Project Logs

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• 20 hours till the end of campaign!

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/28/2020 at 14:15 • 0 comments

  Flipper Zero's Kickstarter campaign had a very successful start — on the first day, we raised a whopping $1 million! This number grew, and to date, we have raised nearly $5 million. We’re just shocked by such a result, that’s an amazing achievement. It also makes the project in a more safe position, as such a large amount is an airbag that greatly increases the chances of a product’s success in these hard times of epidemics and cataclysms.
  

  Now we are in the last hours till the end of the campaign and we decided to summarize the results.

  Stretch goals

  From the beginning, we set flexible goals for additional features. These features made development more expensive, so we calculated the minimum amount that we would need to implement these features.

  • $100k — New colors
  • $300k — Bluetooth LE
  • $700k — NFC

  As a result, all features were unlocked the very next day and now we are actively working on implementing them.

  Bluetooth Low Energy

  Adding Bluetooth required a significant redesign of the architecture, since we had to take a different MCU. Bluetooth LE will allow you to connect the Flipper to your phone or computer wirelessly for remote control and data transfer. At the moment, public repositories with mobile applications are already available in our Github, and soon we will fully open all repositories, including the firmware.

  NFC

  Among all Flipper Zero features, the NFC is one of the most difficult to implement. That’s why the goal was set at the high $700k level. NFC creates challenges in electronics design as we will need to place two RFID antennas on one PCB, as well as in firmware development, since emulating NFC cards is a rather difficult task that has not been fully solved.

  SD-card for memory expansion

  We argued for a long time about whether Flipper Zero needs additional memory, after all, 1MB of flash is four times more than the Arduino Mega. But this question disappeared when we saw a database of signals from infrared remote controls weighing 5MB. Then everything came down to mechanics, since the holder for the MicroSD card is huge, and there is very little space inside.

  As a result, the Mechanical Engineering department confirmed that the holder fits, which means there will be an SD card! It will be possible to store dictionaries, signal databases, logs, scripts for bad USB, etc. on the card.

  Developers program

  We believe that the community can create amazing things driven by enthusiasm. That’s why we’ve launched a public Developer Program, so everyone can participate in Flipper Zero development. More than 500 programmers and engineers have applied for participation up to this moment.

  Thank you all

  Many thanks to everyone who followed the project and supported us from the very beginning. We have a huge community that constantly helps us and without you nothing would have happened. We are very proud of what we have been able to achieve together.
  

• Put a MicroSD in your Flipper Zero

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/26/2020 at 16:48 • 0 comments

  We realized long ago that 1 MB of STM32 flash is great to fit a firmware and all your plugins but might run out when it comes to additional data.
  

  There are lots of heavy data Flipper has to store: remotes codes, signal databases, dictionaries, image assets, logs and more. MicroSD slot always has been an obvious solution but we were not completely sure about the mechanics, so we didn't announce this before.

  Today we can finally confirm: every Flipper Zero will have a MicroSD slot.

  The slot will be push-push, so the card will be reliably secured inside and will not protrude.
  

  Flipper Zero can work without a MicroSD card so it's not included. You can put any FAT32 formatted card in and store all the needed assets with no worrying that the memory will run out.

• 3D Models!

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/26/2020 at 14:09 • 0 comments

  3D models of Flipper Zero are publicly available on our GitHub!

  WARNING⚠️ This 3D model will 100% change, please do not use them as a final reference for your module's design.

  Check them out: github.com/Flipper-Zero/flipperzero-3d-models

• Join official Flipper Discord server

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/22/2020 at 16:02 • 0 comments

  You've been asking and we heard you loud and clear.

  We're happy to announce we now have an official Flipper Discord server!

  Join us to discuss Flipper development, cases of use and to meet some friends for your dolphin family: flipperzero.one/discord

• Lock Flipper with the Pass-combo!

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/11/2020 at 18:50 • 0 comments

  You’ve been asking how to deal with the fact that Flipper will store your secrets like U2F token and house keys. What if Flipper gets lost?

  Well, no problem! For this case, we made a locking feature. You can lock Flipper and unlock it with the special pass-combo, like in good old fighting games (for example, →↑↑←↓↑↓). Users can set a pass-combo of any length, and all functions will be blocked until the combo is entered, including firmware flashing.

  Additionally, it will be possible to hide some of the Flipper’s functions behind the secret joystick shortcut. And until this combination is entered, Flipper is just a harmless cute Tamagotchi with a bunch of cool mini-games and nothing else.

• Flipper Developer Program is live!

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/10/2020 at 15:38 • 1 comment

  At the very beginning of the project, we have chosen the tactics of maximum openness and transparency. We believe in open-source, the power of the community, and that enthusiasts can create cool projects without the involvement of large corporations. Therefore, we invite everyone interested in the project to take part in the development!

  Below is a description for those who want to join the development and make the hardware modules.

   Who is working on the project?
   

  The project consists of several large-scale parts, and each part has its dedicated team:

  •  Firmware — all software development of firmware, including software modules for each Flipper’s component: radio, RFID, Bluetooth, infrared, U2F, USB stack, etc.
     
  •  Electronics Engineering (EE) — a team engaged in hardware development, which consists of schematics, PCB design, antennas, etc.
     
  •  Mechanical Engineering (ME) — mechanical design team, responsible for the layout of the mechanical parts: case, buttons, holes, connector locations, ease of assembly, etc.
     
  •  Manufacturing — the team responsible for ensuring that the result of ME and Hardware team’s work can and will be transferred to mass production.
     

  At the moment we have a ~80% complete device in terms of hardware and mechanics. But the biggest part of Flipper's development is the firmware. We now have a working prototype, firmware architecture, and basic firmware components to grow the meat on.

  At this stage, it is very important to correctly approach the unification of all components in order to maintain the readability of the code and a uniform understandable style, so that developers around the world can easily develop for our platform. We believe that this task will be of interest to the community and invite you to contribute to the process of creating Flipper, just as it was in the very first stages of the project.

  How to join the firmware development?

  
  All Flipper Zero firmware will be fully open-sourced and published on Github once the first devices get shipped to the backers. For now, we’ve decided not to open our code repositories to postpone the appearance of fakes on Aliexpress and similar platforms, which will definitely happen after such a success here on Kickstarter. And in general, we are not particularly worried about this.

  So for now, all development is done in a closed repository where we add people after they take a survey and sign the Developer Agreement (CLA). In the agreement, we ask you not to distribute the code without our explicit consent and agree on your code usage in Flipper, but be sure that your authorship will be saved.

  At the moment we are using HAL / LL from STM and FreeRTOS. Most of the work with peripherals was generated by CubeMX, but in some hardcore places, we had to throw out the standard functions and work with registers directly.

  The code compilation takes place through Make and GCC, but very soon we will need to add the ability to compile our code in the Arduino IDE and PlatformIO.

  Here is the current Firmware architecture:

  Who are we looking for?

  Flipper's main components are written in C, C ++, and Rust, so knowledge of these languages will be useful. It will also be great if you have worked with microcontrollers and know how to debug electronics, but we mainly try to separate the hardware part from the code with a layer of abstractions, so that many components, such as the graphical interface or dolphin behavior, do not require working with hardware directly. We also need interface designers (placing an informative UI on a 128×64 screen is not an easy task), DevOps, and testers (if you are ready to test electronics and deal with setting testing stands up for remote debugging and testing).

  Most importantly, you must be willing to contribute to development. To participate in the project, please fill this form out. Please try to fill it very...

  Read more »

• We are on Kickstarter! Are you still there?

  Pavel Zhovner • 08/10/2020 at 15:36 • 0 comments

  Hey, we are finally coming back to Hackaday!

  In case you missed that, we are live on Kickstarter and we've already raised more than $2,600,000 and unlocked all the stretch goals!

  Check out our Kickstarter campaign!

• Flipper Zero — last steps to Kickstarters | New prototype

  Pavel Zhovner • 06/09/2020 at 17:14 • 3 comments

  Greetings everyone! A lot of things happened in this month with Flipper Zero and I want to tell you about our plans. We've got the final Flipper Zero prototype where almost all features work as expected and we can finish the BOM and price. 

  Right now we are almost done with the Kickstarte campaign preparation. Currently doing some paperwork, negotiations with the bank, manufacturers and suppliers. I hope the next update here will be campaign launch.

   Here are some demos of latest Flipper Zero prototype:

  Flipper Zero — GPIO Fuzzer 

  Simple fuzzer to test MCU, demonstrating the GPIO feature

  iButton and sub-1GHz transmitter demo 

  Simple hello world demo

  Demonstrating plugins feature. 

• Flipper Zero first batch of prototypes (Coronavirus affected)

  Pavel Zhovner • 04/12/2020 at 16:47 • 0 comments

  We've produced a first batch of Flipper prototypes and it is stuck on the China border right now. At the moment we can only wait until all this crisis ends and we can continue.

  Here are some photos:

• Flipper opens the gate via 433 MHz

  Pavel Zhovner • 04/12/2020 at 16:47 • 0 comments

  Flipper beta version of 433 sniffer functionality. Simple replay demo. Can't parse remote control protocols yet, just grabs.

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