Open Hardware/Modding: Raspberry Pi and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 28, 2025

• Hackaday ☛ A Very Tidy Handheld Pi Terminal Indeed

  As single board computers have become ever smaller and more powerful, so have those experimenting with them tried to push the boundaries of the machines they can be used in. First we had cyberdecks, and now we have handheld terminals. Of this latter class we have a particularly nice example from [Random Alley Cat]. It takes a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and a handful of other parts, and makes them with a 3D printed case into something very professional indeed.

• CNX Software ☛ Raspberry Pi 5 gets a microSD Express HAT

  Will Whang’s RPI5-SDexpress-Hat is a small HAT+ for the Raspberry Pi 5, adding a microSD Express card slot for ultrafast storage, an eject button, and two Qwiic connectors, probably because there was still some spare space on the board… As a reminder, microSD Express cards can deliver SSD performance thanks to the use of of PCIe interface and NVMe commands. The standard was first introduced in 2019, and even earlier (2018) for full-size SD cards, but manufacturers have not exactly rushed to release compatible hardware. A major change this year is the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 portable game console, one of the first mass market devices with a microSD Express slot, and this was partially why Will created the microSD Express HAT+ for the Raspberry Pi 5.

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Inside Open Sauce, a science festival for makers, with over 500 projects on display

  Open Sauce brings together science, YouTube, and little mayhem.

• Hackaday ☛ A Non-Sony Playstation Motherboard Replacement

  As hardware ages, it becomes harder and harder to keep it in service. Whether that’s because of physical aging or lack of support from the company who built it in the first place, time is not generally good for electronics, especially when it comes to our beloved retro gaming systems. The first Playstation, for example, is starting to see some of the deleterious effects of having originally been built in the 90s, and [LorentioB] has a new, third-party motherboard to bring to the table to keep these systems online as well as adding some features in that Sony removed.

• Bastien Nocera: Digitising CDs (aka using your phone as an image scanner)

  I recently found, under the rain, next to a book swap box, a pile of 90's “software magazines” which I spent my evening cleaning, drying, and sorting in the days afterwards.

  Magazine cover CDs with nary a magazine 

  Those magazines are a peculiar thing in France, using the mechanism of “Commission paritaire des publications et des agences de presse” or “Commission paritaire” for short. This structure exists to assess whether a magazine can benefit from state subsidies for the written press (whether on paper at the time, and also the internet nowadays), which include a reduced VAT charge (2.1% instead of 20%), reduced postal rates, and tax exemptions.

• Hackaday ☛ Game Boy Camera In Wedding Photo Booth

  For those of a certain age the first digital camera many of us experienced was the Game Boy Camera, an add-on for the original Game Boy console. Although it only took pictures with the limited 4-tone monochrome graphics of this system, its capability of being able to take a picture, edit it, create drawings, and then print them out on the Game Boy Printer was revolutionary for the time. Of course the people who grew up with this hardware are about the age to be getting married now (or well beyond), so [Sebastian] capitalized on the nostalgia for it with this wedding photo booth that takes pictures with the Game Boy Camera.

• Hackaday ☛ 2025 One Hertz Challenge: RPI TinynumberHat9

  This eye-catching entry to the One Hertz Challenge pairs vintage LED indicators with a modern RPi board to create a one-of-a-kind clock. The RPI TinynumberHat9 by [Andrew] brings back the beautiful interface from high end electronics of the past.

• CNX Software ☛ DreamHAT+ 60 GHz mmWave Radar HAT+ brings high-precision motion sensing to Raspberry Pi 4/5

  Dream RF’s DreamHAT+ is a mmWave Radar HAT+ for the Raspberry Pi 4B and 5, designed around Infineon’s BGT60TR13C 60 GHz mmWave radar chip with four integrated antennas (1x Tx, 3x Rx) for directional sensing and motion tracking. Like other 24GHz or 60GHz mmWave solutions we’ve seen in the past, for instance Seeed Studio’s mmWave Human Detection Sensor Kit, Sparkfun’s Pulsed Coherent Radar Sensor, and RoomSense IQ ESP32-S3 room monitor, the DreamHAT+ is designed to sense tiny movement within a room or outside (since it works through walls) for human presence detection, fall detection, etc… in applications such as robotics and smart home automation.

• WINE or Emulation

  • Hackaday ☛ The Power-Free Tag Emulator

    Most of you know how an NFC tag works. The reader creates an RF field that has enough energy to power the electronics in the tag; when the tag wakes up, two-way communication ensues. We’re accustomed to blank tags that can be reprogrammed, and devices like the Flipper Zero that can emulate a tag. In between those two is [MCUer]’s power-free tag emulator, a board which uses NFC receiver hardware to power a small microcontroller that can run emulation code.