Link to this section Nostalgia
When I was younger, I had a PocketCHIP handheld that I would carry around. It's what I wrote the MakerGamer fantasy console for, and it's the device I first started experimenting with batman-adv mesh networking on.
I loved being able to have a Linux box with me that I could use for experimentation. The keyboard sucked, and the interface wasn't amazing on a tiny-resolution touchscreen, but that didn't matter for quick usage, and it was still miles ahead of pulling up Termux on my phone.
Part of what got me thinking about this is seeing a few of my friends pick up Flipper Zero devices. These have that quality of being a device for "real-world" tinkering and exploration, encouraging people to interact with systems in the world around them. The main reason I don't have one is just that I'm not particularly interested in RFID/NFC applications (but I applaud those who are).
About a year ago I picked up a cheap Baofeng handheld radio for amateur use. While it's a practical way to communicate with friends on a short range, I've found the most fun part is using it to explore the world around me -- finding repeaters and trying to communicate with them, listening on railroad or marine channels, and generally exploring to see what systems out there that I can observe. (See codeplug for how I've iterated on this process over time).
I want a device which combines the convenience of a Baofeng, the customizability of a Flipper, and the power and peripherals of a PocketCHIP. But more broadly, I want something that encourages that sort of exploration with a physical element to it.
There was a time recently when I was sitting out in a park downtown, poking at some interesting stuff accessible over Wi-Fi that I'm not quite ready to talk publicly about yet. While I was doing this on my laptop, doing so felt odd given all I needed was a basic environment where I could configure my Wi-Fi settings and invoke SSH. A dedicated handheld device would have been just as functional and a bit more fun.
Link to this section My Dream Handheld Computer
Here's a rough list of requirements that I'd look for in such a device. This is based on my own interests and the areas of tech I tend to explore most.
- Main Processor: I want something that runs a proper Desktop Linux distro (not Busybox etc), and is powerful enough to run at least a basic Web browser. This probably means a Raspberry Pi compute module or similar.
- Battery: At least enough for a full day of running around and using it intermittently.
- Keyboard: Full QWERTY. Good enough to use the CLI with.
- Screen: This doesn't need to be good enough to display something like GNOME well, but should at least allow for basic GUI apps and comfortable terminal use.
- Hardware Connections:
- A full RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port. I've had so many cases where I just want to get on a network quickly and run an SSH command, and breaking out my laptop plus dongle and messing with the macOS network settings is always painfully clunky.
- USB-C (as an Ethernet gadget, etc). For longer development sessions, I'll want to connect a proper laptop.
- Radios:
- Wi-Fi is a necessity in today's world, Bluetooth would be a nice-to-have.
- NFC capabilities would be cool for people who are into that sort of thing.
- I'd love some sort of amateur or otherwise "unconventional" radio capabilities, to allow these devices to be used for communication. While drop-in modules for the 2m band are more rare, lots of them exist for the 70cm (430 MHz, licensed) and 33cm (900 MHz, unlicensed) bands. 430 MHz would likely give better range/performance, while 900 MHz gives interoperability with the Meshtastic network.
- I'd also like a proper external antenna for the above radio, like you'd find on an amateur HT.
- Extensibility: Adding external exposed GPIOs would be cool, but also, I haven't seen many people taking advantage of them with the Flipper Zero or PocketCHIP. Connectors like Adafruit STEMMA might be more useful in practice.
Link to this section Existing Products
Link to this section Dead Stock PocketCHIP
Up until recently, the website pocketchip.co has sold old PocketCHIPs (and still sells CHIPs, albeit at 4x the original selling price). Even if they were still available, though, the lack of up-to-date software for them makes common tasks like flashing a hassle.
Link to this section Clockwork uConsole
The Clockwork uConsole is probably the closest thing I've found to the device I want, but since it's designed more for "fantasy console" use, it falls short in a few ways:
- Available ports are limited. While it has a USB port for host and device use, it lacks a physical Ethernet port :(
- It features an extension module interface, but currently the only such module is an LTE modem (probably not that useful to me since I could just use my smartphone hotspot). Maybe a module for something like LoRa could be designed using the same connector, with an external antenna poking the side?
It's also still limited to pre-order.
Link to this section Whatever arturo182 Is Cooking
Solder Party has previously sold a "Keyboard FeatherWing" containing an LCD, QWERTY keyboard of the type you'd find on a Blackberry phone, and a place for an Adafruit Feather board. While a Feather doesn't provide quite the amount of computing power I'd like for such a device, I love the form factor and the pricing is reasonable.
Link to this section Rooted Android Devices
What about carrying around rooted Android phone for something like this, or rooting my daily driver? This would give an unrestricted Linux environment to play around with, but it also falls short of what I'm after:
- Poor connectivity: no RJ45, spotty USB host support.
- Not quite "Desktop Linux-y" enough to run apps designed for typical Linux distros.
- Using a CLI with a touchscreen keyboard is painful.
- No real extensibility for something like LoRa.
Link to this section Designing My Own?
While I'm relatively comfortable with basic PCB design, this is something that's likely way beyond my skill level. Plus, I'd ideally like to have something that can have a community form around it (like PocketCHIP did, or like Flipper Zero does now). There's also the enclosure to consider -- PocketCHIP did this relatively well and the Flipper does it perfectly.
I'm largely ruling this out unless I suddenly meet lots of people who share this vision but have much stronger electrical/mechanical skills than I do.
Link to this section Something Else?
If you can think of something that fits in this general category/vibe of product, please let me know about it! Even if it isn't what I'm personally looking for, I really want to learn more about projects in this space.