Talking of cheap and powerful devices one can also look at Chinese UZ801 4G LTE (Qualcomm MSM8916) dongles. They cost like only $4-5 and pack quite impressive HW: 4GB eMMC, 512MB RAM, actual 4G modem sometimes with 2 sim switching support. Since it's actually old Android SOC there is even GPU and GPS in there. And a lot of work was already done on supporting them:
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Zhihe_series_LTE_dongles_...
https://github.com/OpenStick/OpenStick
So yeah if you looking for hardware platform for weird homelab projects that's can be it.
I've found [1] to be the best guide for getting started with them; you need to make a copy of the firmware partitions that you re-flash after installing Linux onto it in order to get the 4G modem working. It's honestly absurd how much you're getting for a fiver with it; add a power bank (or make your own from scavenged vape batteries in the spirit of this post) and you have a full Linux machine with WiFi and 4G that can work almost anywhere.
[1] https://wvthoog.nl/openstick/
What an interesting gadget! It looks like it has most of the features of an Orange Pi Zero, but at around 1/5th of the price.
it's almost like everything matching the pi footprint is severely overpriced!
There's a silver lining in raspberry pi and it's clones being so relatively expensive: they create a market and demand for hackable devices. In an age with so much pressure to plug every single digital hole, these devices bring some much needed market pressure to the opposite direction.
Or, put another way: to have electronics so cheap today, we're sacrificing empowerment technology could give us. We have dirt cheap supercomputers in our pocket, but what for? They're just overspecced entertainment machines.
Gotta pay for the cop doing surveillance device r&d somehow...
https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/rpi_maker_in_residenc...
The original Raspberry Pi Zero was a good deal at $5 or even at $10. Too bad it was always poorly available and mostly bundled with overpriced dongles, power supplies, SD cards etc.
The poor avaialbility was largely due to the great pricing: small commercial users scooped them up in the largest quanitites that they could because they were so competative against other options both in terms of pricce and having the advantage of decent support¹ unlike other inexpensive SoCs. Max-per-customer limits imposed by some distributors were not hard to get around. That meant it was difficult for the individual tinkerers that they were aimed at to get hold of them. And once an availability gap was spotted in the market the scalpers crowded in, so even those commercial users had trouble getting them at RRP.
If the current models were any cheaper, that might happen again. It is one of those places where the infamous “what the market will bare” works against us: unless you are buying in bulk you have the choice between paying more or having no availability at all.
People are willing to pay more the rPi units because of the support¹ and reliability². I know I am, last time I wanted a small unit like that I went straight for an rPi without even looking at the other options that might have been cheaper.
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[1] official + community
[2] While not perfect in that regard, no supplier is, and the Pis do seem to do better than others in that regard, especially when compared to anything noticable less expensive.
> The poor avaialbility was largely due to the great pricing:
the poor availability was because they didnt make enough. they blame supply chain issues around covid. in the time they were complaining that it wasnt their fault, competitors like the esp32 started appearing and taking market share. i was totally put off the rpi because of that saga. its no longer a good deal, there are better options in either direction (more microcontrollery or more power)
From what I've read online somewhere, Zero was a loss leader product made with input from Eric Schmidt, intended to be sold along attractive accessories. The Pi Foundation did try briefly but wasn't able to come up with the accessories, leading to that poor availability and WH variants that made little sense.
what you're generally paying for is support and community. havin people you can ask questions and knowing there's a good chance that soneone out there has both seen your issue and knows a fix is extremely valuable and worth the money if you're just trying to put together a small one off project.
I like the picos. I think there’s a lot of bang for your buck in there for making little devices and prototyping.
Isn't Orange Pi Zero already sold at cost of material & labor?
> or make your own from scavenged vape batteries in the spirit of this post
On this note, anyone got a tut or links to where I can get an appropriate charge controller/BMS (UK) to do this?
Like the post's author, I've been collecting vape batteries for a while and would love to build a power bank or use them in some IoT projects.
Aliexpress. A simple TP4056 usb-c charging board costs as little as 50p. For a few pence more you can get a power bank board with a charge controller and a 5v boost converter.
Interesting, I have some TP4056 already, but wouldn't I need some form of "balance" circuitry if I want to connect multiple of these together, to ensure they're all charged and discharged evenly?
In case anyone wants a few links containing this SOC or similar, there's an entire article on Hackaday and a bunch of links shared in the comments:
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/03/hackable-20-modem-combines-l... (search for Alibaba/Aliexpress/Amazon)
Before stumbling on this link I actually found one that mentions a MSM8916 in the description (it even has a screen, sadly no RAM information):
https://aliexpress.com/item/1005007496178143.html
> 4GB eMMC, 512MB RAM
And, that Snapdragon is 1.4 GHz, I think.
That's enough for a bare-bones WordPress installation.
My first laptop had a 100 MB had drive, 8 MB of RAM, and a 25 MHz processor, and I remember running a web server on it too, in addition to Windows 3.11 and word processors and other software. One of those dongles would have been godlike power back in those days.
I feel like somewhere along the way scripting got out of hand. Stuff like Wordpress is absurdly resource intensive.
Hm, thanks for the idea, but I rather want a minimal node environment on that usb dongle server now.
Let's not overhype those days. I had a P1 166MHz and playing an MP3 meant everything else would have to be closed, if I'd open Word the song would stutter. Not all modern processing power is wasted.
I could play mp3s on a 66Mhz CPU, though yes other tasks would make the playback stutter.
I was doing it on Win 95 or 98, maybe the OS was using more RAM than yours?
Possibly, I was on System 7.1.
[dead]
> Qualcomm MSM8916
Well hullo there, turns out that's my old mate, the Snapdragon 410! Quite an unexpected surprise!
And funnily in retrospect, my Moto G3 from 2015 (which I still occasionally use for whatsapp!) has the exact same processor, and turns out base android (7) is (un?)surprisingly efficient when you're not doing much! I totally believe you could get a lightweight linux distro going on; I'm more impressed by such an old (and mobile!) chipset still having some sort of vestigial support!
(Fun fact, iirc this was one of the first processors to get 64 bit support for android but motorola wasn't able to port it over in time for the launch. Hence it runs 32 bit android instead!)
Quad core 64-bit 1.2 GHz are you serious?
My biggest Problem with these devices is
a.) the world of electronics is moving too fast
b.) My lack of skills and time to build something really cool with something like this
A while ago i bought a licheerv nano (similar to luckfox pico or Milk-v duo) to build an open source iPod nano via usb-c audio Jack and the open source buildroot for the licheerv nano.
I did not find a suitable 2.4 inch or at least < 3"touch display that worked with the integrated MPI port.
With LVGL it should be doable to build a small portable audioplayer with acceptable features... But not for me :-)
Where do you get them for $5? Cheapest I can find is around £8 (11 USD), and it’s not clear if they have this chip.
Yeah you won't find them for $5 unless you buy in bulk on Alibaba
Aliexpress has this as the best selling one though the chipset is not confirmed https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006924641101.html
Well I take my gamble, wait 2 weeks and see what I'll get
Just fyi, the device at that link is currently showing $9.62 for a single unit, once logged in and the one-time-only "Welcome deals" are eliminated. But AliExpress pricing can vary hour by hour based on seller, inventory, algorithm, RNG.
I've noticed the wild fluctuations in price as well (by $10), is there some trick to timing the RNG right? I'm guessing it's intentional to get you to keep refreshing.
I just bought one for $1.07 US with free shipping. I was buying with a new account so I probably got that discount. But even so, before buying I got $2.99 the first time I loaded the page, then $9.89 or thereabouts, and finally $0.99 (which I bought, it had an additional $0.08 in fees for $1.07 total). We’ll see if it shows up and is hackable, but at that price it feels too good to pass up the chance.
Which one did you buy, the red one or the white one? I do want a device that runs openstick, but I don't want more ewaste if it's the wrong one.
EDIT: According to this post[1] above, this listing[2] should be the real thing, as the red variant does say SSID 4G-UFI-XX under the cap.
[1] https://wvthoog.nl/openstick/ [2] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860833351.html
Looks like both those are the same, judging by the review pictures too
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006924641101.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860833351.html
They basically all come in 4-6 designs, but only difference is how easy it to get to edl / adb.
On some of them you just load debug webpage and on others you might need to ground some pins.
Well, I guess my post was slightly misguided on price because I bought them in South East Asia and they look a bit more pricey in EU / US now. Might be some tariff price changes played the role IDK.
As for the chip basically almost all USB+LTE+WIFI sticks on Chinese marketplaces using it. They all have slightly different way to get adb / edl and flash, but all seems somewhat open.
Speaking of cheap and powerful, I’m looking for a dirt cheap android phone that has a decent camera. I used to ship out GoPros to my customers but I don’t actually need them to film in 4K, 1080p with a decent CCD would be fine. And lately new GoPro models have become a pain to setup, they require pairing with a modern mobile phone which my customers sometimes don’t have.
Motorola Moto G is a very capable phone on the cheap. It's even cheaper if you don't mind older models or used.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=motorola+moto+g&qid=1757978993&rn...
I've bought a lot of moto g and I concur. Camera is decent. It won't blow your skirt up, but it is roughly comparable to flagship phones from a couple of years ago. YMMV of course
https://www.unihertz.com/collections/jelly-series
Where do i get a MSM8916 board for commercial usage at low volumes(1k)?
What about disassembling 1k dongles?
"What about disassembling 1k dongles?"
deadass this literally what they do in china, they just disassemble e-waste that don't get used and resell that oversees
A relative bought several products from Chinese company for a small product development. When he found the most suited device he asked if they'd sell without the enclosure, and maybe 1-2 other boards. They told him at 1000 pcs the best option was to buy them and toss the enclosure.
underrated comment, probably the way to go with an older chip and under 1k volumes.
And not even that hard to find: "alibaba MSM8916 LTE" on Google and lo and behold: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/TIANJIE-Qualcomm-MSM8...
$5.92 each for 500-2999 orders. What a time to be alive.
How much work is it to rip one of these open and reprogram?
I had looked into "properly" buying LCDs once, just in case it had been within trivial reach of mine and I could just do what I wanted to do.
The one I was interested in would come in couples of aluminized vacuum sealed bags in a cardboard box, with 2k panels per each bags, laid out on plastic trays and stacked few up. The standard procedure to use these things is to wipe the bag surface to remove contaminants, leave it 24 hours at the factory to equalize temperature to avoid causing condensation, then tear it, and put it through production line before the panels degrade from absorbing too much moisture in the air.
I suppose you can forget about surplus parts or just buy 1/n of 2k parts at n/1 price premium from manufacturers with quote-unquote-nonfunctional parts, should you be contractually required to do so, but the point is, you can't easily produce just 1k of something in excess of 10 or so of prototypes built of no-guarantee spare parts.
Unless the total cost of gutting and reprogramming work exceeds that of fulfilling MOQ amounts of few thousands total(including customer warranty spares, media and storefront demo units, investors thank you specials, lottery prizes and all), it's going to make more sense to just buy and gut existing things, than producing just 1k units.
probably 2 screws at most or some glue/snaps, then put a jtag brush over the contacts, do some sort of unit test and you have a unit. Could take a few hours with a motorized screwdriver and a simple specialized CLI program for programming/testing
would be funny if you could make a drone with this, a flying vape, probably missing good sensors
Reminds me of the LTE dongles Freedom Pop would give out that were running Linux. If you took them apart you got UART access, too.
Now what I'd like to see is the other way around - you know, like the "old" UMTS sticks, just for 5G. No OS, especially not one so prone to all sorts of security like Android, just a pure baseband chip, some interface chip that talks USB3, two built-in antennas and the option to connect more powerful/higher directionality external antennas.
This would be so good for open source livestock tracker.
I chatter with a friend who works for this and bey built everything bespoke (tracking, temperature (good health indicator), steering (yes you can tell cows where to go), etc). My first question was - did you use some android platform?
Do any of the modem bands work in America? If so... what carrier?
I've heard T-mobile works well with Chinese phones