Project status

A simple qwerty messenger designed using the Sharp Memory LCD and the esp8266 wifi chipset.

As of Feb 2017, the schematic has been moved to Kicad, BOM is being worked on, and soon the PCB layout will begin. I would like to add LTE if an affordable module comes out.

You can find the schematic and PCB files on Github.

Short video of the display

Project History

This project used to be a full fledged minimalst Cell Phone. I was doing the circuit board design for Minium, but they have since pivoted and wish to open source the old work. Other team members did the industrial, mechanical, and software design.

I dropped the cellular chipset from the open source project because it had some NDA’s, it is expensive, and I only think it is worth doing for LTE (2G is being phased out this year, who knows how soon 3G will be).

Going forward I think the device could be useful as an encrypted messaging client. Hopefully someone can help develop an app to use the federated protocol Matrix.

Esp8266 also offers some neat options for mesh networks

V0.3 Schematic

We got to a point where the phone had a simple GUI, could text, and place calls. A few of the features were never tested in software.

You can find the PDF schematic of the final prototype rev here.

The Keypad

Metal dome buttons taped directly to contacts on the pcb. A 3d printed enclosure has nubs on the backside of the keypad for this prototype.