With the powerful off-the-shelf hardware available to us common hardware hobbyist folk, how hard can it be to make a smartphone from scratch? Hence [V Electronics]’s Spirit smartphone project, with the video from a few months ago introducing the project.
As noted on the hardware overview page, everything about the project uses off the shelf parts and modules, except for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) carrier board. The LCD is a 5.5″, 1280×720 capacitive one currently, but this can be replaced with a compatible one later on, same as the camera and the CM5 board, with the latter swappable with any other CM5 or drop-in compatible solution.
The star of the show and the thing that puts the ‘phone’ in ‘smartphone’ is the Quectel EG25-GL LTE (4G) and GPS module which is also used in the still-not-very-open PinePhone. Although the design of the carrier board and the 3D printable enclosure are still somewhat in flux, the recent meeting notes show constant progress, raising the possibility that with perhaps some community effort this truly open hardware smartphone will become a reality.
Thanks to [tiel] for the tip.
The “star of the show” is ironically a closed-source application running on a closed-source operating system (likely VxWorks). so much for openness.
My wishlist for products that don’t exist yet.
A Linux is based phone that isn’t super expensive and isn’t awful or twice the price of a high end phone with a fifth the capabilities. Most the reviews I’ve read of these have not been good. Imagine being able to write your own app to your phone without needing 32gb of ram or emulation. Be able to fully control your networking and telemetry. Upgrade whatever you want or dont. The dream.
A small keyboard that doesn’t require bluetooth for a cyber deck. This would jumpstart a lot of diy projects.
Just use a cheap android phone that has a popular cyanogenmod image
Fully open? How wrong! The Quectel “star of the show” is fully closed.
Are you still living in 2015? There was no cyanogen release for a decade…
lmgfy :)
“what is cyanogenmod called today” -> LineageOS. it’s not hard.
Spoken like a true…..
Can I use my linux development tools natively on android? No.
Can I directly access hardware plugged into the usb-c port on android? Also mostly no. Even with termux (go ahead try use serial comms in termux I dare you)
Can I write a program in any language and simply create a .desktop file? Noope
There are so many reasons why that is an absurd take. It would be like me suggesting someone “just use Windows” when they ask a question about their Mac or Linux machine.
For those that care, like me, there are two mobile linux projects that are good enough for daily driving:
1. A Sailfish OS supported device with Sailfish
2. The Furilabs FLX1s
Both are halium/hybris. I have been daily driving the Furilabs FLX1 (predecessor of the flx1s) for more than a year now. It is frankly awesome.
You simply cannot make a smartphone with a raspberry pi as its brain. You need the ability for the CPU to throttle down to a low power mode without turning off. It’s the non-negotiable sine qua non of pocket computing, and has been for 25 years, and pi doesn’t have it.
That is… unless you’d like to have a built-in pocket warmer function present at all times. Useful during the winter, maybe :D
Finally! I’ve been thinking of trying something like this for a while but never got around to it. Happy to see that someone is tackling it. This will certainly go to the top of my todo list to try out. We desperately need an open alternative to the smartphone duopoly.
A Raspberry Ii will never make a useful phone. It’s just not low power enough to make sense for a smartphone.