Are you a hacker who misses your Blackberry? It seems there is new product it’s just your speed: “Beepberry”. It literally transplants the Blackberry Classic’s keyboard onto a custom pocketable board designed to fit the Raspberry Pi Zero Wa, all paired with a 400 x 240 “Memory LCD” display that looks like it’s ripped from an old graphing calculator – but is a bit more sophisticated.
Beepberry was developed by Erik Migicovsky, creator of the gone-but-not-forgotten Pebble smartwatch and, more appropriately, co-founder of Beeper: an all-in-one messaging app that powers every service (using a jailbroken iPhone) from WhatsApp to iMessage. ) to a place.
The device is probably designed to run Beeper without anyone else online distracting, but Migikowski knows what you’re thinking: he does too Beepberry describes as a portable “electronic paper” computer for hackers.
If you’re wondering about this “e-paper” display, it’s not technically e-ink, but it LCD made by Sharp With a one-bit memory circuit built into each pixel for image storage like e-ink.
For $79 you get the Beepberry, mounting screws and a 2000mAh battery – although you’ll need to find a way to keep the battery in place. (In some demos, the creators literally use a rubber band.) Along with a 2.7-inch screen and a Blackberry Classic Q20 backlit keyboard, you get a USB-C port, an RGB LED, a side button, and a power switch. , and General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) interrupts.
for For $99, you can get a Beepberry kit includes Pi Zero W pre-installed. Otherwise, you’ll need to bring your own or another single-board PC chip like the Radxa Zero or MQ-Pro—which, since the Beepberry has a solderless header, you’ll have to drag and drop.
Note that the Beepberry itself doesn’t have any hardware for a mobile data connection, so it’s not a completely standalone beeper. in the traditional sense. You’ll have to use the Raspberry Pi’s built-in Wi-Fi, perhaps putting it as a smartphone hotspot when you’re out and about, unless you’re willing to build a mobile add-on that plugs into its headers.
If you’re interested in Beepberry, you might want to act fast: there are only 50 units to ship initially. You must place your order and then fill it Early Access Program form at the bottom of the page to let us know what you want now. The site does not mention how many, if any, of the original 50 will be available for purchase.
It’s important to note that the firmware / firmware is still under active development and nothing is final, so don’t expect a lot of features at your fingertips. If you just want a full out-of-the-box experience and something with a black-and-white screen, Playdate might be more your speed. If you just want to support the Pebble creator’s next endeavor, you can look forward to his team’s upcoming Tiny Android Phone.