Screenshot of the REPL running on the Flipper, importing the flipper API library and calling infrared receive function out of it with help of autocomplete

A MicroPython Interpreter For Flipper Zero

March 3, 2025 by 13 Comments

Got a Flipper Zero? Ever wanted to use a high-level but powerful scripting language on it? Thanks to [Oliver] we now have a MicroPython application for the Flipper, complete with a library for hardware and software feature support. Load it up, start it up, connect over USB, and you’ve got the ever-so-convenient REPL at your disposal. Or, upload a Python script to your Flipper and run them directly from Flipper’s UI at your convenience!

In the API docs, we’re seeing support for every single primitive you could want – GPIO (including the headers at the top, of course), a healthy library for LCD and LCD backlight control, button handling, SD card support, speaker library for producing tones, ADC and PWM, vibromotor, logging, and even infrared transmit/receive support. Hopefully, we get support for Flipper’s wireless capabilities at some point, too!

Check out the code examples, get the latest release from the Flipper app portal or GitHub, load it up, and play! Mp-flipper has existed for the better half of a year now, so it’s a pretty mature application, and it adds quite a bit to Flipper’s use cases in our world of hardware hacking. Want to develop an app for the Flipper in Python or otherwise? Check out this small-screen UI design toolkit or this editor we’ve featured recently!

Bits of GRUB syntax on pink background

Wake, Boot, Repeat: Remote OS Selection With GRUB And ESP

March 3, 2025 by 14 Comments

What do you do when you need to choose an OS at boot but aren’t physically near your machine? [Dakhnod]’s inventive solution is a mix of GRUB, Wake-on-LAN (WOL), and a lightweight ESP8266 running a simple HTTP server. In the past, [dakhnod] already enlightened us with another smart ESP hack. This one’s a clever combination of network booting and remote control that opens up possibilities beyond the usual dual-boot selector.

At its core, the hack modifies GRUB to fetch its boot configuration over HTTP. The ESP8266 (or any low-power device) serves up a config file defining which OS should launch. The trick lies in adding a custom script that tells GRUB to source an external config:

#!/usr/bin/env cat 
net_dhcp 
source (http,destination_ip_or_host:destination_port)/grub/config

Since GRUB itself makes the HTTP request, the system needs a running web server. That could be a Raspberry Pi, another machine, or the ESP itself. From there, a WOL-enabled ESP button can wake the PC and set the boot parameters remotely.

Is it secure? Well, that depends on your network. An open, unauthenticated web server dishing out GRUB configs is risky, but within a controlled LAN or a VLAN-segmented environment, it’s an intriguing option. Automation possibilities are everywhere — imagine remotely booting test rigs, toggling between OS environments for debugging, or even setting up kiosk machines that reconfigure themselves based on external triggers.

For those looking to take it further, using configfile instead of source allows for more dynamic menu entries, although it won’t persist environment variables. You could even combine it with this RasPi hack to control the uptime of the HTTP server. The balance between convenience and security is yours to strike.

If you’ve got your own wild GRUB customisation, let’s hear it!

A stainless steel metal toaster sits on a white table. Its cord is draped artfully around to the front and the leftmost toast holding apparatus is rotated out from the front of the device like a book pulled down and out from a bookshelf.

Flat Pack Toaster Heats Up The Right To Repair

March 2, 2025 by 85 Comments

The toaster is a somewhat modest appliance that is often ignored until it stops working. Many cheap examples are not made to be easily repaired, but [Kasey Hou] designed a repairable flat pack toaster.

[Hou] originally planned to design a repairable toaster to help people more easily form an emotional attachment with the device, but found the process of disassembly for existing toasters to be so painful that she wanted to go a step further. By inviting the toaster owner into the process of assembling the appliance, [Hou] reasoned people would be less likely to throw it out as well as more confident to repair it since they’d already seen its inner workings.

Under the time constraints of the project, the final toaster has a simpler mechanism for ejecting toast than most commercial models, but still manages to get the job done. It even passed the UK Portable Appliance Test! I’m not sure if she’d read the IKEA Effect before running this project, but her results with user testing also proved that people were more comfortable working on the toaster after assembling it.

It turns out that Wikipedia couldn’t tell you who invented the toaster for a while, and if you have an expensive toaster, it might still be a pain to repair.

A picture of the Alarmo running a tweaked firmware, showing a theme with (Debug) added to its name, obviously a firmware modification

Making The Alarmo Customizable, By Any Means Necessary

March 2, 2025 by 6 Comments

Last year, Nintendo has released the Alarmo, a bedside-style alarm clock with a colourful display. Do you own one? You deserve full control over your device, of course. [KernelEquinox] has been reverse-engineering an Alarmo ever since getting one, and there’s no shortage of cool stuff you’ll be able to do with an Alarmo thanks to this work.

Now, just how can you improve upon the Alarmo? Looking through the Alarmo dev community site and threads on the subreddit, there are plenty of ideas, from themes to a ton of possible behaviour tweaks! In particular, Nintendo has already changed Alarmo’s behaviour in a way that is jarring to some users – a third-party development community will help us all make sure our Alarmos work exactly like we expect them to. Want to replace the sound files,  tie your Alarmo into your smart home setup, write your apps, tweak the UI or default behaviour, fix a bug that irks you real bad, or access a debug menu? Or, ensure that Alarmo doesn’t contribute to light pollution in your room? All appears to be doable.

Like the Alarmo, but don’t own one yet? They’re limited-release for now, but it will be more widely available this March; we thank [KernelEquinox] for the work in making Alarmo hacker-friendly. If you’ve forgotten, this project started off thanks to the efforts of [Gary] last year. We covered it back then — cat pictures included!

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Hackaday Links: March 2, 2025

March 2, 2025 by 4 Comments

It’s been quite a week for asteroid 2024 YR4, which looked like it was going to live up to its “city killer” moniker only to be demoted to a fraction of a percent risk of hitting us when it swings by our neighborhood in 2032. After being discovered at the end of 2024, the 55-meter space rock first popped up on the (figurative) radar a few weeks back as a potential risk to our home planet, with estimates of a direct strike steadily increasing as more data was gathered by professional and amateur astronomers alike. The James Webb Space Telescope even got in on the action, with four precious hours of “director’s discretionary” observation time dedicated to characterizing the size and shape of the asteroid before it gets too far from Earth. The result of all this stargazing is that 2024 YR4 is now at a Level 1 on the Torino Scale of NEO collision risk, with a likely downgrade to 0 by the time the asteroid next swings through again in 2028. So, if like us you were into the whole “Fiery Space Rock 2032” thing, you’ll just have to find something else to look forward to.

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On Sensory Weaver Building

March 2, 2025 by 24 Comments

What is a sensory weaver? [Curiosiate] tells us: “A device which takes sensory data feeds in and converts it in various ways on the body as information streams as though a native sensory input.” As an example, they’ve built one.

This one, called “MK2 Lockpick” is a wrist-mounted array of linear actuators, with a lengthy design/build log to peek into. We don’t get PCB files (blame EasyEDA’s sharing), but we do at least get a schematic and more than enough pictures for anyone interested to reproduce the concept – the levels of bespoke-ness here warrant a new PCB for any newcomers to sensory weaver building, anyway. We also get a story of a proof-of-concept thermal input sensory weaver.  The team even includes a lessons learned da, and plenty of inspiration throughout the posts on the blog.

This kind of tech is getting more and more popular, and we are sure there will be more to come — especially as we keep getting cool new gadgets like linear actuators in form of replacement parts. For instance, the actuators in this sensory weaver are harvested from Samsung S23 smartphones, and you could probably find suitable ones as iPhone replacement parts, too. Looking to start out in this area but want a quick build? Look no further than the venerable compass belt.

A man in black glasses and a black t-shirt has his arms resting on a grey workbench. Between his opened hands are the two halves of a copper ice press. They are fist-sized copper cylinders. The lower half has large spiraling grooves to aid in the release of excess water from the ice being formed as it melts.

Make Ice Spheres In A Copper Press

March 2, 2025 by 11 Comments

Perfectly clear ice spheres are nifty but can be a bit tricky to make without an apparatus. [Seth Robinson] crafted a copper ice press to make his own.

Copper is well-known for its thermal conductivity, making it a perfect material for building a press to melt ice into a given shape. Like many projects, a combination of techniques yields the best result, and in this case we get to see 3d printing, sand casting, lost PLA casting, lathe turning, milling, and even some good old-fashioned sanding.

The most tedious part of the process appears to be dip coating of ceramic for the lost PLA mold, but the finished result is certainly worth it. That’s not to say that any of the process looks easy if you are a metal working novice. Taking over a week to slowly build up the layers feels a bit excruciating, especially compared to 3D printing the original plastic piece. If you’re ever feeling discouraged watching someone else’s awesome projects, you might want to stick around to the end when [Robinson] shows us his first ever casting. We’d say his skill has improved immensely over time.

If you’re looking for something else to do with casting copper alloys, be sure to checkout this bronze river table or [Robinson’s] copper levitation sphere.

Thanks to [DjBiohazard] for the tip!

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