Well I fell down an RGB keyboard rabbit hole there. At first I thought I wouldn't find something compelling in this list but it only took me to the second scroll to get drawn in. The end result was a customizable keyboard from Canada.
Can I give it a link to my weird (but open) hardware?
The link was posted by project's author so probably should have been Show HN.
Feels more like AI slop list of "a bunch of hardware that you can buy from hobbyist electronic stores" which has no idea what it wants to be, shiny on surface but deeper you look less sense it makes. Not surprised, the company who made it (likely single person) describes itself as "We're crafting interesting tools to speed up software development using Artificial Intelligence."
Good chunk of that stuff is not open hardware by any definition -> neither the hardware design being open nor the firmware not even community written firmware for proprietary hardware.
If you ignore the poor description of the site is the parametric search at least good? The values in parameter dropdowns seem to be filled based on currently displayed items, that might be fine for narrowing down once you already made a search but for initial search it means you get random subset of available values. The fact that whole thing is non-categorized, random mix of mismatched type of hardware doesn't make the parametric search better. Good parametric search needs well curated and structured database of descriptions made by people who understand corresponding product category, otherwise it's garbage in garbage out.
Having to wait half a minute while AI is reticulating splines even when you used quite specific keywords isn't a good search experience either.
So if it's not a good list of open hardware, not a good list of hardware you can flash open firmware, not a good search for electronic components what is it good for? Only value I see is as a fuzzy set of links and ~~tags~~ for exploring a subset of related hardware topics.
Edit: not tags those are broken. #tags return error, other tags(uses cases) and other other tags(compatible firmware) in many cases returns only 1-2 results which doesn't even include the item where you clicked on tag even though there are a lot more items using it.
AI slop. Most of the things on this list are not open hardware, and some of the items are completely proprietary. For example, the SLAMTEC RPLiDAR A1 [1]. This part doesn't even have user-upgradeable firmware.
Please add the Sensor Watch to the list. It's an amazing project which created an open source replacement PCB and and even a custom LCD for the legendary Casio F-91W. Fully customizable open source firmware. It's got a temperature sensor which makes it a world class temperature compensated quartz watch.
I've contributed some work to it. Improved the pulsometer so it could also be used as an asthmometer which I really needed. Also improved the TOTP auth apps a bit. I was even one of the maintainers for a while.
It's an awesome project to hack on. Lots of nice people in the community. Highly recommended.
How many of these are something that a normal consumer would buy, e.g. not a dev board that you can obviously flash your own code onto? I was sort of hoping for a list of things like "spotify car thing", "facebook portal" (I know neither of those are flashable yet, they've just been on my mind) and them maybe a list of projects for them or a link to a wiki page or something
Not commenting on the content itself (others have done it better) but anybody getting tired of seeing the same vibe coded websites over and over again?
Based on the title, I like the idea. It would be cool if manufacturers are more deliverable with their releases of firmware and developer tools. Like... if you're selling refurbished versions of a product, it makes sense that it's internals and firmware are open source.
Wow, the UX kind of sucks. I just wanted to browse the devices - no way to do that, only option is an 'ai' search. Ok, I type in "Show All Devices" and it canoodles for about 30 seconds (great use of compute resources) only to apparently come up with the phrase "Browse all devices available in the directory without specific project-based filters." that it then seems to feed into the actual search tool... which then shows no results.
Two thoughts - (1) is your device list some state secret that you have to hide behind a search functionality? Because it would be nice to be able to browse through it without needing to engage in some sort of 'search'. (2) can you provide another option besides an ai search that is so intelligent that it has superseded the ability to do wildcard searches?
Edit: same feedback, but for the projects section as well.
Note for each item: "I remember this", "I owned one"
Also interesting for the directory would be "I made it" - for people who actually designed/built a device. Good for them to get feedback about a device (for future versions) from real users after they claim a device to be theirs. Also note the historic aspect of fossilware whereby the directory could be used as a time capsule thing too.
Another thing about keeping track of ownership is for recycling. At some point, people could opt to dispose of a device, and recyclers could be prepared for any particular unit that they hope to recycle and contact the directory to organize a return. Would that make economic sense? Perhaps it could be done on a city-by-city basis?
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 48.3 ms ] threadhttps://templates.blakadder.com/ has almost 3,000 devices flashable onto Tasmota firmware.
For older Tuya devices there's https://github.com/tuya-cloudcutter/tuya-cloudcutter
OpenBeken https://github.com/openshwprojects/OpenBK7231T_App covers 800 of the newer generation Tuya devices.
And there's a large community adapting ESP32 devices onto https://esphome.io/
Can I give it a link to my weird (but open) hardware?
Feels more like AI slop list of "a bunch of hardware that you can buy from hobbyist electronic stores" which has no idea what it wants to be, shiny on surface but deeper you look less sense it makes. Not surprised, the company who made it (likely single person) describes itself as "We're crafting interesting tools to speed up software development using Artificial Intelligence."
Good chunk of that stuff is not open hardware by any definition -> neither the hardware design being open nor the firmware not even community written firmware for proprietary hardware.
If you ignore the poor description of the site is the parametric search at least good? The values in parameter dropdowns seem to be filled based on currently displayed items, that might be fine for narrowing down once you already made a search but for initial search it means you get random subset of available values. The fact that whole thing is non-categorized, random mix of mismatched type of hardware doesn't make the parametric search better. Good parametric search needs well curated and structured database of descriptions made by people who understand corresponding product category, otherwise it's garbage in garbage out.
Having to wait half a minute while AI is reticulating splines even when you used quite specific keywords isn't a good search experience either.
So if it's not a good list of open hardware, not a good list of hardware you can flash open firmware, not a good search for electronic components what is it good for? Only value I see is as a fuzzy set of links and ~~tags~~ for exploring a subset of related hardware topics.
Edit: not tags those are broken. #tags return error, other tags(uses cases) and other other tags(compatible firmware) in many cases returns only 1-2 results which doesn't even include the item where you clicked on tag even though there are a lot more items using it.
[1] https://openhardware.directory/devices/slamtec-rplidar-a1
I've contributed some work to it. Improved the pulsometer so it could also be used as an asthmometer which I really needed. Also improved the TOTP auth apps a bit. I was even one of the maintainers for a while.
It's an awesome project to hack on. Lots of nice people in the community. Highly recommended.
136?
Based on the title, I like the idea. It would be cool if manufacturers are more deliverable with their releases of firmware and developer tools. Like... if you're selling refurbished versions of a product, it makes sense that it's internals and firmware are open source.
Two thoughts - (1) is your device list some state secret that you have to hide behind a search functionality? Because it would be nice to be able to browse through it without needing to engage in some sort of 'search'. (2) can you provide another option besides an ai search that is so intelligent that it has superseded the ability to do wildcard searches?
Edit: same feedback, but for the projects section as well.
Note for each item: "I remember this", "I owned one"
Also interesting for the directory would be "I made it" - for people who actually designed/built a device. Good for them to get feedback about a device (for future versions) from real users after they claim a device to be theirs. Also note the historic aspect of fossilware whereby the directory could be used as a time capsule thing too.
Another thing about keeping track of ownership is for recycling. At some point, people could opt to dispose of a device, and recyclers could be prepared for any particular unit that they hope to recycle and contact the directory to organize a return. Would that make economic sense? Perhaps it could be done on a city-by-city basis?