TL:DR; Flipper Zero has at least some purchasers who are only going to be users of the U2F or NFC features, not hacking on or with it much. The fact that it has useful applications out of the box separates it from some of the SBCs etc that need many more parts and code to have a useful application IRL.
> All off the shelf and any engineering team could clone it in a few days while substantially undercutting their price
Perhaps. And perhaps Dropbox is just a glorified rsync FTP target. (Sarcasm here, boiling down to saying that talk is cheap, shipping is hard)
> They're selling a fashion accessory targeting the fanboy tech crowd
I guess that makes me a 'fanboy tech' then.
Unlike the breadboard + parts + wires + needed case of some kind + SBC/microcontroller +need to learn yet another proglang or dialect to make whatever you built DO something, this device comes with a working battery, controls, screen, Bluetooth and U2F, NFC cloning out of the box. No instructables or breadboard required!
While I'm interested in circuit design, there are no simple books that will take you from plugging in a battery to a single led to something that can run c code. Maybe NAND to Tetris? Have had a hard time finding a physical book for that.
Learning to do embedded stuff as a result would require more time than I'm willing to invest right now vs what I could get done by reusing old phones or retro computers to do stuff, or by purchasing a Turn-Key device like this.
And for once the marketing may mean that these people have answers to questions, and do not disappear for months on end while the engineering types silently work and don't dare talk about their problems. Sort of like the opaque development of signal versus the open development of this week in matrix.
at the very least, the dolphin character and marketing or branding on this device shows that there is at least some ux care taken, and there will be at least one or two glossy coats of paint applied over top the bare metal. I compare this to something like a Chinese pen plotter that while technically being only a cheaper version of the do-it-yourself pen plotter or axidraw, has much worse software that barely works and is not intuitive.
Regarding the flipper itself, I purchased it to function as a simple NFC clone for my work badge if I ever go back to work, and as a u2f key manger since I don't already have one of those, not as a hacking or embedded development aid.
Those capabilities and gpio pens are optional to me as a user, which may confirm your suspicions, I don't know.
Like most finished products, this device can provide a high-value to user supplied code ratio. There's definitely a place for devices that are 'merely' hardware and a software platform that enable a one-to-one value to user supplied code device... even I run things like pihole on a dedicated raspberry pi zero since the cost benefit is there. Why, at some point, I'm going to learn native Linux development so that I can write applications for the pine phone whenever it comes out with a keyboard. not everything has to be a completely finished product with applications after all.
Having the ability to hack on something is great, but this fanboy prefers to purchase products that can actually do something for him, yet are extensible, as opposed to buying some pcbs and hoping that one day some way somehow you can make them do something. I have enough almost started weekend projects already :)
/End rant , thanks for your patience with my clumsy delivery skills
While I'm interested in circuit design, there are no simple books that will take you from plugging in a battery to a single led to something that can run c code. Maybe NAND to Tetris? Have had a hard time finding a physical book for that.
I don't want to address any other point, but I can share an experience here.
I went from very basic electronics knowledge (what most discrete components do in the abstract for, though not how to use them properly) to building a couple of SBCs by googling "home brew 6502" and reading whatever came up. I was a very rewarding journey, though there was certainly no book, I had to follow up on a lot of things myself.
Obviously a home brew 6502 won't do much modern, but you'll be left with way more knowledge than you need to build something with bare microcontroller / cpu and the kind of SPI/i2c bus peripherals you're talking about here.
Certainly it's a bunch of effort, but everything is there is you want to research it, and the 6502 forums are stupidly helpful.
Just in case you decide you do want to persue more DIY digital logic. It's well within reach!
PS. Nand to tetris is an awesome project, but it's waaay overkill for what you're talking about. There is a huge amount of cpu and compiler design that you don't need. And actually, not enough electrical engineering...
It's far simpler. Flipper is closer to a custom built PC, where you buy the parts online and then assemble them.
They got someone to probably use solidworks for the case design and they have some brilliant artists but beyond that you can buy all of these components online and basically snap them together, read some short documentation and be on your way.
Their initial goal was $60k, which would have covered 500 units which they probably presumed they'd be manually involved with each of them so it was basically set up for exactly what I described. They just had some runaway success, which is the problem because they still only have a cheap project that takes no special talent or time
I'm mostly jealous how much of success is just pure luck like this
> All off the shelf and any engineering team could clone it in a few days while substantially undercutting their price
Perhaps. And perhaps Dropbox is just a glorified rsync FTP target. (Sarcasm here, boiling down to saying that talk is cheap, shipping is hard)
> They're selling a fashion accessory targeting the fanboy tech crowd
I guess that makes me a 'fanboy tech' then.
Unlike the breadboard + parts + wires + needed case of some kind + SBC/microcontroller +need to learn yet another proglang or dialect to make whatever you built DO something, this device comes with a working battery, controls, screen, Bluetooth and U2F, NFC cloning out of the box. No instructables or breadboard required!
While I'm interested in circuit design, there are no simple books that will take you from plugging in a battery to a single led to something that can run c code. Maybe NAND to Tetris? Have had a hard time finding a physical book for that.
Learning to do embedded stuff as a result would require more time than I'm willing to invest right now vs what I could get done by reusing old phones or retro computers to do stuff, or by purchasing a Turn-Key device like this.
And for once the marketing may mean that these people have answers to questions, and do not disappear for months on end while the engineering types silently work and don't dare talk about their problems. Sort of like the opaque development of signal versus the open development of this week in matrix.
at the very least, the dolphin character and marketing or branding on this device shows that there is at least some ux care taken, and there will be at least one or two glossy coats of paint applied over top the bare metal. I compare this to something like a Chinese pen plotter that while technically being only a cheaper version of the do-it-yourself pen plotter or axidraw, has much worse software that barely works and is not intuitive.
Regarding the flipper itself, I purchased it to function as a simple NFC clone for my work badge if I ever go back to work, and as a u2f key manger since I don't already have one of those, not as a hacking or embedded development aid.
Those capabilities and gpio pens are optional to me as a user, which may confirm your suspicions, I don't know.
Like most finished products, this device can provide a high-value to user supplied code ratio. There's definitely a place for devices that are 'merely' hardware and a software platform that enable a one-to-one value to user supplied code device... even I run things like pihole on a dedicated raspberry pi zero since the cost benefit is there. Why, at some point, I'm going to learn native Linux development so that I can write applications for the pine phone whenever it comes out with a keyboard. not everything has to be a completely finished product with applications after all.
Having the ability to hack on something is great, but this fanboy prefers to purchase products that can actually do something for him, yet are extensible, as opposed to buying some pcbs and hoping that one day some way somehow you can make them do something. I have enough almost started weekend projects already :)
/End rant , thanks for your patience with my clumsy delivery skills