6 ms·

PiPhone – A Raspberry-Pi-based Smartphone

185 points by benn_88 12y ago

octagonal 12y ago
He should really consider smoothing it out a bit and selling it as a beginners' kit somewhere. I would love to give my little nephew something like this where he would have to assemble all the separate parts and do some basic Linux configuration. Perhaps Adafruit could help him out with that?
- damian2000 12y ago
  It mentions no soldering is required, but there's bound to be some tricky bits involved.
- dec0dedab0de 12y ago
  Perhaps Adafruit could help him out with that? That is very likely. Adafruit just previewed a cellphone platform called Fona, but its still in development.
  - ptorrone 12y ago
    correct, stay tuned!
  - esrauch 12y ago
    Any source on that? Searching for Adafruit Fona only gives this thread and some junk results.
    - ladyada 12y ago
      still finishing the final board layout (it's not out yet!) https://plus.google.com/112526208786662512291/posts/2qmVHpknFZW https://plus.google.com/112526208786662512291/posts/2qmVHpkn... :)
      - frik 12y ago
        will there be one with a 3G modem? GPRS is so slow.
olegkikin 12y ago
PiBrick.
- HPLovecraft 12y ago
  PiDick
nnnnni 12y ago
So... what's the battery life like?
- damian2000 12y ago
  He mentions he thinks a couple of hours on his blog post comments section.
aw3c2 12y ago
Direct link: http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartphone/ http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartph...
- dang 12y ago
  Thanks! We changed it. HN strongly prefers original sources. The original url [1] was just a summary of this one, with a video. Edit: The traffic seems to have killed the server within seconds of the URL change, so I'll change it back for now. If davidhunt.ie comes back, would someone please let us know? Edit 2: Trying again. Edit 3: Down again. Probably best to give up. 1. http://www.raspberrypi.org/piphone-home-made-raspberry-pi-smartphone/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/piphone-home-made-raspberry-pi-sm...
sspiff 12y ago
This is the first I hear of these Sim900 boards. Are there any other boards like it? Possibly 3G compatible models or slimmer versions with just soldering leads instead of jacks? I guess you could easily remove the jacks anyway if you needed to. Combined with some of the slimmer boards out there (like one of the many old Allwinner sticks or Gumstix), this could actually be used to build a real open source DIY phone platform.
- coffeecheque 12y ago
  I've used the SIM900 boards a few times for a few moments with Arduino project. They are good and simple, but as you say not 3G (only GSM). I assume the 3G modules are different or not as in demand by Chinese manufacturers, which is why I haven't seen any on eBay when I go looking. I'd love a simple, cheap 3G module. It'd make the coverage better for a start.
  - pjc50 12y ago
    Sierra Wireless have 3G modules, although they're not particularly simple or cheap.
  - mschuster91 12y ago
    Some Huawei data sticks carry phone-capability according to their "Mobile Partner" software (there's support for it in the disabled modules. Mobile Partner is a pile of shit but sometimes it's actually useful). I do not know however which exact sticks can do this.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    3G module with bonus GPS: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346638302 http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346638302 Appears to be a Qualcomm QSC6270-based module.
    - swimfar 12y ago
      That listing is blocked in France due to "legal restrictions". Is it a module designed for laptops, or something more general?
tempodox 12y ago
Wonderful. I want a πPhone!
userbinator 12y ago
Given that Broadcom originally designed the BCM2835 for smartphones, this could be said to be an actual "intended application" of the SoC. :) $15 for a 2.5Ah battery is rather overpriced, however - as are the rest of the components like the screen and DC-DC. I found the SIM900 on eBay for $15, the DC-DC for $1.50, and ~ $5 for a battery of similar capacity. He could've put the whole thing together for <$100. Having done some electronics sourcing in China really changes your perspective on cost... amusingly enough, there was actually an iPhone 3G clone a few years ago called the PiPhone. It's an interesting project but practically speaking $100 (no contract) can already buy a pretty good smartphone these days... and one with a more "unofficially open" SoC too. The antenna sticking out of it is the best part.
- dec0dedab0de 12y ago
  Having done some electronics sourcing in China really changes your perspective on cost Do you have any tips on doing this? Other than alibaba?
  - jayfehr 12y ago
    I've used http://www.dx.com http://www.dx.com quite a bit. Prices are really, really low. Shipping is free. However, you may have to wait two months for your products to arrive. Since most of this stuff is based off of open source hardware it's pretty much identical to the name brand stuff. So it pretty much comes down to a cost/time ratio consideration when first starting out. Before you know it though, you will have quite a large collection of parts built up. Also remember you can hit garage sales, recycle yards, and thrift shops to find a lot of old hardware that you can salvage valuable parts out of for less than the price of the parts themselves. Edit: made link clickable
    - fest 12y ago
      Having ordered lot's of cheap prototype/evaluation boards through dx.com/ebay/aliexpress.com, I can say for sure, that quality does differ. Seed and co have higher standards for soldering/reflow quality, wheras random factory churns out boards, probably even not doing any sort of testing apart of "hmm, looks connected". That being said, most of the stuff still works fine despite shobby soldering and cheapest parts they could get at the market that week.
mike-cardwell 12y ago
Those touch screen TFTs look awesome, and incredibly cheap considering how much more you can do with a PI with one of them attached.
wingerlang 12y ago
There is no way that phone is smaller than the ones he has had before. Unless you count the mammoths from the 90s and down. Cool projects though.
- kevinchen 12y ago
  Yeah, the point is to do it as a learning exercise. Nobody is going to carry this around in their pocket.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    It'd also be a very very bad idea to try going aboard a plane with it.
reustle 12y ago
How hard would it be to get Android installed and talking to the hardware properly?
- zhemao 12y ago
  The status of Android support on the Raspberry Pi doesn't seem very promising so far. http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=71658&sid=7709e1adc29e25d4bcae7728dabcb718 http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=71658... http://androidpi.wikia.com/wiki/Android_Pi_Wiki http://androidpi.wikia.com/wiki/Android_Pi_Wiki
leoc 12y ago
PhoneBlox-style fancy modular smartphones are an interesting prospect, but I really wish there was a simple replaceable-parts phone design based on ordinary development-board-style PCBs. Make it about 25mm thick and then it would be somewhat viable to carry around as a nerdy but genuinely usable phone, while still having enough internal space to be based on replaceable PCBs without too much pressure to miniaturise. Such a standard would have lots of utility: as a testbed for commercial phone development, as a place to experiment with new hardware or software for phones, as a phone (or just a gadget) incorporating niche (or "niche-of-one") hardware or software you can't get in a commercial device, as the equivalent of a self-build PC for enthusiasts.
dman 12y ago
Heres to me hoping that I can have a tablet which I can use to documents and use rsync to keep the documents synchronized with my workstation. Have been waiting for the kde vivaldi tablet. Also unclear if the latest bay trail tablets will run linux without issue.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
I'd love to put my own little cell phone together, but in my area the only reliable provider is Verizon, and I haven't been able to find a CDMA module for Pi or Arduino or otherwise. Anybody got a tip on this?
- octagonal 12y ago
  You might want to try posting this question on specialist electronics subreddits and forums like r/electronics, r/rfelectronics, r/electronic_circuits/, r/hwstartups and r/hardware. So I guess my advice would be to treat it like a numbers' game :). There's bound to be someone out there who can help you.
zz1 12y ago
Off topic, but I think it is a good opportunity to spread the world about it: PiPhone is also an open source tool build by La Quadrature du Net in order to allow citizens to call their representatives (in France and the European Parliament). https://github.com/LaQuadratureDuNet/piphone https://github.com/LaQuadratureDuNet/piphone http://piphone.lqdn.fr/ http://piphone.lqdn.fr/
mmphosis 12y ago
I know that there are relatively cheap USB line inputs available, but I didn't see what the PiPhone was using. What components are used for the PiPhone's microphone?
- zhemao 12y ago
  Oh yeah, that's a good question. I've helped people with RPi audio projects before and getting external microphones to work consistently has been one of the biggest pains.
  - mmphosis 12y ago
    Now there is a video. In the video, he plugs a head set and a microphone into the SIM900. The audio out, 2 usb ports, and ethernet port are unused on the Pi.
suyash 12y ago
You can also run Java Embedded and ME also on Raspberry PI!

185 points by benn_88 12y ago

He should really consider smoothing it out a bit and selling it as a beginners' kit somewhere. I would love to give my little nephew something like this where he would have to assemble all the separate parts and do some basic Linux configuration. Perhaps Adafruit could help him out with that?

damian2000 12y ago
It mentions no soldering is required, but there's bound to be some tricky bits involved.
dec0dedab0de 12y ago
Perhaps Adafruit could help him out with that? That is very likely. Adafruit just previewed a cellphone platform called Fona, but its still in development.
- ptorrone 12y ago
  correct, stay tuned!
- esrauch 12y ago
  Any source on that? Searching for Adafruit Fona only gives this thread and some junk results.
  - ladyada 12y ago
    still finishing the final board layout (it's not out yet!) https://plus.google.com/112526208786662512291/posts/2qmVHpknFZW https://plus.google.com/112526208786662512291/posts/2qmVHpkn... :)
    - frik 12y ago
      will there be one with a 3G modem? GPRS is so slow.

olegkikin 12y ago

PiBrick.

HPLovecraft 12y ago
PiDick

nnnnni 12y ago

So... what's the battery life like?

damian2000 12y ago
He mentions he thinks a couple of hours on his blog post comments section.

aw3c2 12y ago

Direct link: http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartphone/ http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartph...

dang 12y ago
Thanks! We changed it. HN strongly prefers original sources. The original url [1] was just a summary of this one, with a video. Edit: The traffic seems to have killed the server within seconds of the URL change, so I'll change it back for now. If davidhunt.ie comes back, would someone please let us know? Edit 2: Trying again. Edit 3: Down again. Probably best to give up. 1. http://www.raspberrypi.org/piphone-home-made-raspberry-pi-smartphone/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/piphone-home-made-raspberry-pi-sm...

sspiff 12y ago

This is the first I hear of these Sim900 boards. Are there any other boards like it? Possibly 3G compatible models or slimmer versions with just soldering leads instead of jacks? I guess you could easily remove the jacks anyway if you needed to. Combined with some of the slimmer boards out there (like one of the many old Allwinner sticks or Gumstix), this could actually be used to build a real open source DIY phone platform.

coffeecheque 12y ago
I've used the SIM900 boards a few times for a few moments with Arduino project. They are good and simple, but as you say not 3G (only GSM). I assume the 3G modules are different or not as in demand by Chinese manufacturers, which is why I haven't seen any on eBay when I go looking. I'd love a simple, cheap 3G module. It'd make the coverage better for a start.
- pjc50 12y ago
  Sierra Wireless have 3G modules, although they're not particularly simple or cheap.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  Some Huawei data sticks carry phone-capability according to their "Mobile Partner" software (there's support for it in the disabled modules. Mobile Partner is a pile of shit but sometimes it's actually useful). I do not know however which exact sticks can do this.
- userbinator 12y ago
  3G module with bonus GPS: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346638302 http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346638302 Appears to be a Qualcomm QSC6270-based module.
  - swimfar 12y ago
    That listing is blocked in France due to "legal restrictions". Is it a module designed for laptops, or something more general?

tempodox 12y ago

Wonderful. I want a πPhone!

userbinator 12y ago

Given that Broadcom originally designed the BCM2835 for smartphones, this could be said to be an actual "intended application" of the SoC. :) $15 for a 2.5Ah battery is rather overpriced, however - as are the rest of the components like the screen and DC-DC. I found the SIM900 on eBay for $15, the DC-DC for $1.50, and ~ $5 for a battery of similar capacity. He could've put the whole thing together for <$100. Having done some electronics sourcing in China really changes your perspective on cost... amusingly enough, there was actually an iPhone 3G clone a few years ago called the PiPhone. It's an interesting project but practically speaking $100 (no contract) can already buy a pretty good smartphone these days... and one with a more "unofficially open" SoC too. The antenna sticking out of it is the best part.

dec0dedab0de 12y ago
Having done some electronics sourcing in China really changes your perspective on cost Do you have any tips on doing this? Other than alibaba?
- jayfehr 12y ago
  I've used http://www.dx.com http://www.dx.com quite a bit. Prices are really, really low. Shipping is free. However, you may have to wait two months for your products to arrive. Since most of this stuff is based off of open source hardware it's pretty much identical to the name brand stuff. So it pretty much comes down to a cost/time ratio consideration when first starting out. Before you know it though, you will have quite a large collection of parts built up. Also remember you can hit garage sales, recycle yards, and thrift shops to find a lot of old hardware that you can salvage valuable parts out of for less than the price of the parts themselves. Edit: made link clickable
  - fest 12y ago
    Having ordered lot's of cheap prototype/evaluation boards through dx.com/ebay/aliexpress.com, I can say for sure, that quality does differ. Seed and co have higher standards for soldering/reflow quality, wheras random factory churns out boards, probably even not doing any sort of testing apart of "hmm, looks connected". That being said, most of the stuff still works fine despite shobby soldering and cheapest parts they could get at the market that week.

mike-cardwell 12y ago

Those touch screen TFTs look awesome, and incredibly cheap considering how much more you can do with a PI with one of them attached.

wingerlang 12y ago

There is no way that phone is smaller than the ones he has had before. Unless you count the mammoths from the 90s and down. Cool projects though.

kevinchen 12y ago
Yeah, the point is to do it as a learning exercise. Nobody is going to carry this around in their pocket.
- userbinator 12y ago
  It'd also be a very very bad idea to try going aboard a plane with it.

reustle 12y ago

How hard would it be to get Android installed and talking to the hardware properly?

zhemao 12y ago
The status of Android support on the Raspberry Pi doesn't seem very promising so far. http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=71658&sid=7709e1adc29e25d4bcae7728dabcb718 http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=71658... http://androidpi.wikia.com/wiki/Android_Pi_Wiki http://androidpi.wikia.com/wiki/Android_Pi_Wiki

leoc 12y ago

PhoneBlox-style fancy modular smartphones are an interesting prospect, but I really wish there was a simple replaceable-parts phone design based on ordinary development-board-style PCBs. Make it about 25mm thick and then it would be somewhat viable to carry around as a nerdy but genuinely usable phone, while still having enough internal space to be based on replaceable PCBs without too much pressure to miniaturise. Such a standard would have lots of utility: as a testbed for commercial phone development, as a place to experiment with new hardware or software for phones, as a phone (or just a gadget) incorporating niche (or "niche-of-one") hardware or software you can't get in a commercial device, as the equivalent of a self-build PC for enthusiasts.

dman 12y ago

Heres to me hoping that I can have a tablet which I can use to documents and use rsync to keep the documents synchronized with my workstation. Have been waiting for the kde vivaldi tablet. Also unclear if the latest bay trail tablets will run linux without issue.

thaumaturgy 12y ago

I'd love to put my own little cell phone together, but in my area the only reliable provider is Verizon, and I haven't been able to find a CDMA module for Pi or Arduino or otherwise. Anybody got a tip on this?

octagonal 12y ago
You might want to try posting this question on specialist electronics subreddits and forums like r/electronics, r/rfelectronics, r/electronic_circuits/, r/hwstartups and r/hardware. So I guess my advice would be to treat it like a numbers' game :). There's bound to be someone out there who can help you.

zz1 12y ago

Off topic, but I think it is a good opportunity to spread the world about it: PiPhone is also an open source tool build by La Quadrature du Net in order to allow citizens to call their representatives (in France and the European Parliament). https://github.com/LaQuadratureDuNet/piphone https://github.com/LaQuadratureDuNet/piphone http://piphone.lqdn.fr/ http://piphone.lqdn.fr/

mmphosis 12y ago

I know that there are relatively cheap USB line inputs available, but I didn't see what the PiPhone was using. What components are used for the PiPhone's microphone?

zhemao 12y ago
Oh yeah, that's a good question. I've helped people with RPi audio projects before and getting external microphones to work consistently has been one of the biggest pains.
- mmphosis 12y ago
  Now there is a video. In the video, he plugs a head set and a microphone into the SIM900. The audio out, 2 usb ports, and ethernet port are unused on the Pi.

suyash 12y ago

You can also run Java Embedded and ME also on Raspberry PI!