Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Flipper One – we need your help

blog.flipper.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 501 posts

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#311

Post by jayd16 »

mixtureoftakes wrote: post #271
antirez wrote: post #236

This lacks the sharp idea the Zero had. I have the feeling that in order to do something different, and not an evolution, the result will be borderline useless: a portable ARM computer with Wifi / satellite connection / ... And, then? What I can do with it? The evolution that I could like is a Zero with more CPU power, SDR and LoRa. Then let's implement all the cool protocols that it is possible to implement.

So they made a phone?

A full Linux phone with an M.2 slot, Ethernet, hardware buttons, SDcard etc.

This is what you've all been asking for, right?

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#312

Post by swiftcoder »

klik99 wrote: post #306

"Build the most open and best-documented ARM computer in the world, with full mainline Linux kernel support." ... "the HDMI port is proprietary and requires licensing fees" Are they upstreaming opensource HDMI 2.1 support? I mean I'm sure they're not, since they paid the toll, just feels they're not totally sticking to their guns. It's the kind of choice that shows if you really mean what you say. The more that won't…

I don't really get why they didn't go with HDMI alt mode here, and stick with usb-c ports

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#313

Post by csande17 »

Yokohiii wrote: post #234
____tom____ wrote: post #33

Sounds like the second system effect. (The Mythical Man Month) First one is simple and focused, the second one tries to be & do everything. And frequently never ships.

The odd thing is that this disguises as some bare metal, hackable device. Their TUI[1] is planned to use react(!), to share logic with their BrowserUI[2]. In the repos you can see how they struggle to get anything gpu backed done (which is required by the browser). Then falling back to wayland to do it for them. (This all seems a mess that LLMs can't figure out.) Anyway, it does seem to end up in a custom linux deskt…

> The 256×144 px screen requires pixel-level rendering, which standard TUI libraries (ncurses, etc.) cannot provide. The proposed solution is an HTML/CSS rendering engine running as a background daemon — a lightweight browser-based renderer that draws menus, popups, and UI components.

Truly, a design only an LLM could love.

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#314

Post by embedding-shape »

arjie wrote: post #307

I have a Flipper Zero and these guys made a great tool, so I clicked this headline because it said "we need your help". After scrolling two pages I couldn't find what they need my help with, though. I scrolled to the end and couldn't find it there either. If I'm being honest, I like their stuff but not enough to dig through 8 pages of content to find out what helping means.

This effort seems less of a "Help us by buying our product" and more a plea for contributors as a FOSS effort, they want to do things like this: "Collabora + Flipper: Opening up the RK3576" https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/coll... , and are basically looking for developers and other technology enthusiasts to help them both with the projects themselves, and also try to network (socially) their way into convincing brands and companies to also open up themselves more:

> We're asking the community to help us polish RK3576 support so we can build a truly open platform together. We'd be glad for any kind of contribution, not just code. For example, maybe you can find a way to convince Rockchip to open up that last blob.

Then it seems like they're inviting anyone to participate in the entire development process too, should you be inclined:

> Openness has always been our thing. With Flipper One, we want to go further — not just open-source code, but an open development process. We're publishing our task trackers, internal discussions, half-finished docs, and architectural debates. All the messy stuff companies usually keep behind closed doors.

Seems the post mentions a bunch of stuff people can help with, CTRL+F "help" shows 16 hits even, but I am afraid even this does require actually reading the content. It kind of feels like if you can't be assed to read enough to figure out what they need help with, maybe you don't actually want to help them with even harder and involved stuff than that?

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#315

Post by ourcat »

ourcat wrote: post #299

The 'Layers' comparison image suggests that there would be no Bluetooth in the Flipper One. I would have thought that would still be very useful in 'Layer One'?

Actually, after closer inspection of the screen on the third image of the device in the article, there does appear to be a Bluetooth icon.

Confirmed in the Dev Portal. https://docs.flipper.net/one/hardware/wifi-bluetooth

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#316

Post by IshKebab »

petterroea wrote: post #309

This makes me think of "The homer" from the Simpsons[1]. The scope creep is insane. But in this case, I think I may be homer. I may buy this, and feel like a glutton for doing so. Living in Japan I've avoided Flipper Zero due to the law basically saying "It is illegal to own tools primarily used for crime" (think lockpicks, etc). With Flipper Zero primarily being a RFID hacking tool, you are one officer knowing what…

I'd wait to see the price before declaring you'll buy it!

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#317

Post by swiftcoder »

garciansmith wrote: post #216

It's interesting that the d-pad is on the right and the mouse pad on the left. I would have thought they'd be flipped, and indeed that's how it was in the prototype picture. I'm curious as to the reasoning for the change, though I don't know anything about the UI. Also, what's a "survival desktop"? I've never heard that term and I couldn't find it used elsewhere.

> Also, what's a "survival desktop"?

A desktop you can stick in your back pocket and take on the run?

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#318

Post by IshKebab »

arjie wrote: post #307

I have a Flipper Zero and these guys made a great tool, so I clicked this headline because it said "we need your help". After scrolling two pages I couldn't find what they need my help with, though. I scrolled to the end and couldn't find it there either. If I'm being honest, I like their stuff but not enough to dig through 8 pages of content to find out what helping means.

It's with developing open software for it - there's a diagram on the page that shows lots of the BSP components are fully functional using the closed source versions and "partially functional" using open source code.

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#319

Post by iberator »

Gigachad wrote: post #131
d3Xt3r wrote: post #2

Cool, but I think they're holding themselves back with that weird form-factor. I would've preferred if they'd included a full QWERTY keyboard, like the the GPD Pocket 4[1] or the GPD Win Mini. With a proper keyboard, I could write code on the go, easily edit files, navigate a terminal and mess with things... and do so much more in general. Also, 8GB RAM is barely enough these days, whereas the GPD comes with upto 64G…

The thing has a 2 color display. 8gb is massively overkill. Theres not much you could do on this that would even need 2 gb.

sdr waterfall takes a lot of memory

Re: Flipper One – we need your help

#320

Post by embedding-shape »

tmountain wrote: post #303
salomonk_mur wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, they put 2 processors in the thing and are building their own OS. They even say they are not sure how to get it accomplished. Scope creep to hell and back. Could just let the device get turned off like literally any other device on earth, and not have to build a whole new fucking OS to get it running. They even - for some reason - want to waste time "training their own AI model because general ones don't cut it"…

Big dreamers, which is awesome, but they need a disciplined PM type team member to bring them down to Earth (ROI analysis on their roadmap).

> ROI analysis on their roadmap

I think we've developed software with "ROI" in mind for so long, that by now most people forgot how it was to use devices and interfaces that were made with passion and by taking your time, experimenting and finding the right way, rather than just rushing through stuff and optimizing everything for money.

I remember Flipper Zero had a ton of doubters early on too, myself included. I think I'm now willing to give them more slack to actually experiment and create something even more ambitious, as they successfully executed it the first time most doubted them.

Post reply on HN