ZeroPhone: The Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that costs (from) $35, about the size of a credit card. Connect a keyboard, TV or DVI / HDMI monitor and an SD card with a supported Linux installed or even FreeBSD and you have a small computer, ready to go to work or camping since it can even be powered by a fire. It is no coincidence that it was also declared one of the top five Linux projects for 2012.
That's why the Raspberry Pi Zero is considered one of the most affordable and useful innovations in the computer industry. It has helped children learn programming. It has given makers the ability to develop, at low cost, powerful DIY projects (DIY = do-it-yourself = do it yourself). You can make truly incredible creations with a Raspberry Pi and it has become a real hit among technology fans around the world.
One of these creations is the ZeroPhone smart phone, listed on Hackaday.
It's open source – and therefore cheap – and is powered by the Raspberry Pi Zero. It runs Linux and you can build one yourself, with parts that cost just $50. You can find the parts on eBay and Amazon.
Why ZeroPhone?
Because it has everything you need from a smartphone, and it runs Linux.
You can make calls, send SMS and run applications, while at the same time it is free from applications that compromise your security.
Notably, you can also write applications for this phone.
Among its strengths is pentesting – that is, it performs a security check for any weak points in the system.
Soon, crowdfunding (in Greek, crowdfunding) of the phone is expected. [Crowdfunding is a new form of financing, operating since 2009 in the USA and European countries, which has partly changed the terms of the economic game across the planet since with it, creators manage to make their idea a reality thanks to the small investments of thousands of Internet users. The creator of the project receives the money from the donations after the end of the date he has set, usually 30 days.]
Features
The ZeroPhone, as we said, has been built using a Raspberry Pi Zero. Special care has been taken to ensure that you can choose its components and assemble it yourself. For this very reason, to make it easy to assemble it yourself by simply purchasing its components, there are no proprietary terminals / plugs (connectors), nor is it difficult to find the components and solder them.
On the phone, you can also connect a numeric keypad, a 128×64 OLED display, a 2G modem, WiFi, GPIO expansion header, etc.
The Python programming language is used to develop the applications.
The operating system used is the Raspbian Linux distribution, based on Debian Jessie.
The ZeroPhone is not lacking in any feature, since as a smartphone it has WiFi, can of course be used for calls and SMS and in general has all the basic applications and functions such as alarm clock, calendar, phone book, file search engine, web browser and music player. Since it is essentially a Linux computer, you can run all applications that are compatible with ARM core devices. And yes, you can also use the secure SSH connection (Secure Shell, the secure network protocol that not only encrypts the data exchanged during the session, but also offers a secure identification system as well as other features such as secure file transfer -SSH File Transfer Protocol, SFTP etc.).
The manufacturer of ZeroPhone writes that you can also use it for pentesting (security checks) and for experimenting.
DIY; do it yourself
The components used to build the ZeroPhone are:
– Raspberry Pi Zero
– SIM800 modules
– ESP8266-12E for WiFi
– 2-layer PCBs
– ATMega328P
– LCD screen
– Battery
– TP4056 battery charger
– Buttons for the keyboard
– 2.54 headers
Information on how to assemble them and even make the ZeroPhone "smart" phone yourself can be found here.
ZeroPhone: The super cheap Open Source smartphone that runs Linux
