there are many many seemingly identical variants and if you hose your particular baseband components you will lose your cellular functionality. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Zhihe_series_LTE_dongles_(generic-zhihe) https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Zhihe_series_LTE_dongles_...
- walrus01 2mo agoBased on the work the person has done, if they wanted to make something with an exceedingly long battery life, and the battery setup there already seems to be basically a 1S li ion, they could graft in a back side battery holder for two high quality 18650 cells in parallel. It would probably last weeks.
- iamnothere 2mo agoA 10000mAh pouch battery would take up less room and provide more battery life. They are almost as cheap as 18650s too.
- jsisto 2mo agoHow is a 10000mAh pouch more energy dense than an 18650?
- bri3d 2mo agoBy not having void air space in between cylindrical cells like you'd get with two 18650s? It's mostly just a matter of packaging. Pouches can be made to have better volumetric density than cylindrical cells quite easily, which is why laptops aren't generally full of cylinder cells anymore; the challenge is just providing them enough external support/compression and swelling allowance, which can be accomplished through chassis design.
- iamnothere 2mo agoPouch cells are lighter per mAh due to the lack of metal casing. But more than the casing, the form factor is better for a pocketable device. The cylindrical form factor sticks out, usually wastes some space, and can’t be neatly tucked behind a board or display.
- walrus01 2mo agoThe neat thing about 18650s though is that you can put a battery door on it and make them swappable, if a person used a holder that can accommodate button top protected 18650 cells. The same cells can also be shared by a bunch of good quality flashlights and headlamps. I have several extremely useful headlamps from "sofirn" that take my choice of cell and have a built in USB-C charging port and charge circuitry protected behing a gasket and twist-open ip67 sealed cap. The pouch battery would be better as an integrated all in one product but also makes the thing a bit less modular.
- VinnyBarreca 2mo agoIt would be pretty cool to put Hermes Agent or some agent system on that thing, assuming the OpenStick build has enough RAM/storage. That would be fire.
- ACCount39 2mo agoWhat it has at its core is a smartphone chipset from 2014 - MSM8916 or so. Not exactly an AI compute powerhouse.
- RIMR 2mo agoTruly, I couldn't imagine a worse platform to put a coding agent on. What even would be the point? It's got less than 512GB of RAM, no package manager, and virtually no storage.
- warkdarrior 2mo agoHermes is not a coding agent.
- pogative 2mo ago[flagged]
- msm8916 2mo agoOpenStick is super old though, there are Linux and OpenWRT builders that track the upstream kernel, check hkfuertes and others.
- ACCount39 2mo agoOh, if it isn't the MSM8916 himself! Fancy seeing you out there in the wild - posting on HN no less! Is there a guide for cheap MSM8916 platforms you would recommend? There is a hkfuertes repo, but the one I found is archived. Not to say it doesn't work, but that doesn't instill much confidence.
- Matsta 2mo agoNot tried but seems like a fairly recent Arabian build (last release was June) https://github.com/Crychic-Band/msm8916-armbian https://github.com/Crychic-Band/msm8916-armbian
- catidegla 2mo agoOne layer down from where this thread is looking: the SMS never lives in the Android userspace on these sticks. It sits in the modem's own store, either on the SIM or in modem memory, and the vendor web UI is just a thin thing reading it out of there. So you don't need a messaging app that still runs on Android 4.x. If the device exposes an AT port, AT+CMGF=1 then AT+CMGL="ALL" dumps everything, and AT+CPMS picks which store you're reading. On the Qualcomm ones that keep the AT port hidden behind QMI, libqmi reaches the same thing through the WMS service.
- DingleDodies 2mo ago[dead]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- koinedad 2mo agoI love this
- dividedcomet 2mo agoThis is the coolest dang project