[HN Gopher] Quick Start Guide for Flipper Zero
___________________________________________________________________
 
Quick Start Guide for Flipper Zero
 
Author : aphroz
Score  : 328 points
Date   : 2022-05-13 14:36 UTC (8 hours ago)
 
web link (blog.flipperzero.one)
w3m dump (blog.flipperzero.one)
 
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I found this interesting -
| https://hackaday.io/project/170875/logs I hadn't realised that
| they initially prototyped with the pi zero.
| 
| It looks like the CC1101 supports quite a few modulation schemes,
| kind of curious though if you could build an SDR with a similar
| form factor to target things like lora too
 
  | Vexs wrote:
  | I recently made a little IoT thingy off a rasppi- just a weeny
  | air quality sensor stack, but the ease of prototyping compared
  | to more traditional hardware that I'm used to was incredible.
 
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| It's a very cool device. You can do everything they show off with
| other tools, somethings like cloning cards can be done with cheap
| $30 cloners from China. However there are few tools that allow
| you to do ALL the different sub-ghz for relatively cheap, and in
| a very user friendly package. Closest I know of is HackRF
| Portapack... and that's well into $500 - but also for different
| target tooling.
 
  | alimov wrote:
  | I've heard good things about the Portapack, have you had a
  | chance to play with one?
 
| [deleted]
 
| myself248 wrote:
| Okay, let's talk about the Russian connection. I don't actually
| know that much, so I'm hoping someone here can shine some light.
| Back when this thing came up for crowdfunding, it felt like a
| good time to get a toy that was engineered in Russia, made in
| China, sold everywhere. Now it feels like less of a good idea.
| 
| I'm not well equipped to sandbox the PC app and watch its
| behavior or whatever (and I have no reason to suspect the dev is
| personally a bad guy), but even something as simple as the
| shipping list of everyone who bought this, is basically a
| who's-who of security researchers the world over. Since we've
| already seen attacks that tried to compromise security
| researchers, I figure this isn't hypothetical anymore. It was
| North Korea last time:
| 
| https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/new-campaign-targe...
| 
| Thoughts?
 
| simulate-me wrote:
| Can these clone passive RFID dongles? My building uses them and
| they charge $60 for a copy. Not needing to buy a copy from my
| building would almost cover the cost of this device.
 
  | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
  | You can clone most RFID keys at the key-copying kiosks inside
  | supermarkets. I turned my most-used key into a sticker that I
  | put inside my phone case for $10.
  | 
  | It's pretty nice: one less thing to carry around.
 
  | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
  | Some. A well designed key card will be uncloneable.
  | 
  | Most are not well designed.
 
  | kn0where wrote:
  | There are cheap RFID cloning devices on AliExpress for $10-$30
  | depending on what kind of card you have.
 
  | WaxProlix wrote:
  | Yes, I've cloned a few RFID dongles with mine already. Work, a
  | parking garage entrance, that sort of thing.
 
  | t-3 wrote:
  | Definitely. I managed to clone my RFID enabled cards with mine.
 
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| The documentation and art for this project are unreal.
 
  | dragosbulugean wrote:
  | the team from flipper zero have put in a real effort into the
  | docs.
  | 
  | P.S. docs are built with www.archbee.io
 
| secondcoming wrote:
| I'd have thought that using the name Flipper along with the image
| of a dolphin would be legally protected by the owners of the TV
| series
 
| kstrauser wrote:
| I've never wanted something so badly that I didn't even know
| existed until 5 minutes ago.
 
  | r2_pilot wrote:
  | It's pretty nifty, I got mine a few weeks ago. I'm not sure it
  | was worth waiting 2 years, but their team has been very
  | transparent about their hardships and I've learned about
  | manufacturing at scale from their updates. I do wish they let
  | their devs spend more time on the tamagotchi side to liven it
  | up some(although the whole software interface could use some
  | more work too - they're still pre-v1 firmware)
 
  | Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
  | I've never wanted something so badly I've ordered about 6
  | months back!
 
  | muznar wrote:
  | Exactly what I felt. I got to learn about Flipper Zero a couple
  | days ago and since then I see it online everywhere.
  | 
  | I always wanted to "jailbreak" the NFC cards and key fobs I get
  | from work and apartments. This minimal device seems fun and
  | functional.
  | 
  | Probably thats why if you search on eBay there are a lot of
  | scalpers.
 
  | amelius wrote:
  | Resist the urge. Your smartphone is far more powerful.
 
    | kstrauser wrote:
    | That's not everything. Dedicated hardware is fun to play
    | with, and my phone doesn't have GPIO pins.
 
    | Arainach wrote:
    | In what sense? My phone doesn't have a programmable radio I
    | have access to, can't do RFID and doesn't have GFIO pins for
    | accessories. Its NFC is unreliable - I've programmed tags
    | with it and it's miserable. It has no IR transmitter or
    | receiver, no MicroSD slot. In fact my cell phone does almost
    | nothing the Flipper Zero does except Bluetooth.
 
    | operator-name wrote:
    | > Flipper Zero is a portable multi-tool for pentesters and
    | geeks in a toy-like body. It loves hacking digital stuff,
    | such as radio protocols, access control systems, hardware and
    | more. It's fully open-source and customizable, so you can
    | extend it in whatever way you like.
    | 
    | From the sounds of it it's fulfilling a very different niche.
    | I'd like you see a smartphone that exposes gpio pins.
 
| coupdejarnac wrote:
| I've looked through the blog posts, and I don't see which
| contract manufacturers they are using. Anyone know who they use
| for the plastic molds?
| 
| It would be nice to know the pros and cons of the CMs people are
| using.
 
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Been loving mine. Cloned my work and local makerspace ID cards,
| can control all my IR devices and even read the rfid chip I got
| in my hand.
| 
| Here is a collection of some of the bigger projects being built
| for it. https://github.com/djsime1/awesome-flipperzero
 
  | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
  | This post was the first thing I found that explained what it
  | does. I literally thought this was some kind of open source
  | Tamagotchi.
  | 
  | Here's a description: https://flipperzero.one/ - it's a
  | multitool for various wireless, IR and RFID (including 125 kHz)
  | protocols, has GPIOs and contacts for certain electronic keys.
  | And apparently also a tamagotchi.
 
  | dmosley wrote:
  | What kind of implant you do have? I can't get mine to read the
  | LF side of my NExT. I think it's the type being emulated but I
  | don't have a different ID to test.
 
    | nickthegreek wrote:
    | its a read-only 12x2mm glass EM-4102. Ive had it for about 12
    | years now.
 
  | zhovner wrote:
  | Thanks for your repo. We will plan to add it to documents in
  | community section.
 
| dang wrote:
| Related:
| 
|  _Shipping Started_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30024255 - Jan 2022 (3
| comments)
| 
|  _Diving into RFID Protocols with Flipper Zero_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28618679 - Sept 2021 (1
| comment)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero Firmware Is Now Open Source_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28461299 - Sept 2021 (6
| comments)
| 
|  _Taking over TVs with Flipper Zero Infrared Port_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28013900 - July 2021 (1
| comment)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero: How it's made and tested_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27704883 - July 2021 (31
| comments)
| 
|  _Flipper's Electronics: How It 's Made and Tested_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27689787 - June 2021 (3
| comments)
| 
|  _Taming iButton Keys with Flipper Zero_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27531914 - June 2021 (1
| comment)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero: Bringing Cases to Perfection_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27479684 - June 2021 (6
| comments)
| 
|  _Case manufacturing behind the scenes_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27155584 - May 2021 (1
| comment)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero: Tamagochi for Hackers_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26405919 - March 2021 (48
| comments)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero Manufacturing and Shipping Plan_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870255 - Jan 2021 (14
| comments)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero (Repository will be open in public soon)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24090716 - Aug 2020 (1
| comment)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero - Tamagochi for Hackers_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23996733 - July 2020 (53
| comments)
| 
|  _Show HN: Flipper Zero - Tamagotchi for Hackers_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22941733 - April 2020 (10
| comments)
| 
|  _Tamagotchi for Hackers_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22859083 - April 2020 (1
| comment)
| 
|  _Flipper Zero: Under Development Multi-Tool Device for Pen-
| Testers_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21842830 - Dec
| 2019 (1 comment)
 
| Raed667 wrote:
| Is there any hope that it will be available anytime soon?
 
  | coolspot wrote:
  | Oh wow, apparently they go for $500 on ebay!
 
    | Rebelgecko wrote:
    | Wow. I like my Flipper Zero a lot, but that's a crazy (and a
    | little tempting) markup
 
  | nickthegreek wrote:
  | this is the number 1 question asked in the discord, and they
  | dont have an answer yet.
 
  | micromacrofoot wrote:
  | They've still got a bunch of kickstarter backers waiting, and
  | also a bunch of post-kickstarter pre-orders... I'd be amazed if
  | they could fill their current orders by the end of the year
  | (they've been doing a good job, considering shortages).
 
  | guyzero wrote:
  | They've shipped 23k devices but their Kickstarter sold 38k, so
  | it may be a while.
 
  | zhovner wrote:
  | Soon we will open the wave3 sale on shop.flipperzero.one.
  | Please leave your email on a waitlist and you will be notified.
 
| [deleted]
 
| cwkoss wrote:
| Out of stock :-( anyone know when they are suspected to be
| replenished?
 
| sithadmin wrote:
| Have had one for about a month to fool around with. Very well
| designed product (both hardware and software-wise) that lives up
| to the hype. Haven't really had time to do more than scratch the
| surface of what it's capable of so far.
 
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Very cool. Good luck with it.
| 
| I'll get one, but I'll wait for the dust to settle. My "early
| adopter" days are few, and carefully managed.
 
  | 1123581321 wrote:
  | You're saying you're trying something even cooler? Do share. :)
 
    | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
    | Nope. I just don't have an excuse to get one of these for
    | business reasons, and my dance card is pretty full. This
    | looks like a toy that I'd spend a lot of time playing with
    | (I'd probably be interested in writing an iOS/Watch app for
    | it, but, like I said, my dance card, full, it is...).
 
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| This seems gamechanging
 
  | seabird wrote:
  | It's definitely convenient, but I'm not sure I would call it
  | game changing. Unlike Dropbox, where the sum of the parts was
  | the difference between a power user being able to do something,
  | and your average user being able to do that same thing, this is
  | targeted at an audience that already has the mess of existing
  | tools and is working fine with them.
  | 
  | It's better than what's already there and they'll sell a lot of
  | them, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it has made the
  | impossible possible.
 
| nimish wrote:
| You can make a very limited clone using the st25r3916 mikrobus
| click board and a sparkfun rp2040 carrier
| 
| Not the same but actually available to buy. Same NFC chip, no ui,
| no sub ghz sdr chip.
 
| dmix wrote:
| I've always wanted one of these kicking around. Just yesterday I
| realized I need to update my cats RFID tag and I could use a copy
| of a apartment key.
 
| hroa wrote:
| I ordered two, and thy work great. However, note that they are
| not water resistant.
| 
| I took one out with a simple spill, and I now cover the ports on
| the working one with electrical tape. I use a usbc dust plug for
| the charging port.
 
| phlipski wrote:
| What a totally fascinating little device. Feels like this should
| be part of any embedded engineers toolbox.
 
| ge96 wrote:
| Neat device
 
| idkyall wrote:
| Well, those projects they showed really make me want to buy one
| even though I have no real use case for it. Seems like it'd be
| fun for hack projects or pen testing RF devices. In a more meta
| sense, I really like this new trend of gadgets with a
| personality, so to speak - makes me think of that game console
| the "playdate".
 
  | BonoboIO wrote:
  | Same. Play with my complex garage door ... well mhmmm, no idea
  | what to do after that but I want one ^^
 
| lom wrote:
| What's a flipper zero?
 
  | flexagoon wrote:
  | https://flipperzero.one
 
| bikemike026 wrote:
| It's all fun and games until you shot your eye out.
| 
| I'm beginning to think all of our rf cards are insecure.
 
| dragosbulugean wrote:
| congrats Flipper Zero team!
 
| jrussino wrote:
| One thing I'd love to do with this, but which I don't think is
| possible - clone my car key. My family has two cars and I just
| wish I could have one device that is able to unlock & start both
| of them so that I don't have to carry two bulky dongles on my
| keychain.
 
  | melenaos wrote:
  | I think that's for a good reason. I suppose the implement a
  | hardware public-private encryption and they transmit random
  | data everytine you press a button
 
| _pdp_ wrote:
| Bought Flipper Zero for the entire security team for R&D. Good
| investment and also fun!
 
| muxneo wrote:
| Who made your website. love it. Please let me know.. I want to
| hire the person/company.
 
  | mutagen wrote:
  | Looks like the Ghost blogging engine with the Casper theme.
  | More than just the theme, the images and graphics are great
  | too.
 
    | muxneo wrote:
    | Agree.the seamless integration of video and 3d model
    | background with website background is amazing. Which theme
    | inside ghost do you think it is (if you know)..thanks for the
    | reply
 
      | zhovner wrote:
      | Our Ghost theme is open source
      | https://github.com/flipperdevices/Casper-flipper-blog-theme
      | 
      | >integration of video
      | 
      | This is built-in feature of Ghost now.
 
        | muxneo wrote:
        | No kidding ! thanks !
 
  | yasoob wrote:
 
| Melatonic wrote:
| The dolphin reminds me of the one from that movie with Keanu
| where they are constantly doing a bunch of cheesy mind hacking!
 
  | evgen wrote:
  | Johnny Mnemonic from the Burning Chrome short story collection
  | by Gibson. A staple of the cyberpunk bookshelf from the late
  | 80s, and yes a very cheesy Keanu film...
 
    | Melatonic wrote:
    | Thats it ! Great film. And strangely became even more
    | relevant recently.
 
  | ganoushoreilly wrote:
  | I guarantee that's by design, also the references to hackers
  | "hack the planet" on the device etc. It's a love letter
  | portable device that's very reminiscent of the various badges
  | that have been at Defcon and other hacking conferences over the
  | past few years. This brings a whole new level of polish and
  | finish. They did an awesome job.
  | 
  | Sadly though, I kick start a lot of stuff that doesn't end up
  | being 50% of what's promised if delivered at all. I still kick
  | start fun projects like this though as a gamble on seeing
  | someones ideas take place. I think the big problem for most of
  | them is the designer suddenly has "all this cash" and has no
  | clue how to manage or spend appropriately, ends up allocating
  | to things they don't need or straight up siphoning off for
  | lifestyle changes (SEE DUNE CASE) and then stuff is never
  | delivered.
  | 
  | Either way HACK THE PLANET! I hope to see all these dolphins at
  | Defcon!
 
| pbronez wrote:
| It takes a MICRO SD card! The documentation just says "SD Card" -
| don't buy the wrong one like I did lol
 
  | throwanem wrote:
  | At this point I feel like that can just be safely assumed,
  | since ~every Micro-SD card comes with a fullsize adapter, and
  | Mini-SD no longer exists.
  | 
  | The only fullsize cards I even still bother buying are UHS-II
  | ones for my cameras.
 
  | zhovner wrote:
  | Hah, sorry.
 
| m-p-3 wrote:
| First time I hear about this, and it looks really interesting.
| Subscribed to the waiting list!
 
| NietzscheanNull wrote:
| I received mine recently, and I've been consistently impressed at
| both the build quality and overall attention to detail. I know
| many Kickstarter projects (and hardware startups in general) end
| up aggressively compromising on features and construction to meet
| deadlines and cut down on BOM costs, so I was very pleased to see
| no evidence of that with the Flipper Zero. It's one of those
| products where you can immediately tell that a very passionate
| team invested a ton of time and took special care with the
| engineering and design process.
 
  | filoleg wrote:
  | > [...] aggressively compromising on features and construction
  | to meet deadlines and cut down on BOM costs, so I was very
  | pleased to see no evidence of that
  | 
  | Tbh the team made the right decision to push the deadlines in
  | order to deliver the quality they would be satisfied with. And
  | I wholeheartedly support them in doing so.
  | 
  | I am totally ok with the device being delivered to me almost a
  | year after the initially promised deadline, as long as that
  | extra time went into getting the quality up to the level. So
  | props to the team, I am happy that they actually took that time
  | to polish up to the current level, instead of trying to meet an
  | arbitrary deadline.
  | 
  | Their development blog played a heavy role in convincing me
  | that they were not just stalling (which, sadly, has been my
  | previous experience with quite a few promising hardware
  | Kickstarted projects). Every single post has so much attention
  | to even the most minuscule details that 90% wouldn't care for,
  | it definitely reassured me that they were trying to be as
  | transparent as possible about the whole process and their
  | decision-making. I cannot say enough good things about writing
  | quality of their dev blog posts. It was incredible and easy to
  | digest, even for someone who hasn't worked much with such
  | close-to-hardware level.
 
  | zhovner wrote:
  | Thank you so much. Shared your comment to the team.
 
| bdefore wrote:
| Poked around the start guide and the site but couldn't find much
| about what the Flipper Zero does.
 
  | musingsole wrote:
  | The home page (https://flipperzero.one/) has a rather prominent
  | "What is Flipper Zero" section
 
    | bdefore wrote:
    | Much better thanks. I see now what my mistake was: clicking
    | the logo in top left of TFA takes you to blog.flipperzero.one
    | when I was expecting it to be what you've linked.
 
      | floss_silicate wrote:
      | Two decades of blogging and still every company blog links
      | to the blog index, not the brand homepage.
 
        | zmix wrote:
        | THIS! Oh, so much this! I never get it why they do
        | this... I don't know how many times I clicked the logo
        | expecting to get to the product's homepage, but, instead,
        | I get to the blog's index. It escapes my mind, why nobody
        | seems to think about this.
 
  | duiker101 wrote:
  | From what I gather, it does whatever you want it to do with a
  | whole lot of interfaces. From the homepage I gather it has
  | Bluetooth, GPIO, Antenna, iButton, RFID, NFC, infrared
 
    | pugworthy wrote:
    | > What does it do?
    | 
    | > It does whatever you want it to do
    | 
    | An answer worthy of Zombo COM
 
      | dano wrote:
      | Ha ha. The only limit is yourself. Welcome to Zombocom.
 
      | kristopolous wrote:
      | It's an extremely marketing driven device and trivial to
      | clone. Look it as a PC kind of - off the shelf components
      | connected together with a proprietary case and a marketing
      | department.
      | 
      | And similar to the early days of home computers, there's
      | plenty of kits you can buy to build your own.
 
        | seabird wrote:
        | By that definition, every embedded device is extremely
        | marketing driven and trivial to clone.
        | 
        | With devices like these, you're buying time. People doing
        | reverse engineering for a living or as a serious hobby do
        | not want to fuck around making their own. Robust hardware
        | design/validation and supply chain handling are NOT
        | trivial except for the most simple designs. The firmware
        | is NOT trivial to recreate. The target market has already
        | bought products that do most of the shit this device
        | does, and now they can have a lot of it in one place
        | instead of scattered across multiple devices.
 
        | judge2020 wrote:
        | Would probably be cheap to clone it for yourself, but not
        | at scale:
        | 
        | > TI CC1101, the chip powering the Sub-Ghz feature, is in
        | extreme shortage. To date, the supplier has shipped just
        | a fraction of our initial order. The same situation is
        | with our LED driver -- TI LP5562. To overcome this we
        | have to purchase these components on the spot-buy market
        | at a much, much higher price (3-5x for CC1101 and 20-30x
        | for LP5562)
 
  | somesayitsluck wrote:
  | Seriously, I thought I was crazy for not being able to figure
  | out what this device actually does, despite scrolling through
  | the whole site.
  | 
  | I still thought it would be an mp3 player after reading about
  | the battery modes and the sd card installation and the file
  | system menu...then I gave up.
 
| samstave wrote:
| Is there ANY way to detect the presence of one of these devices,
| OR the use of a device when a tag ID is scanned?
| 
| The reason that I ask, is that I was on the design team for
| lockheed when we were selling RFID tags for shipping containers
| at a shitload per pop... (123 and 433 mhz)
| 
| and I brought up we had zero auth on any of our systems... and
| was just told to not speak about it.
 
  | orangesite wrote:
  | Hilarity is bound to ensue.
 
  | findalex wrote:
  | Are these devices even technically legal to operate in the USA?
  | I thought 433mhz was reserved for exactly what you say - tags
  | for shipping containers. If you use a LoRa devices in the USA I
  | think you are supposed to be >~850mhz.
 
    | makeworld wrote:
    | The stock firmware has region-locked frequencies, so you
    | can't transmit on frequencies illegal for your region. There
    | is custom firmware that removes that limitation however.
 
    | kstrauser wrote:
    | If you have a ham license, 433MHz is solidly inside the
    | permitted 70cm band: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulator
    | y/Band%20Chart/Band%...
 
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| I understand you can clone rfid security tags and nfc payment
| cards with this? Is it legal?
 
  | vbezhenar wrote:
  | RFID - why not? NFC payment cards can't be cloned, they use
  | crypto.
 
  | knodi123 wrote:
  | a security rfid tag is about as secure as a security QR code.
 
| brink wrote:
| People are flipping these things on ebay for $400+. lol
| 
| I think I'll wait for the second batch, but dang it, I want one.
 
  | lapetitejort wrote:
  | Such is the case for lots of handheld toy-like bespoke
  | electronic devices recently. See also Play Date, Steam Deck,
  | Analog Pocket.
 
  | zhovner wrote:
  | I do not recommend you to buy overprice lots on eBay. We will
  | open sale for wave 3 very soon. Leave your email on wait list
  | here https://shop.flipperzero.one and you will be notified.
 
    | cookingmyserver wrote:
    | I was a backer and have received mine, thanks for all of the
    | hard work! I am curios, now that you have the tooling and
    | partnerships established, what is the turn around on a new
    | wave of flippers?
 
| no_time wrote:
| Not something I'd ever buy that I'm glad it exists. It's just so
| charming.
| 
| They even went the extra mile to use Qt for the client instead of
| Electron.
 
  | jrockway wrote:
  | My next app will be C++/Qt compiled to Javascript with
  | Emscripten and then run inside Electron.
  | 
  | (Incidentally, someone made a Dear Imgui demo this way:
  | https://jnmaloney.github.io/WebGui/imgui.html, minus involving
  | Electron, of course.)
 
| outworlder wrote:
| It seems that every day we are getting closer and closer to a
| 'tricorder'. I used to laugh at fictional devices that could
| detect/emit any frequency and communicate with anything. Not
| laughing now.
| 
| Pair something like this with a smartphone(specially those with
| ML cores) and things could get... interesting.
 
  | zmix wrote:
  | > It seems that every day we are getting closer and closer to a
  | 'tricorder'.
  | 
  | Only, if we go full Cyborg / Trans-Human ;-)
 
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