Mini version of Flipper Zero

[prisma galleon]

I am a second year computer science engineering student, I am the research head at my university's cyber security club. I need to make a mini version of flipper zero and also need to write a research report. If anyone can help, Kindly drop your suggestions here on what I can do. I have no experience with Arduino or raspberry pie either but I am willing to learn and make this happen. I don't want to make the project super expensive as it is a small scale effort by our club. Kindly drop me some suggestion on how I could also publish a research paper for the same. Thanks for your time and reading it so far.

[naive ice]

It all depends what you mean by "mini version". Mini in what, features? Size?

[prisma galleon]

I have 2 weeks to come up with an idea and I can't work full time with it as I am focused on my academics too.

[prisma galleon]

features , like I believe i won't be able to build a whole product. Size won't be an issue i hope

[rich leaf]

https://discord.com/channels/740930220399525928/1253011625191936051

[prisma galleon]

I have no idea on how to go around it and it looks like more of an iot + security thing. If you guys can even tell me what relevant knowledge I should gather alongside making this project I would be highly grateful. This would enable me to write the research paper more clearly

[prisma galleon]

let me check this out

[rich leaf]

also https://discord.com/channels/740930220399525928/1186749799257608333

If I were you I'd lower my expectations about what I can do on the side while balancing academics. This is a challenging project even with experience.

especially with time constraints

[prisma galleon]

I can ask people to help me out in my uni, but I need to come up with a vision and some plan of action I believe

[prisma galleon]

i got two weeks to think on how to go around it

[rich leaf]

You could do maybe one function of the Flipper, with a small tamagotchi like UI. Just don't set your sights on trying to reproduce the entire Flipper Zero.

[crimson valve]

Buy an ESP32, install Tactility (https://github.com/ByteWelder/Tactility) and write some apps to tinker?
(Lilygo T-Deck is the best target currently)

[prisma galleon]

alright! what function tho?

[rich leaf]

Up to you. IR might be the easiest.

[prisma galleon]

can you elaborate ?

I am the most rookie person in this stuff, need a simplifed explaination

and can anyone suggest me some material and sources to study about all these things for future reference as well

[prisma galleon]

i see

[rich leaf]

it's going to be difficult to find someone to explain everything to you to make your project. This is more of a self directed project, not everyone who has the experience of making something similar has the time to teach it all.

I'd start with a Pi if you're very new though.

[prisma galleon]

mmm I totally understand that, but maybe they can suggest some resources and how to get hooked onto it and tinker upon it

[prisma galleon]

duly noted sir

[crimson valve]

Then making a mini version of flipper zero is probably too high of a goal. You'll need to have a basic understanding on how microcontrollers work on software and hardware level.

To answer your question: I created an application platform for the ESP32 SOC. (flipper zero uses an F4 SOC)
ESP32 generally has wifi and bluetooth capabilities, dual core 240MHz CPU, 512kB RAM (but you can have 16MB extra) and 4MB or more flash storage. It also only costs a few dollars for all that. There's tons of cheap (5-50$) ESP32 devices on AliExpress and elsewhere.
The platform I built allows you to create background services and front-end applications and it somewhat works like Flipper zero (except that you cant run apps from SD card, they have to be built-in)
Making apps is very easy. Like this:
https://github.com/ByteWelder/Tactility/blob/main/app-esp/src/hello_world/hello_world.c
... which is then added to the app list and shows the UI as in the screenshot below.

[prisma galleon]

I am going to look into this . When you say this project of yours works like flipper zero, does it mean you can also emulate NFC , read RFID and stuff like that? sorry for such silly questions

[crimson valve]

Not yet, but it has a software stack to build such apps.

It does support basic wifi connectivity. You can find wifi access points and connect to them with credentials. It stores the credentials safely.

There's also an app that shows GPIO activity of all pins.

[prisma galleon]

I see! I will discuss this with my peers as they might know more than me, but this really gave me a lot of insights and a direction to work towards

[crimson valve]

GPIO app. You can see the pin signals doing things when you touch the screen or the scroll ball thingy.

[prisma galleon]

got it!

thank you so much

[crimson valve]

You're welcome. If you know how to program, you can easily add your own apps. That's the main idea.

[prisma galleon]

well, if I have limited time what do u suggest I should do?

[prisma galleon]

still learning but I do understand a lot of things when it comes to that

[crimson valve]

It depends on what you want to accomplish. If you just want to build an existin flipper zero-like device, then my device doesn't support much tinkering/hacking yet.
If you want to build something yourself from scratch then that's probably going to take WAY more time than you think.
If you want to build on an existing platform and you can manage writing the software, then my platform is a great start.

You'll need to be experienced in C though. This is not something you pick up when learning C/C++.

[prisma galleon]

I am learning c++ in this semester only

[crimson valve]

Then I'd probably pick a different project.

[prisma galleon]

I am not doing this all alone

[crimson valve]

Is your goal to design hardware AND software? Or is it just to build something that someone already designed?

[crimson valve]

That could make things more realistic then.

[prisma galleon]

I would love to contribute to your project. I need to contact my club president for this. He just asked me to give ideas and I think now I have a plenty of suggestions

going to put these things together and ask my peers

[crimson valve]

I can definitely assist you in getting things started, but I can't hold your hand while doing it all 🙂

[prisma galleon]

OFC! I understand it

thank u for ur time

[crimson valve]

You're welcome. Feel free to add me as a friend in case you have more questions.

[prisma galleon]

done sir

[astral drift]

Nice