9 ms·
DIY Cellphone
- GuiA 13y agoThe creator of this is David Mellis, who is one of the creators of the Arduino project. Apparently he's now in Leah Buechley's group at the Media Lab, which does some great work: http://hlt.media.mit.edu http://hlt.media.mit.edu This is fantastic, and I'm excited to see what more David will be working on in the future; his dissertation will be an interesting one :)
- eksith 13y agoI can't wait either! I've seen a few DIY projects here and there involving GSM, but his name is what really caught my eye in the first place. You may also find these interesting: http://www.open-electronics.org/gsm-gps-shield-for-arduino/ http://www.open-electronics.org/gsm-gps-shield-for-arduino/ http://www.instructables.com/id/ArduinoPhone/ http://www.instructables.com/id/ArduinoPhone/ I'm sure there's room to mix and match improvements.
- rsync 13y ago... all of which have totally locked up, closed off baseband firmware. Which can be controlled all the way down to DMA by OTA updates by a provider. No, none of this is very interesting at all until there is an open, free baseband firmware.
- pcunite 13y agoCool ... this gives me hope for the future I want. The day will come when we will all hold cell phone shaped PCs. You'll be able to interact with them as you do now. However, when placed within 10 feet of a keyboard or mouse, they'll automatically (configurable) and wirelessly use those peripherals ... keyboard and monitors on the fly baby! Imagine optional super thin foldable displays to pack in the bag ... keyboards too ... or, go big and use production color accurate displays like my NEC 2490WUXi2. Thus making our own like this seems appropriate.
- krapp 13y agoSo in the future if I carry a keyboard around folded up in my pocket I can get root on any phone within ten feet? Neato. Re the actual article - very interesting. Wish I knew how to solder. Reminds me of the ancient days when people bought their computers as kits.
- pcunite 13y agoKeyboard and mouse availability ... it will be configurable. In your own home you'll be able to move from display to display as needed.
- krapp 13y agoThat does sound interesting, actually. I might like to have some kind of charging pad that does it, you just take your phone out and toss it on the pad and there you are. Have it be 'automatic' only while in contact with a specific surface.
- maxerickson 13y agoThe somewhat reasonable mechanisms Bluetooth uses to control what to pair with already mitigate much of the problem.
- eksith 13y agoI'm not sure if the idea of "peripherals" matching such a device appeals to me. Let's think about this... A keyboard is basically a device for entering text via mechanical (or touch) switches which appear on your console/screen. A mouse is a virtual index finger. Even though most of us can't imagine our daily lives without them at the moment, they both seem archaic in a way. Don't get me wrong; I think that's part of their appeal (I have an IBM model M somewhere in storage), but their high-tech-ness(?) is a bit of a non-sequitur when the day comes when our phone/device/gadget/pc-thing can talk effortlessly to a keyboard and mouse. It's almost as if a mirror with built in camera interfacing to your straight razor. Some things are best left old-fashioned.
- Vistz 13y agoI can't wait to get the SDK and start developing apps for this.
- agumonkey 13y agoI'm happy to scan through the bill of material, I was curious about what price point could be a headless cellular widget for bike tagging.
- cinquemb 13y agoPrevious discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5441650 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5441650
- mknappen 13y agoSpooky- Just this morning I decided that building a cell phone would be my next evening project.
- reedlaw 13y agoDoes it require any binary blobs for the GSM module or other components? If not, this would be a pretty good choice for someone wanting complete control over his phone's software stack.
- dchichkov 13y agoI'm pretty sure it does. Binary blobs hidden in the GSM module and communication with the GSM module is done with AT commands via some serial bus.
- reedlaw 13y agoBinary blobs embedded in hardware are acceptable from a free software standpoint. As long as they can't be remotely updated.
- teddyh 13y agoYou mean, as long as they can't be updated period.
- ansible 13y agoAlmost all wireless modems can be remotely updated. So this phone is mostly running proprietary software. That will be the case for any cellular technology for the foreseeable future.
- pampa 13y agoThere is an open source implementation of GSM baseband software http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/. Very limited hardware support though.
- ansible 13y agoHuh, that's interesting, I hadn't heard about that before. I don't think most people will find this helpful though. One of the main problems is that the chip vendors don't tend to release the hardware specifications and development tools. Several of the USA carriers are itching to phase out all their 2G networks, so that they can re-use that spectrum for LTE. So a 2G baseband has limited usefulness moving forward. Adding to that, implementing any kind of 3G (WCDMA, HSPA) is an order of magnitude more complex. Just the handoffs between a 2G and 3G cell tower are complex. Sadly, LTE is sort of simpler than the 3G technologies, because its all just data (no special transfer mode just for voice). However, instead just going all IP protocols for voice and other services, they decided to implement a host of new and complex protocols for Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE). And some of the current chipsets now have to handle handoffs between LTE, 3G and 2G. So this open-source stack will not get carrier approval. And even if it were to get popular, the FCC would likely throw up a stink, and the carriers would start banning users that are using a non-approved 2G stack. They would be somewhat justified in that because the existing baseband implementations go through extensive (and expensive) compatibility testing to make sure they place nice with the network under all possible conditions. If you want to do open-source radio, your first fight is to get some spectrum that can be used unlicensed. There's big competition for the best frequencies (that can carry enough data and have decent range), so the spectrum auctions cost billions of dollars, and the winners are the existing major players.
- derekp7 13y agoOnly one question -- can you take this on a plane? A while ago I had a cell phone where the battery charging circuitry went out. The battery was 3.6v, so I hooked up (via Velcro) a AAA battery holder and used rechargable NiMH batteries. However I was told (when I called the airline I was traveling) that it most likely wouldn't make it past TSA.
- droopybuns 13y agoPermission Procurement difficulty: High. Likelihood of success: Low. Forgiveness Procurement difficulty: Low. Likelihood of successs: High.
- mellis 13y agoI haven't had any problems. Only one TSA security person noticed it, and they didn't give me any trouble.
- zooka2 13y agoI made my own cellphone once by purchasing the battery separately.
- fac13 13y agoMy thought exactly, the first time I saw this. But this is a much more advanced project - you need to supply your own box to put it in too ..