HN Explorer

Show HN: Beepberry – a portable e-paper computer for hackers (beepberry.sqfmi.com)

731 points by erohead ↗ HN
Hi. I heard HN likes e-paper gadgets so I wanted to share a little side project I’ve been working on with @sqfmi. We’re building Beepberry - a portable e-paper computer for hackers, designed for chatting on Beeper. My day job is running Beeper [0], but I will always have a soft spot for building hardware.

I wanted to create a ‘weekend’ device that would let me stay in touch with friends and family, without the distractions of a full smartphone. I imagined a tiny, hackable e-paper screen with a physical keyboard, powered by a Raspberry Pi, that I could use to chat around my home…and pretty much nothing else.

Before Beeper, the idea probably would not have gone anywhere. Most chat apps do not have an API, making it practically impossible to hack something like this together. Enter Beeper, with connections to 15+ chat networks. Built on top of Matrix, Beeper is fully hackable. You can write alternative fun clients [1], bots [2] and more!

Today, sqfmi is starting to take pre-orders at https://beepberry.sqfmi.com for the first batch. It’s $79 (or $99 including a Pi Zero). Specs: Sharp Memory LCD (same display tech as in Pebble!), Pi Zero (BT/WIFI), physical keyboard, 2000mAh lipo.

On top of being an amazing Beeper chat device, it’s basically an e-paper Cyberdeck that fits in your pocket. It’s a ton of fun to hack on. Keep in mind - THIS IS NOT A REAL FINISHED PRODUCT. It’s basically a devkit.

More info in the blog post: https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-x-sqmfi-beepberry, or join the Discord/Matrix channel https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/docs/getting-started#join-the-be.... I’ll hang out a bit here to answer questions as well.

[0] https://beeper.com [1] https://github.com/tulir/gomuks [2] https://github.com/maubot/maubot

230 comments

[ 0.38 ms ] story [ 286 ms ] thread
sqfmi
Hey SQFMI here! Happy to answer any questions :)
wferrell
How did you manage to keep the BOM so low. Very impressed!
sqfmi
Low margins :) This is a passion project and we wanted to make it accessible
wferrell
Well done! Its just so hard to keep costs low.
antoineMoPa
This looks quite epic!

Is this an original used blackberry keyboard or a new one build specifically for this?

Who owns the trademark for this blackberry icon nowadays? Is there risk that a random company owning the trademark will sue you?

traverseda
As you're going to see in this thread everyone wants to turn this into it's own device. Personally I think it's great for field work, I'd like to see a GPS module, lora, and a solar panel.

Given that everyone wants a slightly different hardware customization I'd just like to say I think if you do a version 2 you should seriously consider having some kind of standard expansion cards system. Something like arduino/rpi "shields" of adafruit feather's "wings"?

ano-ther
Excellent idea. Am close to ordering.

You say e-paper, but the technical drawing “Sharp Memory LCD” which sounds different to me.

And it would be great to have a case, or a 3d file.

erohead
STL for the case https://beepberry.sqfmi.com/docs/enclosures

e-paper != e-ink (which is a specific type of e-paper)

masukomi
so, if e-paper != e-ink is e-paper "a digital screen you can read text on" ? or.. I'm confused. (actual question not being a jerk)

I, too expected an e-ink screen and was disappointed to find it was an LCD.

Wikipedia seems to think that e-paper and e-ink are in fact the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper

googlryas
I read it as the screen maintains the last contents written and generally operates with low power requirements while screen content is not being written. Per the data sheet, to have the screen in a state where it gets all of its pixels written once every 30 seconds, it consumes 135μW of power.
rsre
This is amazing! A hacker friendly Cybiko/TwitterPeek with the power of Matrix. Feels like the ultimate chat device.
sqfmi
I miss the Cybiko, it was ahead of it's time and was so much fun to play with. They can still be found on eBay.
focusedone
I miss it too! Ya know what can't be found on ebay (or even IRL when new)? Other people nearby to play games with.

Those things were so cool!

sqfmi
Get the Beepberry and play games with friends across the globe (via WiFi)!
syntaxing
Love the idea but a Zero W is pretty underwhelming. I have couple and it’s barely useful because of the single core limitations. I’m guessing it’s a supply chain issue?

Also, does this have to work with beeper? What if I have my own synapse running?

giobox
People have built essentially the same idea before but used the far more powerful Pi CM4 boards, which aren't really that much bigger at all than the Zero:

https://www.clockworkpi.com/uconsole

That said, I ordered a uConsole when it was announced and have heard nothing, I should really chase this...

My guess is the decision here to use a Zero wasn't one of availability, they sell it without a Zero too so you can roll your own. There is probably less complexity in using the Zero's GPIO support to attach to the host device vs the CM4's much more complex pin out which may have been a bigger factor.

syntaxing
Wow the Devterm looks amazing. Unfortunately according to reviews, the quality is extremely subpar. I get it’s niche but at that price, it’s probably a better financial design to get an iPad mini with a small keyboard.
giobox
Yep, I weighed the risk of the poor Devterm reviews when deciding to preorder the uConsole. My hope is with the uConsole being a simpler device with a traditional 4:3 display etc there will be more scope to just treat it like a plain ole Linux computer, but absolutely it's a niche toy for me too - neither of the devices make financial sense as a work tool!

I also love the design of the Devterm and would absolutely have bought one if reviews were better.

ecliptik
I have a DevTerm R-01 and it is basically a beautiful $200 novelty cyberdeck that sits on my desk. The R01 version in particular is greatly under powered and is really only usable with twm and a Xterm.

I mostly use it to read gopher:// and the kids love printing things off using it's thermal printer.

syntaxing
How is the keyboard? I have pretty small hands and it does not look like I can use it comfortably.
ecliptik
It's not great but not absolutely horrible. Two-finger typing most of the time and the overall feel is stiff, but not too stiff.

I usually hold it with my hands and use my thumbs, like a Game Gear. Re-mapping the "d-pad" joystick and "yxba" buttons to arrow keys and hjkl [1] makes it easy to read and navigate text content on it (hence of gopher://), especially with the wide and high resolution screen.

1. https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/mapping-devterm-r-01-gamepad...

BirAdam
The hardware quality is actually decent. The software support isn’t unless you get the pi version. I’ve owned two. First, the A04 and then the R-01. I actually used the A04 frequently, until I bought a SteamDeck. I’ve since sold it. I would use the R01 more if the HDMI out worked.

Clockwork will ship, it takes them some time. The software support isn’t great, and the community does a lot of the heavy lifting.

erohead
It's basically impossible to get any Pis these day - we were able to score a bunch of Pi Zero W so that's what we're including for now, but it's fully compatible with any 'zero' form factor SBC.

Works great with your own synapse too!

syntaxing
I hear your pain, I’ve been trying to get a zero 2W for a reasonable price for almost 3 years now. It’s so disappointing how it’s still an issue today.

Super tempted to try one of these out since I run my own synapse anyway. Paired with tailscale running, I could do a lot with it on the fly but probably would need a Zero 2W to handle everything I’m imagining.

geerlingguy
The Zero and Zero 2 are both coming into stock on almost a daily basis now if you follow rpilocator. Things seem to slowly be getting better.
rwl4
I've ordered my share of little Linux gadgets. I said no more because they were wholly impractical. Well, congrats, you just caused me to pull out my wallet and buy. This looks incredible!

You should sell a case as well for people like me who don't want to bother with 3D printing.

sqfmi
Thanks! We plan to offer 2 cases (CNC aluminum and clear transparent plastic) once we're happy with the design
TheFreim
Will the device be able to slot into an enclosure later or will more assembly be required?
sqfmi
The CNC version will definitely involve some screws to make it more secure
blackfawn
Rather than make a custom case, it would have been neat to see this PCB just slightly smaller that it'd drop right in the Blackberry 9900 housing to match the keyboard. There are loads of reasonably priced enclosures available that are already designed to fit selected keyboard.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
boomskats
Awesome, you're my hero. I just ordered two of these.

It looks to be using the same Q10 keyboard as a few of the other hacks (i.e. Fairberry[0], but with the addition of the dial/hangup buttons. Are you only using them for the trackpad? Any ambitions for a touchscreen-only variant?

(if so, I've got like 15x of those Q10 keyboards scattered across my desk)

[0] https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry

sqfmi
The dial/hangup buttons map to modifier keys and power control, and the trackpad can be mapped to mouse/arrow/scroll keys. No plans for touchscreen yet :)
rglover
Thanks for taking the time to put this together. Just snagged one. Can't wait to play with it.
igetspam
I do not need this. At all. Not one bit. Not for a second. It would be foolish of me to spend money on this.

Two, please!

Very cool.

amysox
Your reaction was similar to mine: "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" :)
throwaway894345
This seems super cool; have you considered selling a model with a battery and case? I would think that would be far more useful to most?
sqfmi
It comes with a battery. No case included for now, but you can 3D print your own with the STL files. Later on we will offer 2 cases (CNC aluminum and plastic).
andai
Very cool project. How is the battery life?
sqfmi
We haven't done extensive testing or optimizations (i.e. sleep, idle power down, etc.) yet. But with the stock battery of 2000mAh and Pi Zero @ ~80mA idle, it should be around ~20h always on. We're estimating a week of battery life once the optimizations are implemented.
andai
That's fantastic. I read in another comment that the startup time of the Pi is 5 seconds. Could this be optimized further? Afaik most of the startup time of Linux is detecting and initializing the hardware, so presumably this could be significantly optimized when the target hardware is known ahead of time.

I'm also sort of disillusioned with modern computing when I see a video of a home computer from the 80s that you press the power button and it's on (command prompt) before you've even removed your finger!

anonymouskimmer
Non-hacker here. Is there any possibility of this being made into a non-touchscreen 5G/4G-VoLTE phone that can be carried in a pocket without damage?
csdvrx
It should be possible to alter the case to support a slide cover, like for graphing calculators: slide it off, put in on the back when in use. slide it off, put it on the front when not in use. It should be resistant to puncture damage to the screen and prevent keypresses.

For LTE modules, as long as you have USB, you are able to connect one. If you want 5G, check the Qualcomm SDX55 and SDX65 (submm wave + 5G SA) on Telit. The easiest way is to get a Telit EVB + a Cinterion module.

The only difficulty would be routing the audio pathways and maybe IMS registration for VoLTE, but you could use a Quectel EG25 like on the pinephone: the module can be controlled by AT commands and the existing work for audio routing could help you get started: check https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro and the audio part of https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html like https://xnux.eu/devices/feature/audio-pp.html#toc-voice-call...

anonymouskimmer
I said, "non-hacker" :D

Thanks, though.

If someone wants to turn this into a cell-phone product with a finished case (importantly not 3d printed with odor- or toxin-emitting plastic), audio, etcetera, I'd buy at least one, as long as it could be added to an MVNO plan.

copperx
I'm sure young me would have found a ton of use cases for this, but now I'm old.

Can someone tell me one or two things this could be useful for? I want to buy it just because it looks awesome.

traverseda
Daylight readable display and physical keyboard make it excellent for all kinds of field work. If you're out doing things in real life this thing seems like a good choice to me. Quick calculation when you're building a chicken coop, use as a glide computer or a biking computer. Lots of outdoor stuff really.
calvinmorrison
using the GPIO. But you'd need to build some piggyback connectors. In fact if this had a JST or other connector it would be a lot better. Things like reading resistance values from sensors and displaying them back is pretty trivial, and being able to just load up different scripts to do that instead of, say arduino where you really would need to flash a program for each sensor say, would make it useful.
csdvrx
> I'm sure young me would have found a ton of use cases for this, but now I'm old.

Invert the problem: get one and try to hack to do whatever. That may help you regain some teen spirit :)

It may be better if you found some ideas naturally (chasing a rabbit down its rabbit hole is fun, but chasing your own rabbit is even funnier)

However, if you want ideas, here are some simple ones: - listen to your bluetooth devices like toothbrushes, scales, thermometers: try to decode and display what they send. There are many free software projects doing just that for Xiaomi devices

- connect a 4G module and try to send SMS. Most 4G modules can be driven with just AT commands so it shouldn't be too hard. The Quectel EC25 is extensively documented thanks to being present in the PinePhone: https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/blob...

- then try to add a GPS antenna to make a field GPS: check https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro#GPS_/_GNSS

- then try to have a LTE data connection, using w3m with its sixel mode to visit google news https://github.com/saitoha/libsixel#w3m-integration

- try to integrate SMS, twitter etc within one client (twitter example: https://github.com/saitoha/libsixel#twitter-client-integrati... ) to post your GPS coordinates to your friends

- one everything works, increase the difficulty: flash a free firmware on the Quectel, and try to improve it, or add functions that would help your other projects, for example A-GPS to get a faster lock: https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/tree...

Each one of this project should take at most one day, and may give you ideas to do more!

If you need help, get in touch, my email is in my profile.

jbm
-edit- As pointed out below, there is an early access program for developers a little further down on the order page that I missed.

Original comment below ----v

I love the product but I take issue with the term "Order now" on the website.

> Below is the shipping timeline for Beepberry: > Beepberry without Raspberry Pi Zero W: ~ August 2023 > Beepberry with Raspberry Pi Zero W: ~ September 2023

I think it would be more helpful to call it a pre-order on the button. If I click "order now", I'd expect it in 6 weeks, max.

Regardless, I like the concept and look forward to buying it after a few people try it out.

koinedad
It says 50 are available in the site
jbm
Ah, I see what you are talking about now.

> Beepberry Early Access Program > We have 50 units available to ship immediately to developers and hackers. If you would like to be one of the first to receive a Beepberry, please fill out the form below after placing your order.

I'm not sure how I missed that, thank you for pointing it out!

f1shy
I like it! But I wouldn‘t buy it… What I would totally buy, is a HHKB keyboard with a Raspberry inside, as the ols home computers. Like the R Pi 400, but with a MX keyboard, and HHKB layout…
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
Pawka
This piece looks really nice and I almost want it!

But have no idea what to do with it. What are your plans folks? How you are using similar hardware?

csdvrx
I would use it to ssh and tmux to my servers, to display stats/logs and start simple scripts when needed, like a "wireless KVM".

I understand many people use smartphones or tablets for that, but I don't like the idea of having a smartphone with me at all times: I have one, but in a drawer. I charge it and use it when I need to travel. It's too intrusive otherwise.

I can use ssh from my laptop, but I like a distraction free environment: most of my apps run in full screen, to help me maintain my concentration.

So a separate device I could turn quickly, check what's happening, and type commands, would be very valuable.

I would certainly try to find a way to add sixel support to the terminal (BSD console terminals have that) then have gnuplot display some key measurements like latency scatters on top of the moving averages.

Another role would be very natural thanks to being cheap: the USB port could help me check devices without having to fear hardware damage to my laptop USB ports (voltage issues etc) or software issues (virus/trojan etc)

TheFreim
> I understand many people use smartphones or tablets for that, but I don't like the idea of having a smartphone with me at all times

This is where I stand. Regrettably it becomes harder and harder now that everything uses 2FA, cannot leave home without the phone.

csdvrx
> cannot leave home without the phone.

You most certainly can: I do that every day.

> Regrettably it becomes harder and harder now that everything uses 2FA

Which companies cause you problems? Maybe I can offer suggestions.

I barely tolerate TOTP (thanks to oathtool), but any business that want to impose SMS 2FA on me will not have me as a client.

TheFreim
> but any business that want to impose SMS 2FA on me will not have me as a client

Where I'm at org policy requires a specific 2FA solution. Thanks for the suggestions, though, I'm hoping to move on in a year or so and I should hopefully be able to a void this going forward.

ahtavarasmus
I don't have a smartphone so I have installed 2FA app to my laptop. That works great:)
traverseda
I want a "forever computer" and I think this fits the bill. I don't actually expect it to last forever, but with unix command line tools we've got one lineage of computing that has lasted more than 30 years. I want to put a solar panel and a lora modem on it, and have a little computing device that will last the rest of my life. An artifact that will be as useful in 40 years as it is now, like how old calculators with nixie tubes still fundamentally work as calculators.

Might even try finally learning orgmode, maybe use vim-orgmode one it.

resize2996
For similar reasons, general future proofing, I recently started using orgmode for my todo lists, journaling and a light project management workflow. I'm a vim person, and using spacemacs with evil mode has been good for learning. I imagine I'll eventually start from scratch and only keep the pieces I like, but it's been a reasonable starting point.

This looks great for those purposes, it should interact nicely. There's a decent chance I'll pick up the watch today. (Can I make it buzz for pomodoro? Hmm.)

souwecera
A PocketChip built by the same person that made the Pebble Time Steel 2 that's on my wrist right now.

Take my money. Again.

souwecera
'Doh, original Time Steel (my P2+HR died a couple months ago).

If you have any Time Steel 2s laying around...

ecliptik
I loved my Pocket CHIP until it just stopped working a few days ago, and this Beepberry post today is a perfect coincidence. Since it's an RPI0w can use it as an ad-hoc serial terminal too.
Animats
At least it's only $99.

Sadly, it's not a shipping product yet. It's a "preorder".

AlphaWeaver
I recently switched to Beeper and as exciting as this looks, I wish that the team spent a little bit more time working on their primary app rather than working on what appears to be a toy hardware project.

Beeper is supposed to be a "universal messenger" that acts as a central place for all your messaging apps. I originally signed up because I wanted to be able to iMessage on my Android device, which has worked relatively well. In order to use the app's SMS bridge though, you have to set the app as your default SMS app (an Android requirement, no getting around it.) Unfortunately, it's just really difficult to compete with the system-level messenger app.

I've been chatting back and forth with them, and their support team has been pretty responsive, but I'll likely stop using it soon. Their app is just too buggy to be such an important part of my workflow as a default SMS app. No RCS support, notification issues, totally missing SMS messages entirely with no way to recover them? (Rare, but destructive.)

Love the idea, but needs a good bit more work. (Sorry to the team, I know some of them are here on HN.)

erohead
Tough to penalize us because Android does not expose RCS APIs. If the only part of Beeper that you don't like is the SMS part, I would recommend disabling that - go back to using Google Messages for SMS and use Beeper for the 14 other chat networks that we support.
drabbiticus
Hey just found out about Beeper through this post and it looks like it could be a very nice fit for communicating with Apple friends/co-workers while on Android. It is very nice to find out about this app.

> Tough to penalize us because Android does not expose RCS APIs

As someone speaking from a genuine place of ignorance, the Google page relating to RCS https://jibe.google.com/ seems to imply that RCS is just a universal specification and there are a number of documents that seem relevant after a search for "gsma rcs specification".

Is this an Android permissions thing where the only practical way to implement RCS support would be through a Google-supplied API?

vinodhn
I could be wrong but the only app that can send and receive messages through RCS on Android is Googles own messages app. Since Google runs their own RCS instance, they're the only ones interfacing with it. There's currently no API to allow for third party apps to make use of RCS.

That being said, RCS is designed to be an open standard. It's just that only Google is really pushing for it right now and running an instance of it. If I'm not mistaken, AT&T ran their own instance for a while but it was shut down in favor of Googles instance.

jeroenhd
RCS should work between different instances; AFAIK, Vodafone and Google are exchanging messages, for example.

Of course you could implement a full RCS client in your own app, deregister RCS in the Google Messenger app and then interface with your server of choice that way. However, this is significantly more work than just accessing the normal text messages on a phone. You'd also need to implement Google's extensions on top of RCS yourself (like E2EE encryption) and set up some kind of notification system (because you can't poll a server or listen on a socket without getting killed in the background).

It's all theoretically possible, but it's a lot of work. This is one of the reasons why Signal decided to drop SMS support all together in their app. Google could expose RCS messaging like they do text messaging, but they just... don't. Unless you're Samsung, of course; Samsung is allowed to call into the RCS APIs but other apps aren't.

drabbiticus
Got it, thank you all for sharing your knowledge in this domain.
conaclos
Hey! Just wondering: how did you prevent Discord bans because of using their API without the Discord app?
bandedetrappes
A bit disappointed to see the only message mentioning the primary app here is a bad review, so I though I'd chime in and say we (I and three friends) absolutely love it. It's the only app with such versatility, with almost 24h support, and it's getting better every week, on every platform. The UI is really nice for an invite-only product. Your review is mainly based on SMS, which is a fraction of what the app can do. Congrats to the team, keep up the great work !
darkteflon
I hadn’t heard of Beeper but it looks incredible. And since they are also people who work on side projects like these, I know I can trust them.

Unfortunately, seems like there is a waitlist of some 177k people for new signups.

mustacheemperor
I continue to await my beeper invite, but this looks great. I have been itching to tinker with e-ink for a while and this seems like a great entry point. Cheers, I'm in for $99!
bg0
If we order it, can we get access to beeper lol
jeffbee
Trying to determine if this is really more hackable than an actual BlackBerry 957. This appears to have the keyboard from the BlackBerry Classic, where the straight-across rows were not very desirable. The real BlackBerry 957 is a 386 with 512KB of RAM, a serial port, and a battery life measured in weeks. As a "for hackers" device it is hard to beat.
hammyhavoc
What interesting things can you do with a 957 at present?

Can it run a Matrix client at present?