catherd

19 ms·

121.
by catherd 8y ago
Well, it is called WiPhone... There is a pretty clear issue with people getting grumpy once they learn it's not a bleeding edge smartphone. I don't know how to solve it. Open to suggestions, but I think calling it a phone is perfe
122.
by catherd 8y ago
under $100
123.
by catherd 8y ago
Yes, right now we use G.722. Possibly others later.
124.
by catherd 8y ago
You're right as well :) But I think it's the stuff we did to take it from ESP32+LCD (which there are thousands of) and make it more like a phone are what makes it useful. Not having to build your own power supply and battery charg
125.
by catherd 8y ago
Dang suggested I post these links, as support that the project is far enough along to merit being considered "real": Build logs here: https://hackaday.io/project/159811-esp32-wiphone YouTube videos showing th
126.
by catherd 8y ago
You're 100% technically correct, but "WiPhone: A Phone That Will Almost Certainly Release The Code Later As Open Source" doesn't flow quite so well. It's also not a phone you can buy today, should we put a disclaime
127.
by catherd 8y ago
It's not ideal for a few reasons, but it's what most of the people who play with hardware know, and there are lots of libraries out there for interacting with sensors, displays, etc. If the project gets big enough we may split it
128.
by catherd 8y ago
It's not a privacy focused device. It's a device intended to give hackers the ability to do things they aren't able to do with typical commercial hardware. As a side effect of that there are some properties related to securit
129.
by catherd 8y ago
Thank you. Talking to people about this project often feels like 80% explaining why they don't actually need LTE for this use case, and 15% listening to whining that we haven't released the source code yet :)
130.
by catherd 8y ago
We are in this to make money, it's not a side project. Marketing is almost impossible without tracking and I'm not going to say I like it, but I haven't found a way to do without it. I like open source/not tracking/
131.
by catherd 8y ago
The ESP32 can run something like MicroPython or CircuitPython.
132.
by catherd 8y ago
If you give me a team that's already delivered a modern smartphone design from scratch I'll have a tilt at that windmill. :) For now this is a realistic goal. We'll see what happens after.
133.
by catherd 8y ago
There's a big section on the page devoted to these points, but the main reason is this: We aren't designing a phone, we're designing a device that allows hardware and low-level firmware hackers to do the things we want to do
134.
by catherd 8y ago
There are a number of SIP gateways that you can use for free. You'd have to read their individual TOS and/or trust them about tracking and monetization. One of the other guys that's working on this has a list of a few provide
135.
by catherd 8y ago
Thanks! Yes, one of the major design motivations wasn't so much to make a phone, but to make a nicely packaged device hackers can use at the hardware level for other purposes (we are practically locked out of modern phones for a variet
136.
WiPhone: A professionally-packaged Arduino phone(a.wiphone.io)
133 points by catherd 8y ago|93 comments
137.
by catherd 8y ago
Everyone seems to be reading this in the most literal way possible and complaining that the numbers aren't real, or that advertising doesn't work that way, or somehow thinking this is some sort of recommendation for an advertising
138.
by catherd 8y ago
Yes, agree, the answer is don't go live in a car and use the laptop all day every day. That wouldn't be very fun. :) Get outside if you run out of battery. Having access to all the comforts all the time is for the part of your lif
139.
by catherd 8y ago
Either gender can manage to pee into a container in a vehicle if they really want to. There are adapters you can buy if needed. Some people may not really want to, which is fine. They are probably the same ones who would find the lack of sh
140.
by catherd 8y ago
I looked into a gym membership, but the gym chains usually only cover a limited geographic area and additionally are usually only inside cities, not out where nature is. A decent marine battery is reliable and can carry enough power to run
141.
by catherd 8y ago
I did it for about 8 months. Wouldn't want to live that way permanently. Everything in moderation. :) A few more things to add: - Get used to constantly keeping your stuff in order. It takes about 5 minutes to turn your tiny little liv
142.
by catherd 8y ago
As a counterpoint to this, which I find almost offensively fixated on the parts of it that post well on social media, you really can have a good time doing this without spending months and 10's of thousands of dollars getting ready. (O
143.
by catherd 8y ago
I did 8 months and it had no noticeable affect, but then I only see my best friends at most twice a year. I enjoy long periods of solitude so it wasn't a big problem for me, but I think most people would probably want to stay in campgr
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Show HN: I designed a phone meant for HW/SW hackers(a.wiphone.io)
2 points by catherd 8y ago|0 comments
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by catherd 8y ago
mbed is great for prototyping. It's basically the Arduino system you would have gotten if Arduino was developed by people who mostly already know what they are doing instead of learning as they go. Lots of libraries for various sensors
146.
by catherd 8y ago
Can confirm. I have basic Mandarin and I would have definitely thought of you as the guy named "take a shower" if you never explained.
147.
by catherd 8y ago
I have no idea how many others like me there are out there, but if you could make a pinyin-only setting that would be really cool. I'm learning mandarin but not learning characters and it makes of a lot of study apps non-useful to me i
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by catherd 8y ago
I feel like all too often that leads to an outlook where you assume whatever job you end up in must meet your preferences in all things, and it's a pretty brittle way to conduct your career. Sure, from an individual standpoint that wou
149.
by catherd 8y ago
If you are going to the HK airport from the Shekou port in mainland China, the ferry requires you to arrive something like 3 hours ahead of your flight, even though the ferry ride itself if only 30-40 minutes. I assume a bus wouldn't d
150.
by catherd 8y ago
I've been in the field for a while and can't think of anything intended specifically to answer questions related to bootstrapping manufacturing of an electronic product. There are a few forums for automated assembly. Dragon Innova

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