As the date of my last project log shows, I haven't been working on the Waffle project lately, for a few reasons:

• I reached the maximum memory available on the ATMega328. I'm not an efficient coder, but I realize that if I need to implement the features I want to (nice menus, file transfer interface, message saving, etc...), I'll need more memory.
• Got involved in a 2nd masters degree until late may, I've got less time to work on it...
• Less motivation altogether, other projects pop up in my head...

I'd still like to move this project forward, by restarting from scratch. I've learned the following lessons:

• SMD is not that hard to solder! As long as I stick to the pitch I've used so far, I can hand-solder it...
• Think about battery management from the start!
• Think a bit more about tolerances when designing 3D-printed cases.
• DirtyPCBs is amazing.
• PCBs with round corners are nice.

Cue the Waffle v2.0! Preliminary specs would be:

• ESP32 controller, would add Bluetooth/Wifi capabilities, along with the power of a 32-bit microcontroller! Still waiting on the software stack :)
• RFM69 radio module: they seem to use an efficient digital mode, optimized for battery usage, while staying on the 70cm band.

It'll have to wait until I make it home, get some dev boards to start designing a portable device...