“Outside” perspective after I was recently gifted one for my birthday: it’s a fun and easy tool to learn about hardware. I became a programmer through the “Applied Math” route (Causal Inference -> Probability -> UL -> DL -> CS). Never owned a Raspberry Pi/Arduino and too busy to get into hobbyist electronics. The Flipper is accessible and low friction, motivates learning eg about GPIO, and is the first time I’ve messed with firmware and signals.
Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
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Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#92I’ve had one of these guys sitting around for a while - love the hardware, love the concept, but I haven’t really found a lot of use for it - what are y’all using them for?
Cloning my NFC cards, being my garage opener (I wasn't given a key and couldn't be bothered getting one... and yes, it's my garage), testing equipment using the GPIO pins and what not. Last one is really handy tbh
Edit: oh! I used it today to snap pictures with my phone every second for photogrammetry work, that was neat! Wish I had gotten better point clouds out of Gaussian splatting though
Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#93$169 is a bit steep for me, so I went on Temu and bought a $8 125KHz RFID programmer & a $5 USB-C IR Blaster. Combined with my Samsung phones native NFC writing, bluetooth, etc I feel like it scratched the itch of 90% of what people do with Flipper for 10% the cost.
The point of the flipper zero is to have one good supported gadget that has a lot of people hacking away with it. It's the same thing with the raspberry pi, sure you can get some cheap clone off less than ideal places, but you're gonna pay with your time. That's basically it.
That's what I like about InstantPots: having a standardized cooking device makes recipes a lot easier to share.
Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#94Bad actors are going to ruin this cool little device for everyone else. For every story I hear about a cool usecase for it, there's another about it being used to annoy or harm others.
Flipper Zero is/was banned on eBay.
I tried repeatedly to sell mine there, because I'd see some auctions for them complete. Then they told me it was definitely banned, because it could be used for (IIRC) RFID hacking.
(Fair enough. I ended up having to sell mine locally, for a lot less money than what the occasional auction would complete for on eBay. And finding a buyer locally was harder, and with much higher rate of flaking. As someone with deep frugal influences, who likes to save money when buying things, and to sell things once not really needed, I really like eBay when it works OK.)
Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#95Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
“1200 seems too high for a phone, so I bought a raspberry Pi and attached a 4G module now I can make calls and browse the internet”…
> “1200 seems too high for a phone, so I bought a raspberry Pi and attached a 4G module now I can make calls and browse the internet”… That actually sounds really cool...
Until you want to take it with you when you leave the house.
Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was able to clone my apartment fob using a tool I got for $30 on Amazon, and it even came with extra blank fobs and cards to clone to. Flipper Zero can more than just clone RFID keys, but my point is that the tools exist to do all the things it does and do them cheaper, and they're just as easy to use. If you really need a tool that can do them all, though, I can't really argue with the utility; but I do kind of ag…
Other than create the marketing buzz and pull together a community of hackers to make the on ramp to this type of programming easier.
And that's really it. It's purely a marketing play. I guess my other frustration is when I see people who I thought were pretty clever not realize that
Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#98Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#99Anyone tried to crash Bluetooth speakers with this? I’d buy one immediately if I can mute loud tvs and harmlessly disable Bluetooth speakers from a distance.
My new rental only provided us with one garage door remote and it looks ancient. Fairly certain this could an overly expensive extra garage door remote.
Re: Flipper Zero: Multi-Tool Device for Geeks
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I found that my apartment NFC key is hardened against dictionary attacks and I'm not able to copy it. It also helped me learn that my parents' garage door is pretty secure. I'm able to have the opener learn my flipper like any other remote, but not crack it. This is even with the unleashed firmware that doesn't mind violating FCC regulations (some of the frequencies it hops to are restricted). I was able to copy…
All garage doors have rolling keys which are non trivial to deal with unless you have pro stuff.
Speaking of garage door rolling codes I've noticed there is some sort of slack in the synchronization, probably so that if you press the remote button a few times while out of range your remote still opens the door. My guess is that the receiver looks not only for next code after the last one used, but also for several codes after that.
Question: how many times would you have to press the button on the remote for it to get so far ahead of what the receiver looks for that the remote no longer works without reprogramming the receiver?