Sometimes It’s Not The Solution

June 1, 2024 by Elliot Williams 54 Comments

Watching a video about a scratch-built ultra-precise switch for metrology last week reminded me that it’s not always the projects that are the most elegant solutions that I enjoy reading about the most. Sometimes I like reading about hackers’ projects more for the description of the problem they’re facing.

A good problem invites you to brainstorm along. In the case of [Marco Reps]’s switches, for instance, they need to be extraordinarily temperature stable, which means being made out of a single type of metal to avoid unintentional thermocouple joints. And ideally, they should be as cheap as possible. Once you see one good solution, you can’t help but think of others – just reading the comments on that article shows you how inspiring a good problem can be. I’m not worried about these issues in any of my work, but it would be cool to have to.

Similarly, this week, I really liked [Michael Prasthofer]’s deep dive into converting a normal camera into a spectrometer. His solutions were all very elegant, but what was most interesting were the various problems he faced along the way. Things that you just wouldn’t expect end up mattering, like diffraction gratings being differently sensitive across the spectrum when light comes in from different angles. You can learn a lot from other people’s problems.

So, hackers everywhere, please share your problems with us! You think that your application is “too niche” to be of general interest? Maybe it’s another example of a problem that’s unique enough to be interesting just on its own. Let’s see what your up against. A cool problem is at least as interesting as a clever solution.

Hack Simple

May 27, 2023 by Elliot Williams 7 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we definitely love to celebrate the hard hacks: the insane feats of reverse engineering, the physics-defying flights of fancy, or the abuse of cutting edge technology. But today I’d like to raise a rhetorical glass in tribute of the simple hacks. Because, to be perfectly honest, the vast majority of my hacks are simple hacks, and it’s probably the same for you too. And these often go unsung because, well, they’re simple. But that doesn’t mean that something simple can’t be helpful.

Case in point: an ESP8266 press-buttons device that we featured this week. It doesn’t do much. It’s main feature is that it connects to a home automation network over WiFi and enables you to flip three relays. Wires coming off the board are to be soldered to the not-yet-smart device in question, simply connected to each side of the button you’d like to press. In the example, a coffee machine was turned on and the “go” button pressed, automating one of the most essential kitchen rituals. While recording the podcast, I realized that I’ve built essentially this device and have it controlling our house’s heating furnace.

For the experienced hacker, there’s not much here. It’s a simple board design, the software heavily leverages ESPHome, so there’s not much work on that front either. But imagine that you lacked any of the wide-ranging skills that it takes to make such a device: PCB layout, ESP8266 software wrangling, or the nuances of designing with relays. You could just as easily build this device wrong as right. The startup costs are non-trivial.

Making a simple design like this available to the public isn’t a technical flex, and it’s not contributing to the cutting edge. But it just might be giving someone their first taste of DIY home automation, and a sweet taste of success. There’s not much easier than finding a switch and soldering on two wires, but if that’s the spark that pushes them on their path to greater hacks, that’s awesome. And even if it doesn’t, at least it’s another appliance under user control, connected to a private WiFi network rather than spying you out and phoning home to Big Toaster.

So here’s to the simple hacks!

Get Yer Halloween On!

October 2, 2021 by Elliot Williams 3 Comments

Halloween is basically built for the hacker. Besides the obvious fabrication of absurd costumes, there’s also the chance to showcase your skills, be they mechanical, audio, or video. It’s also a great time to show off our coolest tricks to inspire the young proto-hackers. If you need inspiration, we’ve got 150 ideas.

My personal problem with Halloween, though, is that I always start at the last minute, and my ideas far outreach my time budget. Or because it’s all done in the last minute, a whole bunch of ideas that should “just work” in theory run into the immovable object that is practice. At least that’s what happened with last year’s spooky sound effects — my son and I spent so much time collecting and recording scary audio samples that I ran out of time while still getting the sensitivity on the motion detector set just right, and then the battery died halfway through the night.

But this year will be different, I swear! I’m going to get it done early and test it out, with the luxury of time to debug the inevitable spiders. And you can swear too. Get started now on your Halloween project. Or at least next weekend.

What’s your favorite Halloween Hack?

Contests

If you need any more encouragement to fire up your black and orange hacking machine, think of Hackaday.io’s Halloween Hackfest. It runs until Oct 28, and all you have to do to enter is document your Halloween project on IO and press the “Submit” button. The deadline is the 28th, which still gives you a couple of nights to debug whatever didn’t work before the real deal. Prizes are shopping sprees at Digi-Key, and Adafruit is doubling the gift certificate if you use any Adafruit parts in the build.

If you don’t give a pumpkin about stupid ol’ Halloween, that’s cool too. (Grinch!) The 2021 Hackaday Prize has entered the final wildcard round. If your project didn’t fit in any of the previous categories, I’m pretty sure it’ll fit just fine in the anything-goes phase. Go nuts. We’d love to see what you’re working on.

There’s More To The 3D Print Than The Eye Can See

October 19, 2019 by Sharon Lin 11 Comments

If you thought CADing designs for 3D printing was hard enough, wait until you hear about this .stl trick.

[Angus] of Maker’s Muse recently demoed a method for creating hidden geometries in .stl files that are only revealed during the slicing process before a 3D print. (Video, embedded below.) The process involves creating geometries with a thickness smaller than the size of the 3D printer’s nozzle that still appear to be solid in a .stl editor, but will not be rendered by a FDM slicer.

Most 3D printers have 0.4 mm thickness nozzle, so creating geometries with a wall thinner than this value will result in the effect that you’re looking for. Some possible uses for this trick are to create easter eggs or even to mess with other 3D printing enthusiasts. Of course, [Angus] recommends not to use this “deception for criminal or malicious intent” and I’d have to agree.

There’s a few other tricks that he reveals as well, including a way to create a body that’s actually a thin shell but appears to be solid: great for making unprintable letters that reveal hidden messages.

Nevertheless, it’s a cool trick and maybe one of those “features not bugs” in the slicer software.

Continue reading “There’s More To The 3D Print Than The Eye Can See” →

Mike Ossmann And Dominic Spill: IR, Pirates!

November 29, 2017 by Elliot Williams 6 Comments

Mike Ossmann and Dominic Spill have been at the forefront of the recent wave of software-defined radio (SDR) hacking. Mike is the hardware guy, and his radio designs helped bring Bluetooth and ISM-band to the masses. Dominic is the software guy who makes sure that all this gear is actually usable. The HackRF SDR is still one of the best cheap choices if you need an SDR that can transmit and receive.

So what are these two doing on stage giving a talk about IR communication? Can you really turn traffic lights green by blinking lights? And can you spoof a TV remote with a cardboard cutout, a bicycle wheel, and a sparkler? What does IR have to do with pirates, and why are these two dressed up as buccaneers? Watch our video interview and find out, or watch the full talk for all of the juicy details.

Continue reading “Mike Ossmann And Dominic Spill: IR, Pirates!” →

Voltmeter Speaks MQTT Without Libraries

January 25, 2017 by Elliot Williams 8 Comments

[Emilio Ficara] [built himself an Internet-connected MQTT multimeter](http://ficara.altervista.org/) (translated from Italian by robots). Or maybe we should say that [Emilio Ficara] undertook a long string of cool hacks that ended up in a WiFi-enabled multimeter, because the destination isn’t nearly as interesting as the voyage.

The multimeter, a DT-4000ZC, has a serial output but instead of transferring the data directly, it sends which cells on the LCD screen need to be activated. For testing along the way, [Emilio] used his own USB-serial-to-ESP01 dongle, which sounds like a useful tool to have around if you’re debugging an AT command session. He made a cute AVR SPI-port debugging aid with a reset button and diagnostic LEDs that we’re going to copy right now. Other home-made tools, like a 3.7V Li-ion battery manager and a serial data snooper make this project worth a look.

Continue reading “Voltmeter Speaks MQTT Without Libraries” →

IPhone Jailbreak Hackers Await $1M Bounty

November 3, 2015 by Elliot Williams 33 Comments

According to Motherboard, some unspecified (software) hacker just won a $1 million bounty for an iPhone exploit. But this is no ordinary there’s-a-glitch-in-your-Javascript bug bounty.

On September 21, “Premium” 0day startup Zerodium put out a call for a chain of exploits, starting with a browser, that enables the phone to be remotely jailbroken and arbitrary applications to be installed with root / administrator permissions. In short, a complete remote takeover of the phone. And they offered $1 million. A little over a month later, it looks like they’ve got their first claim. The hack has yet to be verified and the payout is actually made.

But we have little doubt that the hack, if it’s actually been done, is worth the money. The NSA alone has a $25 million annual budget for buying 0days and usually spends that money on much smaller bits and bobs. This hack, if it works, is huge. And the NSA isn’t the only agency that’s interested in spying on folks with iPhones.

Indeed, by bringing something like this out into the open, Zerodium is creating a bidding war among (presumably) adversarial parties. We’re not sure about the ethics of all this (OK, it’s downright shady) but it’s not currently illegal and by pitting various spy agencies (presumably) against each other, they’re almost sure to get their $1 million back with some cream on top.

We’ve seen a lot of bug bounty programs out there. Tossing “firmname bug bounty” into a search engine of your choice will probably come up with a hit for most firmnames. A notable exception in Silicon Valley? Apple. They let you do their debugging work for free. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, but if this Zerodium deal ends up being for real, it looks like they’re severely underpaying.

And if you’re working on your own iPhone remote exploits, don’t be discouraged. Zerodium still claims to have money for two more $1 million payouts. (And with that your humble author shrugs his shoulders and turns the soldering iron back on.)