Many of us hackers have a longing for numpad-adorned mobile phones. We also have a shared understanding that, nowadays, such a phone has to be open and Linux-powered. Today’s project, Notkia, is the most promising and realistic effort at building a keypad phone that fits our requirements. Notkia is a replacement board for Nokia 168x series phones, equipped with an improved display, USB-C, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LoRa — and [Reimu NotMoe] of [SudoMaker] tells us this project’s extensive story.

The Notkia effort started over two years ago, because of [Reimu]’s increasing dislike for modern smartphones — something every hacker is familiar with. Her first-hand experience with privacy violations and hackability limitations on Android phones is recounted in detail, leading to a strong belief that there are fundamental problems with phones available nowadays. Building new hardware from the ground up seems to be the way forward. Two years later, this is exactly what we got!

When it comes to this phone’s physical form-factor, reusing an existing shell is the most economical solution out there, and the Hackaday.io page describes a journey towards finding a shell that fits. In the end, Nokia 1680 series phones turned out to be the perfect candidate. These phones are small and fit easily in your hand, there’s plenty of space inside the shell, and replacement shells and batteries are easy to get nowadays — at least, the kind of phone that you might want to get, anyway.

This replacement motherboard packs quite a few features. The old and laggy 128×160 display is replaced with an IPS screen with visible area of 220×280 pixels. They couldn’t find a small enough 4G module, but Notkia uses a LoRa module instead. There’s WiFi, Bluetooth, a Yamaha MA-3 music synthesizer, a USB Type-C port for charging and OtG, an RGB LED, an SHT20 sensor, and the 1680 version supports a 5MP camera. Such a feature set makes Notkia’s ambitious goal of producing a usable phone quite achievable.

Just like with the X1501 project we’ve covered, the Ingenic X1000 CPU has freely available and open datasheets. This phone runs Linux already – from here, software support work is ongoing, with an easy path to features like full disk encryption. There’s a series of demos: keypad input, LCD backlight dimming, LVGL music player, and of course, Bad Apple – with a USB audio adapter through USB-OtG. Drop tests were conducted, too. Interested in getting a Notkia board? [Reimu] aims to launch it on CrowdSupply – until then, there’s an email signup list to get project updates. If you’re interested in helping with one of the software priorities, it seems possible to get in early, too.

It’s reassuring to see a Linux phone with this much production potential. Projects to reuse old phone shells to get a viable feature phone have appeared every now and then. These Nokia 3310 and 3210 rebuilds have a few good ideas to borrow, and the WiPhone has successfully delivered on the ESP32 front with SIP calls. And if you’re looking to go even more DIY, you can always try to sandwich a Pi Zero between a few boards, or build an ATMega-powered phone with a PCB case!

Errrr …… dunno if I am missing something here …. but can this ‘phone’ make phone calls? I see no 3/4G modules in the hardware lineup.

3G/4G calls, to be clear – not with current hardware. The creators couldn’t find suitable 4G modules with low enough footprint, as the writeup describes; in other words, there’s just not enough space inside the phone for that, as it stands. Thankfully, there’s LoRa and WiFi for SIP, which is quite a powerful combo. Plus, I imagine it’s quite possible to make an external addon for 4G, like with an GPS addon being planned: https://twitter.com/ReimuNotMoe/status/1536695582693003265

Can you actually make calls with “LoRa and WiFi” anywhere except at home, or tethered to a real phone’s wifi? This doesn’t seem actually useful.

To make it clear, I’m not this project’s creator, I just happen to tinker with phones and related technologies a lot, personally, so here’s what I see.

First, you are missing the LoRa part – it does provide for WiFi-less messaging! Messaging is what I personally use my phone for, most of the time. As for voice calls whenever they’re needed, a portable WiFi hotspot would satisfy my own needs. I can see how this would be limiting for some folks who rely on voicecalls more than I do; I carry a WiFi hotspot for my other devices anyway, so if I really need to talk to someone in a call, I will just use that.

Personally, a Linux phone’s potential outweighs the LoRa and WiFi for me, and I’m eager to learn stuff like SIP (and write about it for everyone else!) if that moves me away from the numerous shitty aspects of cellphone technology.

I would’ve said “no” if that were a suitable answer; alas, it isn’t, as the comment I’m replying to misses some crucial things, hence the elaboration

I’m not familiar with LoRa; Does LoRa have the coverage of 3/4/5G? Does it give full internet connectivity? Can it send messages via SMS? Or is this just going to work if your friend is within 10 miles with their LoRa phone?

I’m the creator of the project. I’m a bit curious of why some commenters here are so obsessed with centralized communications.

I find it hard to believe that modern phones almost never have antenna sockets. This would be such a good feature and I’d be using my DJI drone to transport said antenna to 120 metres above my head to get reception for a 20 minute call or data connection in a cell signal dead spot.

Scrap that idea. I’ll send the whole phone up into the ionosphere and connect to it with some wifi head phones. Job done.

It’s not a phone, it’s a phone-shaped toy that runs Linux because project creator has no idea about hardware and software development for embedded devices. First of all, there is a ton of GSM modems that are basically an entire cellphone in tiny package. For example Quectel M95, which is 19.9mm × 23.6mm × 2.65mm module that does voice, sms and data communication over GSM networks. One only needs some power, antenna, SIM card and a microcontroller that would send it proper commands over UART. Second, he needs Linux because probably he can’t program in C, so writes everything in Python or some other scripting language for bad and lazy programmers. Third, why bother? Manufacturers still make cellphones and smartphones with physical keypads and keyboards. Usually these are made for elderly and for industrial workers, as physical buttons make them much easier to use…

Firstly iirc the M95 is 2G. Many countries have retired their 2G networks. Secondly, could I suggest that if you have nothing nice to say, just keep schtum.

Between you mentioning Python where the author quite clearly is using C and LVGL, referring to a 2G modem when the discussion is about 3G/4G ones, or referring to the author as “he” given I’m using “she” … it’s apparent you haven’t read either my article or the project description.

I don’t know what to answer to this. Are you sure you’re in the right comment section?

It seems you missed the reasons for the project entirely, perhaps go read the project build log.

As for “no idea about hardware and software development for embedded devices”, have you considered that the best and brightest embedded systems developers learn by doing and don’t fall into the trap of reading textbooks and dismissing ideas out of hand because of biases you’ve picked up from external sources.

Is this project without fault? No, clearly the lack of a cell network radio is holding it back for ‘some’ use cases. However, there is always room for improvement and a next iteration. Unless of course one chooses to do as you do and dismiss things out of hand because you “know better”, in which case the project never even gets started.

For most geeky-types, ie the ones that would build such a device, LORA, WiFi, and BLE is more than enough connectivity.

And finally, as developers, it is useful to abstract away things that don’t matter to your application and the choice of Linux here is actually a benefit. Using Linux means access to well written and well reviewed code for networking. If you goal is privacy, security and explicit understanding of how your data is used on a device, then Linux offers a good starting point without falling into the trap of having to be an expert in all things x, y, and z in order to accomplish w as well. Also, lets not forget that C and Linux are intimately connected, Linux != Python and in my opinion this is a really myopic way to look at systems in the real world.

I’m no need GSM but … irda. Yes ;-) Yes

Pretty sure GSM is dead in the US thanks to AT&T being done with their towers this month…. So how does GSM work as a form factor?

Not to be negative, I’m just making sure that the comments line up with the realities and are not misplacing time and location.

Hey this is a cool project! I love it when people repurpose existing cases with new electronics.

It feels like mechanical design is one of the hardest things to get down as a home hacker. Vendors have had a long time to optimise their designs mechanically, and good mechanical design doesn’t age, so why reinvent it?

Mechanical design is a right bugger. I wish I could find a 3D printer tool that had a library of common “orifices” such as USB A, DB9 and so on that could then be positioned on the face of a cube as desired. That would cover 90% of my enclosure designs; the approach would fit quite well with openscad. I am pretty sure something like this must already exist and I am just ignorant…

I like that idea, in fact you inspired me to look for something like that. Seems some of the OpenSCAD libraries could provide a promising solution.

Particularly this one: https://github.com/nophead/NopSCADlib/blob/master/readme.md Although I’m sure there are others as well. Looking over the github repository it does seem to support USB A, although I don’t see DB9s (although, you only have to add them once and you can keep reusing them).

this design has few flaws. certainly the problem is the case covering the screen

but the rest is absolutely perfect. As a fan of long battery life maybe I would add a small solar panel. Really small. https://hackaday.io/project/159139-tiny-solar-energy-module-tsem Anyway, look at the number of likes and comments. it’s really a good project. Maybe add an external wifi antenna to improve the wifi range by those few dozen meters.

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