There can be other valid usecases than yours where the price is not an issue.
And surely you are aware of the challenges of supply+demand and the issue of using offshore labor... that means most products made ethically and at low volumes are inherently going to be expensive.
This has NFC built-in which is something I've been looking for for a long time, there are no other ready-made programmable devices on the market you can buy that have a screen, touch, NFC and a battery, that I know of, so it's perfect for me, and the price is not a concern.
I'm an NFC enthusiast as well! Technically the flipper zero meets your criteria, but I'm guessing there's something else about it that doesn't quite meet up to your needs. When you say programmable, although the Flipper zero is "programmable", it's more like apps and you don't have full control over the device, which could be a limiting factor for whatever you're doing.
My flipper zero at least, does not have touch, and that was one of my requirements.
By programmable I mean "I can modify/flash my own firmware", which is also true for the flipper as it's all open source... and I had to do that anyway to fix their 14443B reader code to work for my application.
For me the fact that it has NFC built-in makes it perfect for my usecase. I looked at the M5 and friends but having to add an extra add-on box with a cable was a nonstarter for me.
Is this similar to a Flipper Zero? It seems some of the capabilities are there but maybe not all even though you could add anything with the extensions it seems.
Hardware is hard and I applaud every effort to make it easier for tinkerers to build atop a platform. I've been away from it for a long time but how does the RPi system stack up in comparison? With all the hats available and the variety of cases, it shouldn't be too difficult to match the aesthetics, power consumption and exploit all the pluggable peripherals. What are the blind spots?
Very long-time lurker here; I made an account specifically to say what I am about to say:
I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else.
Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu.
I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.
The focus being here: community. Gaming is an option, not the sole purpose, and community is always adding games to everything, but that's not the designers fault.
The core claim is that "most projects die in the setup: a screen, buttons, power and sensors to wire up before you can even begin". Now, you get plug-and-play blocks for that.
That idea has been tried many times before. It's Aduino "shields", Beaglebone "capes"... there's an ecosystem of Raspberry Pi accessories too.
Maybe tenth time is the charm, especially if you can make it cute enough, but at nearly $200 for the base device, I think they're gonna face an uphill battle. I still wish them well.
I’m just another nobody on the internet, but I think as you pointed out, the core premise is wrong.
I work in the smart home industry, and I’m also a huge tinkerer, and from talking to people, ideas die in two ways:
1) embedded programming, especially w/ C is hard.
No rich GUI libraries for screens that fit on limited devices and are easy to use. Manually painting rectangles and shapes and letters in C for each aspect of a UI is a slow and tedious task. Networking and protocols are always a custom feature, often hand-rolled protocols that need associated servers too. Complex to understand runtimes, no batteries-included languages or frameworks (eg where is the Android + Java of embedded)
2) the remaining physical stuff like enclosures is hard. Specifically, with an eye to aesthetics.
3D printing is getting more accessible and affordable all the time, but it’s still hard to get measurements and build custom enclosures. Each one is a new manual task too - much harder to reuse than code. Add to that look good enough to be in your home, and certainly even more hard if you want it durable and light for portability.
No, it starkly contrasts the RPi ecosystem because it has an "all in one" main unit, which works without shields, cables, extra cases, etc. It's approximately as self-contained as a mobile phone. But on top of that it offers GPIO pins.
I don't get why the maker market complains so much about the idea of businesses selling products at a healthy markup. Just because you know how the sausage was made doesn't mean that the logic of operating a business is any different to how it works in the consumer world.
If you're skilled and motivated enough to make it yourself, you might save some money. You'd loose a lot of time though and that's worth something too (perhaps a lot more).
The cost of design, build and marketing do not triple the final price by themselves.
The kickstarter was successfully funded, yielding in over $3.3M.
The device back then was $149 at 20% off, with $169 being the full price. That's still not $193.
Again, this is just my personal opinion, but even taking everything into account and factoring in a nice profit margin, being OVER $100 is very, very hard to justify.
Roughly $200 is simply far too expensive though. If it were $100-$150, then I could wince at the price that ultimately is necessary for the product to exist. But $200? I just feel like I'm being ripped off. For that price, I'd recommend people buy a raspberry pi and some parts from adafruit and make their own ultimately better version
Surely an Android or other mobile and a USB GPIO device can do much the same. For most the outlay is then just the USB to GPIO. 15 USD from Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2264
For £160 you can buy three JC1060P470, 7 inch proto-tablet systems with the same P4+C5 stack, with GPIO, ethernet in some models.
I get that the expense here is miniaturising and integration, but even at half the RRP, I'd be wincing. The maker market knows how to work out a napkin-BOM, and knows that this is a lot of money for what you're getting.
Miniaturization and OS customization are significantly more expensive than the BoM suggests. By that logic, every Android phone is a Qualcomm board with some bits stuck on, why does Samsung charge so much for it?
As a maker, I see somebody selling a dev kit that with £20 more in buttons, battery, and an afternoon in CAD gives me a Steam Deck sized version of this for a third the price. It's not the same format, but it's not a disparate bucket of parts either.
Again, you market yourself at people like me, this is the pushback you have to expect.
I looked into ESP32, M5 Stack, Arduino, etc. but as someone without experience it's very confusing. Which parts go together? Which case fits? Does that have a battery? All of this can be found out if you study the specs but it's not intuitive.
If all you want is tinker with a device, that's optimal.
For the people saying you can build this yourself: Yes. You can also build your own guitar from invidual parts and it will be cheaper than a store bought guitar. (I have done this). Is it super fun to build? Yes. Can everyone do it? No.
It seems a bit expensive for what it is. I think this would be really cool for a younger hacker just getting started in the kind of scene this project is aimed at, though
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 33.8 ms ] threadAnd surely you are aware of the challenges of supply+demand and the issue of using offshore labor... that means most products made ethically and at low volumes are inherently going to be expensive.
This has NFC built-in which is something I've been looking for for a long time, there are no other ready-made programmable devices on the market you can buy that have a screen, touch, NFC and a battery, that I know of, so it's perfect for me, and the price is not a concern.
By programmable I mean "I can modify/flash my own firmware", which is also true for the flipper as it's all open source... and I had to do that anyway to fix their 14443B reader code to work for my application.
I’m curious—the “F*CK Module”—is that… a common term of art in wireless/pentesting circles? Needless to say I’m not having much luck Googling it…
https://kode.diy/product/hacking-module
It’s hard to beat LilyGo’s lineup in this area
I am so sick of gameboy-style devices only ever having two buttons without a start, select or literally anything else.
Playdate did the same thing and it makes games really super infuriating because nobody wants to perform a hadouken just to open a gosh-darn pause menu.
I'm exaggerating of course but good lord please just give me a dedicated pause button.
If you want a DIYish handheld for gaming there are much better options on the market.
That idea has been tried many times before. It's Aduino "shields", Beaglebone "capes"... there's an ecosystem of Raspberry Pi accessories too.
Maybe tenth time is the charm, especially if you can make it cute enough, but at nearly $200 for the base device, I think they're gonna face an uphill battle. I still wish them well.
I work in the smart home industry, and I’m also a huge tinkerer, and from talking to people, ideas die in two ways:
1) embedded programming, especially w/ C is hard.
No rich GUI libraries for screens that fit on limited devices and are easy to use. Manually painting rectangles and shapes and letters in C for each aspect of a UI is a slow and tedious task. Networking and protocols are always a custom feature, often hand-rolled protocols that need associated servers too. Complex to understand runtimes, no batteries-included languages or frameworks (eg where is the Android + Java of embedded)
2) the remaining physical stuff like enclosures is hard. Specifically, with an eye to aesthetics.
3D printing is getting more accessible and affordable all the time, but it’s still hard to get measurements and build custom enclosures. Each one is a new manual task too - much harder to reuse than code. Add to that look good enough to be in your home, and certainly even more hard if you want it durable and light for portability.
ESP32-C5 ~$10
ESP32-P4 ~$5
Display ~$10
Case is maybe 90 cents (let's round to $1) if you print out of ABS.
The rest of the components? Let's say another $15 worst case.
~$41 or around that much? Sure, but definitely not ~$193.
I don't get why the maker market complains so much about the idea of businesses selling products at a healthy markup. Just because you know how the sausage was made doesn't mean that the logic of operating a business is any different to how it works in the consumer world.
If you're skilled and motivated enough to make it yourself, you might save some money. You'd loose a lot of time though and that's worth something too (perhaps a lot more).
The kickstarter was successfully funded, yielding in over $3.3M. The device back then was $149 at 20% off, with $169 being the full price. That's still not $193.
Again, this is just my personal opinion, but even taking everything into account and factoring in a nice profit margin, being OVER $100 is very, very hard to justify.
I get that the expense here is miniaturising and integration, but even at half the RRP, I'd be wincing. The maker market knows how to work out a napkin-BOM, and knows that this is a lot of money for what you're getting.
As a maker, I see somebody selling a dev kit that with £20 more in buttons, battery, and an afternoon in CAD gives me a Steam Deck sized version of this for a third the price. It's not the same format, but it's not a disparate bucket of parts either.
Again, you market yourself at people like me, this is the pushback you have to expect.
I looked into ESP32, M5 Stack, Arduino, etc. but as someone without experience it's very confusing. Which parts go together? Which case fits? Does that have a battery? All of this can be found out if you study the specs but it's not intuitive.
If all you want is tinker with a device, that's optimal.
For the people saying you can build this yourself: Yes. You can also build your own guitar from invidual parts and it will be cheaper than a store bought guitar. (I have done this). Is it super fun to build? Yes. Can everyone do it? No.
No audio module? Audio is a great introduction to signal processing and programming overall.