DIY celphone

[cloudscapes]

Came across this today and thought it was really interesting! I'm not one to use apps or games much on a phone, it's a bit tempting. And I'm a sucker for the wood/retro/steampunkish look, especially the led display version!

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/28/5154536/how-to-build-your-own-cellphone-mit-media-lab-david-mellis



Am in no way affiliated with, etc. 

[amyk]

$200 for that!? If labour was included I would think it's a reasonable cost, but the fact that you can already get a very full-featured Android smartphone for that price, or a basic phone that somehow has more features for almost 1/20th, makes me wonder what they were doing...

Oh, that's right, Arduino... where people will have no qualms paying $11.83 for a speaker...

[timb]

First off, the speaker is $6.27, not $11.83 as the BOM shows. Second, that speaker you linked is 20x more expensive than the price in the BOM... $268.00 > $11.83!

When you build one-offs and buy parts from Digikey, you pay a lot more than if you bought them in bulk. You can get stuff a lot cheaper out of China from Ali Express and eBay, but it takes two months for them to arrive which is basically useless when working on a prototype. (Unless you have tons of patience!)

Anyway, it's a neat project and I'm glad the code is out there! I have a SEEED Studio GSM shield ($5, Radio Shack clearance) that I might use for something like this. Maybe I can find an old bag phone and "modernize" it!

[Pippy]

lol

I think Fred Flintstone might buy one.

[IanJ]

makes me wonder what they were doing...

Haven't you ever heard of the "just because" principle?............it's not always about the money. Most of my home projects are commercial suicide........but MUCH better fun than handing over my hard earned at the local store.

Ian.

[cloudscapes]

Yeah the BOM is like half the price if you bypass arduino stuff, for sure. I posted this anyway because I thought it was interesting.

I'm really tempted to try this, though with my own firmware, address book, and maybe special locking mechanism (for kicks mainly).

The datasheet for the GSM module is pretty overwhelming, though. I can see where an arduino library becomes handy in this case.

[xrunner]

What carrier would activate that on their system? I think they would laugh you out of the store.

[strangelovemd12]

What carrier would activate that on their system? I think they would laugh you out of the store.

Boost Mobile would let you on.  They think they're hip or something.

[SeanB]

If it is GSM you just put a SIM in it and turn it on. None of this funny "Beg us on hands and knees SLAVE to give you any service" CDMA crud, just walk into almost any shop and buy a SIM for a dime. Choose the carrier out of the 4 real or the 2 virtual carriers, depending on how much you want to pay per minute or per second and away you go.

[timb]

What carrier would activate that on their system? I think they would laugh you out of the store.

Hipster Mobile

[amyk]

makes me wonder what they were doing...

Haven't you ever heard of the "just because" principle?............it's not always about the money. Most of my home projects are commercial suicide........but MUCH better fun than handing over my hard earned at the local store.

Ian.

My point isn't that they wanted to DIY a phone, but that they didn't seem to think much about cost reduction... then again, I'm probably biased from exposure to Chinese electronics prices. But ARM MCUs are cheap, and for the amount of computing power you get, you could basically make a DIY Android smartphone for not much more.