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This Espressif ESP32-Powered 4G "Smartphone," Programmed in the Arduino IDE, Packs The Essentials (www.hackster.io)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -33 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (44 children)

This is ridiculous. What is needed is a support for advert & bloat & forced updates free smart phone, not reinventing the wheel. Yes, someone must be first - but it is about software, not hardware.

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  • [–] 50 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (20 children)

    Someone: *Makes a cool hobby project*

    Internet people: "Trash. I don't approve. How dare you make something that isn't useful to me. Fuck you and die."

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  • [+] -26 points 8 months ago (18 children)

    Someone: makes something completely and utterly useless.

    Internet people: voice justified criticism.

    Half wits: "how dare you criticise the creators!"

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    Why does the end product of an electronics learning project need to be useful? Or any hobby project? Your criticism was that their hobbies should yield something useful, but where's the "justification" for that? What's wrong with just having fun?

    Quarter wits: "How dare you have fun"

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  • [+] -16 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    Why does the end product of an electronics learning project need to be useful? Or any hobby project?

    So we agree it is useless? OK.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Kind of, it's a pretty shit phone, and the creator is not pretending otherwise. Why are you so offended and why should they do whatever you want them to do instead?

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  • [+] -9 points 8 months ago* (6 children)

    I am not. I said it was ridiculous and led to nowhere with software being much better solution. Suddenly multiple people felt offended by this simple statement of fact.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    Solution to what? Electronics hobby? Dictating what people's projects should and shouldn't be is kind of an asshole thing to do.

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  • [–] -5 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Read again. Slowly.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Dude. It's a hobby project. It doesn't need to solve major global market problems for you. What an absolutely bizarre thing to get this angry over.

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  • [+] -12 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    Read again.

    And I am not your dude, pal.

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Pal, my dude, my buddy, you're raging against someone's garage proof-of-concept as if they held the key to the software problems on modern smartphones, and downvoting anyone who tells you to chill out. Lots of people do much more useless things than this every day, so why does this one thing enrage you so much?

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  • [+] -7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I am not raging against anything. I am calling it useless and ridiculous because it is useless and ridiculous.

    ... And I am not your pal, mate.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    but it is about software, not hardware.

    Hey Bestie! Sorry, but you are absolutely wrong here. 😊

    There are several options for free and open source software for mobile applications, and it only works with a teeny tiny sliver of the available hardware because almost none of the hardware is even remotely open. 😭

    At this stage, it is absolutely about hardware that actually supports the Open Source community, because all the software imaginable is useless if it can't run on any available hardware! 😁

    Kthx, Lots of Love! 🤩

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    They are all shit except jello may be. If it was that good it will be a tsunami into the market. You cannot make a phone with such a poor hardware. 4G said it all

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I like Jello! My favorite flavor is Lime, how about you? 😃

    Also, 4G was the dominant mobile technology for over 10 years, there are probably close to 10 BILLION 4G phones on the planet, WOW! 🤯 It sure seems like someone was able to make a phone with such hardware!

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I like Mint too.

    Hourra for Jolla

    Pinephone is running with 4 x ARM A53 and 1 ARM Mali 400 and it still damn slow. Not reactive. ESP32 is perfect for a DIY phone, for hobbyists. It's not a first try. The 6G is starting 4G switch off will start in less than 2 years. Dead before to be born lol

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  • [–] [S] 18 points 8 months ago (16 children)

    Hacking isn't about reinventing the wheel. This isn't a finished product destined for a market. Even if it was, think about the small business utilities involved in local knowledge ("low-tech"): many small producers (farmers, shops, etc.) still use "obsolete" mechanisms and improvised mechanical technology. If that could reflect personal or community knowledge into real technology, even if "low technology", that's already a social gain for those people.

    Besides that, it's worth it for a personal project where the end goal is obtaining knowledge about how things work in the world. Not everything is about stocks, and stocks doesn't fill all of the "market" also.

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  • [+] -18 points 8 months ago (15 children)

    it can make calls, and send texts," LuckyBor writes of the project, which perhaps stretches the definition of "smartphone"

    ... And you need to remove the screen to insert a sim card. Now tell me again this is not ridiculous.

    Take the first one off the shelf smartfone, wipe out the entire software, replace it with bloat free, spyware free, update free equivalent and voila!

    Absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel, this is a road to nowhere.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    I remember having to remove the battery of one of my phones to change the SIM card. It was particularly annoying because that phone/SIM had issues registering so I would have to reinsert the SIM card a few times and reboot each time.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    I do not think you understand what a hobby prototype means, educate yourself then come talk amongst adults

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  • [+] -9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    My son put a lego car toghther yesterday. Look, a hobby prototype! 🙄

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Congratulations, looks like your son has a chance to grow up to be a sensible and creative adult, unlike his wet fart of a father

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    I think they're having more fun making it than looking for a perfect solution. The fastest way to accomplish this is just buying some flipphone from Kyocera or something.

    Also it's a prototype. It wouldn't survive in the real world in it's current state.

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  • [–] -5 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    I think they're having more fun making it than looking for a perfect solution.

    Possibly, thus my point - reinventing the wheel.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    I wouldn't consider it reinventing the wheel. Giant algae tanks to replace trees is reinventing the wheel. They're just making a phone out of parts that would have originally been in a cheap phone at one point (before they got turned into development boards).

    If I wanted to be super uncharitable, what the maker did was akin to this.

    https://youtu.be/d59J78yhwtg

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago* (5 children)

    I wouldn't consider it reinventing the wheel

    I do. What they are trying to create already exists. What is really needed is non intrusive software rather than hardware.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Which already exists and has existed for ages.

    Lineage os (Android), e/os (Android), postmarket os (straight up Linux) would all be excellent answers for cutdown/debloatable mobile phone OSes. (also Ubuntu touch and whatever the pinephone shipped with)

    Its probably a lot harder making an unintrusive os than it is making this.

    This is cutdown hardware leading to simplified and cutdown software as it's a necessity here.

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    This is cutdown hardware leading to simplified and cutdown software as it's a necessity here.

    I strongly disagree. Spyware, bloatware, forced updates etc are a function of profit driven choice, not the necessity.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    I'm not sure if I'm missing something or not.

    I was referring to the Arduino phone. In general you're not wrong.

    The scope of the conversation is just the phone itself.

    Hardware was designed first, and then they applied software.

    Edit: when I meant necessity for the cut down software. I meant it as in "the Arduino is barely fast enough to run the software, any extraneous thing needs to go"

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Hardware was designed first, and then they applied software.

    You don't need to redesign a hardware. It is software which needs redesigning, within the existing hardware.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    ... And you need to remove the screen to insert a sim card. Now tell me again this is not ridiculous.

    Lmao, it prob doesn't even have a working software kit, you would have to arduino some shit yourself.

    I don't think you understood what this is & who is it for.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Aside from the irony, there's lots to be improved for a Desktop/touch-only computer if you can start from scratch, vs. the current server hardware and software stack with a desktop HID shoehorned on it.

    Also, can we please get rid of "recalculating a still image 60+ times a second just for the fun of it" and take a "changes-only, the rest buffered" approach? We don't use CRT displays anymore. Also, CPU architectures could be event-driven, instead of cycling.

    These two could allow for far simpler Megahertz computer designs in the future, vs. the overpowered and inefficient (GHz) monoliths from only 3 companies we have currently.

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