Hardware and Gadgets: GrapheneOS, OpenMote, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 19, 2026

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Arduino ☛ Digitize analog gauge readings with edge AI

    Expense calculations in the industrial world tend to be unintuitive to individuals, because service and maintenance often consume larger chunks of the budget than the equipment itself. For that reason, modifications to equipment are usually seen as too risky to justify — they can too easily impact serviceability.

  • CNX Software ☛ OpenMote – An ESP32-S3 programmable universal remote in a Wiimote shell (Crowdfunding)

    Hat & Hammer has launched the OpenMote, an ESP32-S3-powered programmable universal remote that adopts the familiar, nostalgic form factor of a Nintendo Wiimote. It features WiFi, Bluetooth LE, an infrared (IR) transceiver, a 6-axis IMU, and Home Assistant integration, letting it control smart home devices and media centers and act as a Bluetooth gamepad without relying on cloud services.

  • CNX Software ☛ ASUS Ascent QN10 mini PC is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite 18-core Armv9 processor

    ASUS Ascent QN10 is the first mini PC powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite 18-core Armv9 processor with 80 TOPS of Hey Hi (AI) performance for backdoored Windows Copilot+ PCs. The powerful Arm computer ships with up to 32GB LPDDR5 memory and a 512GB to 2TB NVMe SSD. It supports up to four video outputs through one HDMI and three USB4 (40 Gbps) ports, and offers 2.5GbE and WiFi 7 networking, an audio jack, and a few extra USB 3.2/2.0 ports.

  • Arduino ☛ Bring ideas, leave inspired: Maker Faire Bay Area 2026 is coming!

    Are you ready for Maker Faire Bay Area? We sure are! The family-friendly festival of invention, creativity, and hands-on DIY culture – some call it the “the greatest show-and-tell on Earth” – is holding its special 20th anniversary edition this year, and we wouldn’t dare miss the celebrations. 

  • CNX Software ☛ Review of Elecrow ThinkNode M9 QWERTY terminal with MeshCore firmware

    Last August, CNX Software covered the launch of the Elecrow ThinkNode M9, a standalone LoRa terminal running MeshCore firmware with a QWERTY keyboard, a color display, GPS, and a built-in 2,300mAh battery. Elecrow has now sent us two units (923 MHz version) for review, allowing us to test mesh communication right out of the box without relying on other nodes in the area. Besides being preloaded with MeshCore, what sets the M9 apart from the earlier ThinkNode M1 and M5 is that it is fully standalone. Users can type messages, read messages, and share location directly from the device itself, without pairing it to a smartphone over Bluetooth as with previous models. In this review, we will go through an unboxing before using MeshCore through field testing in a 3-node network mixing hardware from different brands to evaluate MeshCore firmware mesh capability.

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ nRF54LC10A SoC features Cortex-M33, RISC-V coprocessor, Bluetooth LE, Thread and Zigbee

    Nordic Semiconductor has expanded its nRF54L Series with the nRF54LC10A, an entry-level multiprotocol SoC aimed at compact, cost-sensitive IoT devices. The chip integrates a 128MHz Arm Cortex-M33, a 128MHz RISC-V coprocessor, 1MB of non-volatile memory, 192KB of RAM, and a 2.4GHz radio supporting Bluetooth LE, Thread, Zigbee, Matter, and proprietary protocols.

  • Linux Gizmos ☛ Coin-sized Radxa rCore-Q8550 module features 48-TOPS NPU and PCIe Gen 4

    Described by Radxa as its flagship edge AI module, the rCore-Q8550 targets robotics and machine vision with the Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS8550 platform and an optional Hexagon AI processor delivering up to 48 Dense INT8 TOPS. The 36 x 32mm module also supports up to 16GB of LPDDR5X, 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, PCIe Gen 4, and six four-lane MIPI-CSI interfaces.

  • Raspberry Pi ☛ Everything is better with lasers

    Back in August 2024 we launched RP2350, our latest secure microcontroller. At the same time, we kicked off our first of two Hacking Challenges centred around defeating the security measures we’d built into RP2350. The challenge was fun and informative, and multiple winners were awarded, leading us to respin RP2350 to fix most of the breaks that were found in the chip.

  • Hackaday ☛ Making A Digital Music Player For Cassette Decks

    In the cross-over between the era of tapes into that of MP3s, you’d see quite a few of those special cassette tapes that were actually digital music players inside. Some simply provided a 3.5 mm input, while others were complete MP3 players or Bluetooth receivers that just happened to also output to the magnetic read head of a cassette player. Recently [Jonathan Rowny] decided to make his own version of the latter.

  • Hackaday ☛ Brain Control Your Appliance, Sort Of

    The instrumentation amplifier is where the main value is. You probably can’t just hook biosensors up to an ESP-32 analog input. The software, too, does a lot of heavy lifting for signal processing. Once you have reliable indicators that an eye or muscle moved, the rest is pretty simple.

  • Jake Howard ☛ Building a Dashboard for my Fridge

    However, plenty of what I do is on a computer, and probably hosted on my home server. My partner has had a physical calendar in our kitchen since we moved in together - but I never got on with it. Partly because my handwriting is so bad I'm not allowed to write on it, but mostly because it's not where I need it. If I'm at my desk, trying to organise something, I can't glance at the calendar to see what we're doing - I have to go to a different room on a different floor. We have a shared calendar in Nextcloud, but she didn't like having to get her phone out if we're downstairs planning our week.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • It's FOSS ☛ GrapheneOS Isn't Happy With Surveillance Giant Google Over Pixel's Widening Head Start

    GrapheneOS is calling out Surveillance Giant Google over its negligence in providing certain patches.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Hackaday ☛ Hackaday Podcast Episode 387: Superhuman Clocks, CAN In USB-C, And The Joys Of Bare Metal

    This week, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start the episode off by discussing the latest CircuitPython developments before covering some impressive reverse engineering efforts, the benefits of modeling your projects in 3D, and some of the most incredible timepieces that have ever graced the pages of Hackaday.