Pandaphone

[trats20050]

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?

Yeah, but it will have to be in the top case behind the lcd.Or else you will not have any access to the battery.I made a 3d model of this but i have to look for it.Its also really cheap to produce a "puffed out" case once you have a 3d model.Ill try to look for the 3d model and post it later.

 

[SNESFAN]

it has begun...

I received my GPRS modem in the mail today along with the pay as you go phone with sim, I got good news, more good news, then some bad news.

Good news, everything arrived in working condition, here's the windows cd zipped up, under 3mb
http://rapidshare.com/files/248351314/GPRS_modem.zip
Installed everything via their broken English user manual (also included on cd) it all worked, had to run an .exe that has a .dll icon on it before it started to work (weird)... only windows drivers were included and obviously unsigned by Microsoft. Physically the thing was very small about the same size as an old school thumb drive. Putting in the sim card was kinda a pain in the ass, and taking it out was about 10x harder, had to use tweezers to grab it because it gets stuck on the lip of the case and is impossible to get out other wise.

Here's the more good news, when I tested it I hadn't activated my sim card yet, I also checked to see if I could call out via crap phone, I got a over the air message saying I need to charge this, it also connected to media net (data) but didn't let me access anything. This is awesome, as it will make testing basically free ($10 disposable phone with SIM card)

Now here's the bad news. I guess I miss understood the relevance of the freqs when deciding on a carrier. As stated before the modem uses 900 1800 1900mhz, att uses 850 and 1900mhz, this results in not only slower speeds, but 850mhz is apparently the freqs att uses for voice coms. This isn't a show stopper by any means because I did make first contact.

what this says is media net contact is a go... i'll read further into all this in a bit, but just wanted to jump on here and give the good news. Might still be able to do voice through att, but the quick and dirty says no. So I'll be looking more into this and possibly what other phone carrier in the US that uses 900mhz instead of 850

 

[Japa]

good news, but I must say that somehow the wording of that post made me think of skynet, can't imagine why.

 

[borgqueenx]

can you tell how you would want to use the pandora to kind of wake up when a sms comes in or a call? from standby or something? (on standby it cant receive anything...?)
i dont understand this matter, how you are planning to handle this

 

[SNESFAN]

well the first thought that came to mind was like the mp3 player rumor that it gets 100 hours (was reading it was more like 40 but still) but turn off everything that isn't being used lcd,, scale down the processor to what would be required to talk to the modem and bluetooth, not the actual "standby" but a power save mode. Have either a wake on lan sorta thing but with the GSM radio, or use the sensor to turn everything back on when you open the device. I'm sure you can edit the hell out of the power settings, something creative will be thought up I'm sure.

-------------------------
unrelated, but I got that 3in right angle usb cord in the mail today, did a mock up, kinda think I should have gone with a 4 inch version as the 3 inch doesn't quite bend the way I wanted it to, oh well live and learn

 

[deadfishes]

This is my first post,

Been following Pandora for a while though and been hoping for some sort of cell support.
I think the way to make it more ergonomic is the same solution that apple used with
the iPhone. The microphone button built into the ear buds would be THE idea to keep
from having to walk around with a huge Nintendo DS looking device stuck to your head.
Another idea would be blue tooth or 2ghz wireless ear piece. I think blue tooth is
garbage, so why not stick a normal wireless phone transmitter to the ear piece?

I am curious as to how you plan on fitting the sim-card into the Pandora considering
I don't think it has a place for a sim card? Or would this be something like a
SSH connection between a iPhone and the Pandora? Very curious about this aspect.
I totally think the Pandora team should add a sim card slot and have launch
with iPhone style ear buds with the multi-click button.

This lack of cellular / 3G may drive me too just keep running emulators
on my iPhone, however I would still drool over the Pandora's emulation abilities.
I just don't want to carry a crap ton of electronics with me all the time.

 

[gruso]

Welcome redfish. I'll clarify a few points for you:

- I don't think jb0yx ever planned to hold Pandora to his face. I should never have photoshopped that dumb picture for the blog. :lol: Headsets are a given.
- The SIM card will connect via a USB GSM/3G unit. As linked in the first post, and pictured above.
- The Pandora team won't be including a SIM card slot (or any other hardware changes).
- 3G via USB is already working on Pandora. Mobile internet will be doable right out of the box (assuming you have a compatible 3G dongle).

 

[axenzoku]

This conversation is floating away in a difficult direction... Here's an awesome idea to simplify things:

There's this awesome thing Sprint came out with:

MiFi™ 2200 by Novatel Wireless

It's pretty much 3G phone hardware in a tiny pocket-sized thin device. It's a Wireless Router that connects to 3G and provides you a personal Wi-Fi hotspot. It's made specifically for getting on the internet with WiFi. You could have this little buddy in your pocket or on a surface, and connect to it from your Pandora's WiFi. How about that...

Couple downfalls:

It doesn't accept SIM cards (so you can't do prepaid, limited to Sprint only).
I work at a Boost Mobile/Nextel/Sprint technical support call center so here's a little info: Sprint's CDMA network sucks. Very few coverage areas and tons of weird "home calling area" things. But, it's no secret, you can look up the coverage areas and the Terms of Service yourself, so it's ok.

See I wouldn't suggest the service, just that sort of device.

They're called "MiFi" Routers, instead of a 3g wireless aircard, it's a little wireless router that converts 3G into a WiFi signal you can connect to easily.

EDIT: Here it is:

http://www.novatelwireless.com/

novatel makes these things to accept SIM cards as well! There it is.
Now somebody just needs to make the software to make phone calls using regular internet instead of actual cell phone technology. They're smaller than a deck of cards.

 

[SNESFAN]

This conversation is floating away in a difficult direction... Here's an awesome idea to simplify things:

There's this awesome thing Sprint came out with:

MiFi™ 2200 by Novatel Wireless

It's pretty much 3G phone hardware in a tiny pocket-sized thin device. It's a Wireless Router that connects to 3G and provides you a personal Wi-Fi hotspot. It's made specifically for getting on the internet with WiFi. You could have this little buddy in your pocket or on a surface, and connect to it from your Pandora's WiFi. How about that...

Couple downfalls:

It doesn't accept SIM cards (so you can't do prepaid, limited to Sprint only).
I work at a Boost Mobile/Nextel/Sprint technical support call center so here's a little info: Sprint's CDMA network sucks. Very few coverage areas and tons of weird "home calling area" things. But, it's no secret, you can look up the coverage areas and the Terms of Service yourself, so it's ok.

See I wouldn't suggest the service, just that sort of device.

They're called "MiFi" Routers, instead of a 3g wireless aircard, it's a little wireless router that converts 3G into a WiFi signal you can connect to easily.

EDIT: Here it is:

http://www.novatelwireless.com/

novatel makes these things to accept SIM cards as well! There it is.
Now somebody just needs to make the software to make phone calls using regular internet instead of actual cell phone technology. They're smaller than a deck of cards.

I've been messing with this thing for like a week now and have made no progress, I keep trying to mess with the AT commands and nothing seems to be working. The closest I have gotten is ATD155555555; which turns over the modem but doesn't actually dial out, and running into the problem that the audio i do get is routed to the headphone jack on the aircard. This is starting to seem to be the way the device was physically designed to do. There isn't a software way to reroute it. If anyone knows anything about this, input would be extremely appreciated.

I have been sorta sidetracked lately, just upgraded my ipod touch 2g to 3.0 and jailbroke it. Getting all that happy crap to work, I came up with an idea for the ipod that just found out isn't a possibility at the moment.
skype + ipod + BT headset + portable wifi = cheap iphone. unfortuneatly ipod only works with bluetooth headphones... and the headsets don't support the mic so unless someone does magic and rewrites the Bluetooth stack in the ipod that's dead
next was
skype + iphone 3g + blackberry data only plan on att = you can edit skype to use 3g instead of wifi.. don't got the link but you can.

ATT BB data only plan is 35/mo +
unlimited messaging 20/mo +
Skype unlimited 3/mo +
Skype phone number 30/yr
total bill ends up being ~60/mo for unlimited talk (voip) + unlimited messaging (phone) + "unlimited data" most plans say 5GB limit this one specifically does not
***noted this voip is against att's TOS***

Now this wasn't the way I wanted to go with this but voip might be the better solution it's obviously the best as far as price goes. And will probably be easiest. It takes alot to make me give up on something, but the gsm voice might be a dead option unless like I said someone who knows more about what I'm doing than I do gives some input.

What I think would be next would be to start thinking about a good voip solution, http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Open+Source+VOIP+Software and just use 3g dongle that is said to work already. This would also be good for people who just want to use this but just want to use wifi.

 

[aliking]

Hey jb0yx, very sorry to see that this is not working out for you so far. Before you give up, maybe give T-Mobile a try? From your previous post it seemed to me that the fact that AT&T is using 850mhz for voice would be a showstopper.

There are no US networks using the 900 or 1800 bands, but from this page:

http://www.repeaterstore.com/news/800mhz-vs-1900-mhz-when-do-you-need-dual-band/

...assuming the information is in date, T-mobile is using the 1900 band for data and voice.

a

 

[Dieter_be]

Hi,
maybe i'm missing something but wouldn't it be possible to just install Android/OpenMoko on the device and get the cellphone stuff for free?
Or is it stricter about the supported hardware?

 

[SNESFAN]

@ aliking
the 1900 frequency is enough for it to connect, the 850 is normally the primary for att and 800 for t-mob but I could clearly see the network once I queried the available networks (cingular) so the carrier isn't the issue I don't think... I just don't know enough about AT commands to get this to work. I did ask for outside assistance from the guys at the tuxphone project http://www.opencellphone.org but it looks like that project is all but dead or they just haven't responded yet but they look like they got it going on.

@ Dieter_be
much stricter, basic concept is good, android does know what to say it to the networks once it can read the hardware. problem is writing drivers for the radio modules for android... this is why you don't see every handset and their mother running a hacked android on their smartphone (at least one that works)

 

[SNESFAN]

to let everyone know about my "trick up my sleeve for sms" been testing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateway and have been able to send messages to my phone via email. I'm not able to reply yet but was thinking about useing either a email spoofer or setting up my own email server to adjust the sent from address as that's the reason you can't reply it seems... it has to be formatted correctly but that's how carriers talk to each other for sms messages. Makes me REALLY wonder why they charge so much to send sms given the extremely small size and the ease of routing.... probally just because they can.... anywho... check this out send message to ####@carier.com (look it up on the link above) and it does work... tell me what you think and/or find out

 

[rumsey]

This conversation is floating away in a difficult direction... Here's an awesome idea to simplify things:

There's this awesome thing Sprint came out with:

MiFi™ 2200 by Novatel Wireless

It's pretty much 3G phone hardware in a tiny pocket-sized thin device. It's a Wireless Router that connects to 3G and provides you a personal Wi-Fi hotspot. It's made specifically for getting on the internet with WiFi. You could have this little buddy in your pocket or on a surface, and connect to it from your Pandora's WiFi. How about that...

Couple downfalls:

It doesn't accept SIM cards (so you can't do prepaid, limited to Sprint only).
I work at a Boost Mobile/Nextel/Sprint technical support call center so here's a little info: Sprint's CDMA network sucks. Very few coverage areas and tons of weird "home calling area" things. But, it's no secret, you can look up the coverage areas and the Terms of Service yourself, so it's ok.

See I wouldn't suggest the service, just that sort of device.

They're called "MiFi" Routers, instead of a 3g wireless aircard, it's a little wireless router that converts 3G into a WiFi signal you can connect to easily.

EDIT: Here it is:

http://www.novatelwireless.com/

novatel makes these things to accept SIM cards as well! There it is.
Now somebody just needs to make the software to make phone calls using regular internet instead of actual cell phone technology. They're smaller than a deck of cards.

Well, at best all this would let you do is use wifi on your Pandora. Which means no SMS, no phone calls. Sure, a VoIP option could handle the voice, but that's really defeating the purpose of the project (imo).
Also, I bought a the HTC g1 from tmobile about a month ago in preparation of getting the Pandora. The g1 supports 3g tethering via usb, bluetooth, and wifi. (although this violates t-mobiles service, they really have no way of knowing.) So basically, the idea is I take my phone and Pandora everywhere, use my phone for SMS and voice, and also have a "MiFi" router in my pocket at all times, with no extra hardware. I think I'm pretty set now on the Pandora front, and really even if all this GPRS stuff worked the Pandora could never replace my real phone because its too large to take everywhere I go, and having a bluetooth headset on my head 24 hours a day is simply out of the question.

For anyone looking for a way to get wifi wherever though for the Pandora, I think this method is much more preferable than carrying around the MiFi, although it is a small nice piece of hardware.

 

[SNESFAN]

Well, at best all this would let you do is use wifi on your Pandora. Which means no SMS, no phone calls. Sure, a VoIP option could handle the voice, but that's really defeating the purpose of the project (imo).
Also, I bought a the HTC g1 from tmobile about a month ago in preparation of getting the Pandora. The g1 supports 3g tethering via usb, bluetooth, and wifi. (although this violates t-mobiles service, they really have no way of knowing.) So basically, the idea is I take my phone and Pandora everywhere, use my phone for SMS and voice, and also have a "MiFi" router in my pocket at all times, with no extra hardware. I think I'm pretty set now on the Pandora front, and really even if all this GPRS stuff worked the Pandora could never replace my real phone because its too large to take everywhere I go, and having a bluetooth headset on my head 24 hours a day is simply out of the question.
For anyone looking for a way to get wifi wherever though for the Pandora, I think this method is much more preferable than carrying around the MiFi, although it is a small nice piece of hardware.

I've been reading alot up on voip and a problem you will run into with running this on like a 3g or cdma network is the latency, voip ... SIP, skype etc will drop your calls quite frequently if you are experienceing lots of latency, or the calls will be garbage, time between responses, will it work? Probably, will it be garbage? Probably.

The latency is the whole reason carriers still use GSM voice rather than just use VOIP themselves, (they're not stupid) and lessen their footprint and still charge you the same. It is coming along though, with "4G" and "WiMax" this is the future ladies and gentlemen, low latency and truly unlimited data cap. All phones will be some form of voip in the future... they might not publicly announce it but the days of GSM and AT commands will be phased out eventually. But unless you live in like 1/1000th of the USA you won't be getting 4g anytime soon.

After seeing tuxphone, regardless if it is dead or not doesn't matter. It's the point that it at one point worked. It has re-inspired me not to give up on this, I would like help, but if nobody is willing to help I guess I'll take it on by myself, it's going to take infinitely longer, but it will eventually get there. I like the reasoning behind tuxphone and openmoko and it will be my goal as well. Not to be bound by what the carriers want you to have, unable to lock down the software to remove functionality that you are paying for. Make the carriers just the delivery method rather than the gatekeeper, they will still own alot of the keys but some will be in our hands rather than just all theirs. Standing up against the man is more motivation than just because you can.

 

[Japa]

all I can say is that if you end up with any way to make voice calls from the panda, no matter the interface, and they use GSM, rather then some kind of VOIP, you will be my hero.

Sadly, I am unable to help, due to the fact that my programming skills are limited to... ohh... the C64.

where I live, getting cheap cell phone internet is a real pain, and the just introduced 3G here,but only in the major cities.

 

[rumsey]

After seeing tuxphone, regardless if it is dead or not doesn't matter. It's the point that it at one point worked. It has re-inspired me not to give up on this, I would like help, but if nobody is willing to help I guess I'll take it on by myself, it's going to take infinitely longer, but it will eventually get there. I like the reasoning behind tuxphone and openmoko and it will be my goal as well. Not to be bound by what the carriers want you to have, unable to lock down the software to remove functionality that you are paying for. Make the carriers just the delivery method rather than the gatekeeper, they will still own alot of the keys but some will be in our hands rather than just all theirs. Standing up against the man is more motivation than just because you can.

I see where you're going with this, but hasn't Android already allowed us to have an open phone system with no lock down of software or functionality? Sure it might be a pain getting it working on any given set of hardware, but people have succeeded at doing it and the results are impressive.

 

[SNESFAN]

After seeing tuxphone, regardless if it is dead or not doesn't matter. It's the point that it at one point worked. It has re-inspired me not to give up on this, I would like help, but if nobody is willing to help I guess I'll take it on by myself, it's going to take infinitely longer, but it will eventually get there. I like the reasoning behind tuxphone and openmoko and it will be my goal as well. Not to be bound by what the carriers want you to have, unable to lock down the software to remove functionality that you are paying for. Make the carriers just the delivery method rather than the gatekeeper, they will still own alot of the keys but some will be in our hands rather than just all theirs. Standing up against the man is more motivation than just because you can.

I see where you're going with this, but hasn't Android already allowed us to have an open phone system with no lock down of software or functionality? Sure it might be a pain getting it working on any given set of hardware, but people have succeeded at doing it and the results are impressive.

none of these ports actually work as a phone though do they? I haven't followed every single android port project, but most of them that I noticed are still working on the basic phone operation. Touch screen and wifi seems to work in some of them. Don't get me wrong these are kick ass projects, but not a clear cut.. why don't you just do android

This was one of the main goals of android, open platform, but for the phones that actually release with android lots of portions were locked down due to requests from the carrier.

 

[SNESFAN]

snip snip
I've been reading alot up on voip and a problem you will run into with running this on like a 3g or cdma network is the latency, voip ... SIP, skype etc will drop your calls quite frequently if you are experienceing lots of latency, or the calls will be garbage, time between responses, will it work? Probably, will it be garbage? Probably.
snip snip

so I didn't want to take what I've read for gospel so I tried it myself. Here was the setup;

Enabled tethering on my palm pre (awesome phone btw) and turned it into a mobile wifi hotspot. Then I downloaded skype on my nokia N810 (closest thing I own to a pandora) paired my bluetooth headset and decided to do some testing. At home where I have no problem getting normal phone calls and very decent call quality. I was eventually was able to connect and log into skype after several failed to connects (cdma signal quality) After I logged in I made some phone calls. First without bluetooth then with. Although the bluetooth radio in the N810 is pretty shitty it didn't really effect the actual call. It just make the skips and breaks even more annoying with the scratchy bluetooth connection. (I once heard a cd skip on the local radio station this is the best way I can describe it)

I went outside where I useally get better data connection and it was clearer, still pretty scratchy but I could tell I was getting a better connection to skype. A call got dropped and my skype client closed on me.

So this does confirm voip over evdo-rev A and 3g (although not laggy like I was thinking, decent stream once it got connected no complaints about delays from other end) is not reliable and shouldn't be used as a solution for this just for the simple fact of quality and stability of connection is just not up there with normal GSM voice

 

[Polk1986]

After seeing tuxphone, regardless if it is dead or not doesn't matter. It's the point that it at one point worked. It has re-inspired me not to give up on this, I would like help, but if nobody is willing to help I guess I'll take it on by myself, it's going to take infinitely longer, but it will eventually get there. I like the reasoning behind tuxphone and openmoko and it will be my goal as well. Not to be bound by what the carriers want you to have, unable to lock down the software to remove functionality that you are paying for. Make the carriers just the delivery method rather than the gatekeeper, they will still own alot of the keys but some will be in our hands rather than just all theirs. Standing up against the man is more motivation than just because you can.

I have been considering building a modular ARM based smartbook for some time, and would like to help with development as soon as my finances stabilize a bit. Perhaps developing the protocol would work best interfaced to a BeagleBoard at the moment to make sure all the embedded parts work? You may have already mentioned this as I read through all the posts rather quickly on the first run through.

Also, if I may be so bold, I would like to suggest a different route for hardware. Telit makes a range of cellular chipsets, and also has a "unified form factor" which uses the same commands on CDMA or GSM based chipsets that are the same dimensions. Thus, if we were able to get one of these chipsets to work all of them would, and people could select the particular chipset they wanted for their network. For CDMA, you would need to go into the store and register the IMEA number (if I am correct), but you could just put the SIM in for GSM networks. The North American versions of the chipsets are the GC864, UC864, and CC864. There are also other chipsets for various global markets, I just happen to live in the states, so those are the chipsets I have been looking at the most. The UC and CC models also have built in GPS if we wanted to add that feature later on. These chipsets all have linux drivers, and if I remember correctly, the TuxPhone may have used a Telit module (admittedly an older model).