Remember the Girl Tech IM-me? It was a hot-pink clearance rack toy that suddenly became one of the hottest commodities in the hacking world when it was discovered they could be used for all sorts of radio frequency shenanigans. Now they go for triple digits on eBay, if you can even find one. Well, we’re probably about to see the same thing happen to the Smart Response XE.
Thanks to the work of a hacker named [ea], this cheap educational gadget is finally starting to live up to the potential we saw in it back when a teardown revealed it was powered by an Arduino-compatible ATmega128RF chip. With a big screen, a decent QWERTY keyboard, and integrated wireless hardware, it seemed obvious that the Smart Response XE was poised to be the next must-have repurposed piece of kit.
Though as it turns out, [ea] isn’t using the device’s built-in wireless hardware. Step one in this exceptionally well documented and photographed project is to tack a CC1101 transceiver module to the SPI pins on the ATmega128RF. Then with the appropriate firmware loaded up, that nice big screen will show you what’s happening on the 300 MHz, 400 Mhz and 900 MHz bands.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. With the CC1101-modified Smart Response XE, there’s a whole new world of radio hacks you can pull off. As a proof of concept, [ea] has also included a POCSAG pager decoder. Granted the RTL-SDR has already made pulling pager messages out of the air pretty easy, but there’s something to be said for being able to do it on something so small and unassuming.
If you can’t tell, we’re exceptionally interested in seeing what the community can do with the Smart Response XE. At the time of this writing, the going rate on eBay for a good condition unit looks to be about $10 USD, plus the $3 or so for the CC1101 module. But the prices went through the roof when we first posted about it, so get them cheap while you still can.
[Thanks to bburky for the tip.]
Really? The Girl Tech IM-me is up to tripple digits now? OMG!
Guys.. this IS a cool hack but before you all drive this one up that far remember you can get an old cellphone or tablet and an RTL-SDR stick for only a 2-digit price and you even get a much wider frequency range along with it.
The point is that this is a small, portable, and cheap (at least, for now) device that can do a lot of the same kind of RF tasks that would normally require a much more awkward setup. That’s where the value is.
As the software library for this grows, it will be a very valuable tool.
I’m not arguing. This is a nicer form factor than a cellphone or tablet with an RTLSDR dongle. It’s just not THAT much nicer so as to be worthwhile if the price jumps up unto the 100s of dollars[US] range.
I had the same reaction to the IM-me price. Makes me wonder if it’s time to sell the one I have sitting on the shelf.
But I’m also reminded of what I constantly tell my kids. You can charge what you want but it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay.
Just got two for 10 bucks each. Coulda bought a dozen at that price. Now to hack those Mattel Juiceboxes
I wonder if I still have the one I bought at a 2nd hand store…
No you didn’t, the last IM-Me that sold on eBay was $20, and it was broken. The cheapest working condition ones go for $40 – $50 on the low side.
Forget the Girl Tech, you should be looking for “Smart Response XE”. There all over the place. Boxes of them. First hit was a box of 32 for $55.
I just use the radio frequencies when I go places in the 2.4 ghz
Just picked up three!
Nice job, scalper.
Now we wait for you to cover this in your popular channel. Looking forward to it. K2GOG
Been eying a lot of two for $13 shipped for some time now. Just gave me the reason to hit the “Buy it Now” button.
so this is a Girl Tech IM-me inside of a response xe then? Kinda?
So I have a box of Mattel Juice Boxes. What should I do with them? Lol
Ask your municipality when the next E-Recycling event is.
Oh, Hackaday… I have a lot of 40 of these in my basement from when these came up last year. AND one of the VTech tablets mentioned last week arrives today. One of these days, I will do something with them…
Me too, in a carry case with 2 base stations. For future h@x0ring
Unfortunately, eve if their prices are (for a little time ) low on ebay, shipping still kills it around here. Will need to keep an eye on local appliances with screens, though. One never knows what can appear and be useful …
Got one for $10 bucks and free shipping on E-Bay. I noticed the seller sold 20 of them in the past hour. They may catch on and up the price.
Got 5 new ones for $44, I’m not entirely sure why yet. I was able to resist the last time, but this time resistance was futile !
“The hackaday effect”
RTL-SDR will work with a phone too. Old or new android. The hack is brilliant. Practically speaking though, a simpler, more powerful, and compact solution is available to all of us.
I’ll just use my Android phone and a $2 R820T2 stick with micro USB: https://www.ebay.com/itm/352820008860
I looked at the pictures of the PCB and it seems to me that the unpopulated serial port level converter might be an ICL3221.
If so, it’d be easy to add that chip plus a few capacitors to the PCB and then have access to RS232 level serial port.
MAX3221 looks like it will work. The notes in the GitHub.com/ea/srxe_cc1101/ project are not quite right.
The tinySA wound up going to market and has a wiki now. See ” Where to Buy ” at:
https://tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.TechnicalDescription
The HBTE groups.io has a good history of DIY homebrew versions that are open source also.