Pandaphone

[spinghed]

nice project guys :"] although this wont have any use without a 3g or gprs usb attachment.

not guys... just me at the moment... but let me get the proof of concept working first. I know for a fact it's possible, but once I'm able to send commands to it and hear that dial tone as it were, then I'll start recruiting people who can help code in C to put it all together. I don't want to start pulling other people into it untill I get past my short term goals cause that will be the big turning point if this project is gonna live or gonna die.[/quote]
it's definitely possible as these guys: Analogue Micro, are producing a beagleboard-a-like with a connector that allows you to add a GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA wireless modem. Plus they were writing a "dialer" and phone front end when I last spoke to to them. I don't know if they are open or closed source but as far as I know they were almost finished a few months ago... Might be worth an email...

Rick

 

[midna25]

Okay, I'll bite.

Any thoughts on what will be used for the actual mic/speaker? Not everybody wants to look like a douchebag and wear a bluetooth headset.

I can never wear a pair of bluetooth headphones again... not after seeing that Doctor Who episode.

Anyway, this would make the pandora perfect in absolutely every way. I would love to use the pandora as a phone.

 

[Raz]

Dude, I would so use this. Will read into this when I have time. Being 14, I do have a curfew. Exactly how long is it going to take? Are you going to make a Pandora to PandaPhone Conversion Kit when you've figured all that out?

 

[SNESFAN]

Dude, I would so use this. Will read into this when I have time. Being 14, I do have a curfew. Exactly how long is it going to take? Are you going to make a Pandora to PandaPhone Conversion Kit when you've figured all that out?

how long is it going to take? -

As far as finished product, I can't even take a stab at it at this point, i'm still in the planning phase for the next week until I get my hands on the modem as mentioned earlier. But at anytime, you or anyone, is welcome to buy what I've bought and once I figure it out, I'll explain how I do everything so you or anyone can try the same.

Are you going to make a Pandora to PandaPhone Conversion Kit when you've figured all that out? -

I'm not reselling anything, or have plans to until WAAAAAAYY down the line. The software will always be free and open to build on and add to. or just try. But I'll definitely say which modems, sim cards, phone carriers, bluetooth and cables are compatible and where the cheapest place, to my knowledge, is to get them.

 

[Hawkey]

Nice, I instantly added the topic to my favorites hardware additions [like the accelerator one]

Until you/we are getting a final pandora, it would be hard to to do the real work and use try-error to get a clean solution. However, does anyone know how much space is left in the Pandora for putting the modem in the case (won't like to letting it hang out and blocking the USB port). Hopefully there is a way to do this appropriate

-- Hawkey

PS: Your avatar fits to "Pandaphone" (looks cute), guess you allready got a mascot :lol:
PPS: Will it be possible to use some kind of GPS with it (via using the OpenStreetMap material) ? Would be great help at long drives :rolleyes:
PPPS: Good to hear with the "kit". I know someone who knows alot about technic and hopefully would assemble mine PandaPhone

 

[WORMSXP]

Instead of the closed-source Skype or the cumbersome Asterisk, we could use Ekiga for VoIP calls.

http://www.ekiga.org/

 

[PSyMastR]

Problem is, on a 3G modem (at least in the US) VoIP calls are against the ToS

 

[WORMSXP]

VoIP calls are against the ToS

In Spain most of the companies doesn't let you use VoIP from a 3G Modem, but some of them encourage its use.

 

[superatarian]

Sounds like a real good idea. Maybe I missed it, but when this feature comes to light, which phone service
will it use? I use Verizon here in the US. Will I be able to set the Pandora to that?

 

[SNESFAN]

which phone service will it use?
The service will be any one that uses a sim card basically, and as long as your service supports the freqs of your particular card. I'll be sure to post links to that info eventually when this starts getting widely addopted.
The first modem I'm using is tri band useing 900 1800 and 1900 mhz, In america the service I'll be useing is at&t and it uses 850 and 1900mhz, so I won't get on the 850mhz band just the 1900mhz which will be slower but it will work.

I will make a list of hardware that works, how to edit drivers. For me there are hardware limitations to consider when buying a aircard, I'm learning alot of aircards that don't officially support the ability to use voice actually are able to. (there's a command you send to the card and it responds back with what it's able to do) Due to the nature of the technology voice and data are useally both technically supported. The voice service might be weak or shotty but there are ways to tweak this and over time these methods will be learnt and used for particular aircards.

Until you/we are getting a final pandora, it would be hard to to do the real work and use try-error to get a clean solution
As far as testing without the pandora, testing on windows first to make sure everything works as advertised and see what AT commands the software sends the card and when linux is able to talk to the card, use those same AT commands to dial out and establish voice or data connections.

The commands are not OS specific so this can be done on any platform, these are the same commands that cell phones send to the radios in them to talk to their respective network. These are industry standard commands and will work on every GSM/GPRS/EDGE network as far as I know. Agian as we get a bigger info dump on what networks use what commands the program will get updated and eventually use your networks commands if they are infact different.

Data command set
Voice command set

Good to hear with the "kit". I know someone who knows alot about technic and hopefully would assemble mine
As far as a kit goes for this in the forseeable future its just going to be a card with a piece of velcro on the top of the pandora with a 3 inch right angle usb extension cable I've measured all it out and used a nintendo ds as a dummy and it doesn't look half bad actually, I'll post some pics once i finally get it together (minus pandora of course)

When it comes to a custom module and an actual hadware kit that can be connected internally to the pandora, I'll give my input to what I think it should have as far as capabilities, chips, and who to go through. As far as designing it, I'm not the best guy for that job and there's much more skilled individuals out there for that. Maybe we can get together as a community and design a PCB that has radio gps and accelorometer.

 

[WhiteBat]

In Spain most of the companies doesn't let you use VoIP from a 3G Modem, but some of them encourage its use.

well if you do get VoIP to work, then you can always use a wifi router that converts 3g to wifi like the Huawei's E583X and forget the usb.

 

[Japa]

I'd soo use this.

perfect way to make fun of a friend of mine who gets a new smart phone every month.

 

[WORMSXP]

well if you do get VoIP to work, then you can always use a wifi router that converts 3g to wifi like the Huawei's E583X and forget the usb.

Nice, it would almost cover all my needs, but it has also some problems: I could use it for making and receiving VoIP calls, but I couldn't send SMS or make and receive "regular calls".

 

[SNESFAN]

I should have made myself clear as to why I was looking into VOIP, Not everyone wants to use this for making "regular calls" some voiced their opinion for voip alternative so their minutes won't be used. I was looking into open source voip solutions that could be intergrated for those who want the option to use voip and not have to switch applications to do so. By the way... skype makes a great linux client if you just want to go that route.

Good points were brought up for ToS with phone companies, esp here in the USA, although skype susposedly uses the least bandwidth (under 1 meg for 20 min call) it is technically agianst the "rules" for alot of companies, so is tethering (phone attached to pc for data) unless you pay for it. Now is what we're doing considered tethering is unclear at this point, as we are just making a big ass phone not attaching a phone to another computer. Don't use P2P and you probally won't even be on their radar for the uneasy. (bitorrent sets off a red flag in any network admin's scans let alone a wwan)

 

[nicfer]

Would be cool to make a 'Pro' version of the Pandora, with integrated 3G connectivity, camera, accelerometer and other things that couldn't make into the current Pandora. That way, the people that want to pay extra to get a completer device would need only to purchase that instead of the regular Pandora.

Or, we could make a 'barebones' pandora (only case, screen, keyboard, nubs, the basic chipsets and battery) and provide lots of (external and no-sticking solutions while possible) expansion ports like SDIO or whatever for the user to purchase the features they want (like wifi, bluetooth, 3g, accelerometer, camera?, etc.). Or is that too hard to implement/popularize?

 

[SNESFAN]

. Or is that too hard to implement/popularize?

Currently the Pandora has all of it's hardware on a single PCB (minus the nubs I think?) it would be hard, if not impossible to remove what is already there for a bare bones solution.

The SD card slot does support SDIO as of right now, SDIO is just a SD card with extra hardware functionality sometimes protruding the standard form factor. If there is a SDIO GSM/GPRS modem made, it could be used, I've seen GPS and camera SDIO cards, but to put all of these in one is a pipe dream as of right now. The market for these are very small the exception being wifi SDIO cards.

As far as expansion cards go, I've thought about this but looking at the pictures and whatnot of the case is pretty fitted for the main board PCB in it's current state. Not much room for anything else, other than what seems to be a small area above the stylus it's pretty form fitting. If this were to be implemented it would have to be in the next gen Pandora and a whole other case design will have to be made, the PCB could stay the same just give room for an expansion slot attached to the serial input they already have. Also seeing the current size of the radio and gps chips, sim card slot, cameras (accelorometer is pretty small ie electronic gyroscope) unless those were custom made, the way it is right now, it isn't going to work unless you have the chips custom built to fit a certain form factor or size, then design and produce a second smaller PCB that might fit in whatever space is available and then you're talking big bucks. In addition, case modding would still be required for the camera and to be able to insert/remove sim cards on the fly.

I know it's a shitty answer but unless you wanna hook these up externally, you're probably going to have to wait till Pandora V2 which probably isn't even on their radar at the moment.

 

[j6cubic]

Going on a bit of a tangent here... Maybe someone could design a standardized accessory case – a plastic shell of certain dimensions, designed so that you can plug it into the AV port (which, to my understanding, can act as a generic extension port) and have it sit at the back of the device.

That thing could be mass produced, giving us an easy way to make Pandora accessories that plug into the AV port and have a professional case. My idea is about more than just appearances: A decently designed case also protects external circuitry far better from things like rain than a cable and a bit of duct tape do.

Of course for some devices like accelerometers a much smaller case would be sensible. Or an accessory that combines ten different things, although that might end up being rather expensive.


The idea pertains to the topic at hand in that one could put the GPRS modem on a PCB and put that into an accessory case. Add drivers and, to quote Steve Jobs, boom: An almost professional GRPS accessory for the Pandora. (And a battery life of two hours but who cares?)

 

[claregj]

6/21/09 - OpenMoko has gotten my attention in reference to this project, it's basically the same deal as this project but lacks the gaming controls or full keyboard... but what WAS interesting it ran qtopia which is now qtextended..

Hi, Wonderful news; I will *try* to keep up with you on this. I have 2 openmoko phones (i.e. got one of the early ones); going a couple of years now I think - and would suggest you dont get too excited about the qt, extended or otherwise. As far as I can tell not one of the current "distros" is usable without tweaking in various ways. I would suggest you look seriously at those based on Debian. The one I currently like best is called Neovento, but I havent yet succeeded in getting the source and starting fom there. It seems to be run by *one* person with a little help. http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neovento. Also if you go to http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Distributions and look at "Others" Pyneo, e.g. http://pyneo.org/generated/
The group behind that have always had beautiful artwork, and their eye on the main things. A lot of the distributions offered are both pedestrian and bloated. (and still dont work at all well for ordinary things). Perhaps i am too cynical, but I have hopes for Pandora; great hopes; thank you all who are working on it.
clare

 

[trats20050]

and have it sit at the back of the device.

That thing could be mass produced, giving us an easy way to make Pandora accessories that plug into the AV port and have a professional case. My idea is about more than just appearances: A decently designed case also protects external circuitry far better from things like rain than a cable and a bit of duct tape do.

Of course for some devices like accelerometers a much smaller case would be sensible. Or an accessory that combines ten different things, although that might end up being rather expensive.

The idea pertains to the topic at hand in that one could put the GPRS modem on a PCB and put that into an accessory case. Add drivers and, to quote Steve Jobs, boom: An almost professional GRPS accessory for the Pandora. (And a battery life of two hours but who cares?)

I did this 3d models a couple of months ago.You could fit lots of stuff in there.It will only add about 7mm to 8 mm more.
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=47435

But i am going to wait to get a Pandora to design one where i work at.
I read somewhere here in the forum that the dimension might never be released, but thats not a problem, at work we use a machine that makes a perfect 3d model of objects.

 

[SNESFAN]

did this 3d models a couple of months ago.You could fit lots of stuff in there.It will only add about 7mm to 8 mm more.
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=47435

But i am going to wait to get a Pandora to design one where i work at.
I read somewhere here in the forum that the dimension might never be released, but thats not a problem, at work we use a machine that makes a perfect 3d model of objects.

hey just had a a idea that goes off your idea, since you have the ability to mess with cnc's if you ever get the specs on the mold... make a new backing out of roughly the same material but more "puffed out" in certain areas like devices do for extended batteries. You would have to match up the screw holes, battery, sd card vol etc etc.. and just give a couple of mm for enough room and places to mount a sub board or whatever you want to throw in there nice idea huh?