Makers and tinkerers

Under the handset it’s a small, deliberately simple board you can understand in an afternoon: an ESP32-S3, twelve hot-swap MX keys and a key for the hook, a ready-made e-paper module on a header, an audio codec with a 3.5 mm handset jack, a piezo ringer, one LED and USB-C. Everything about it is published.

What you can change

• The look. Standard MX switches and 1u keycaps, a 3D-printable box in any colour, any CTIA handset on the jack.
• The firmware. C on ESP-IDF, with a console over USB, a QEMU simulator and host tests. Builds from source connect to no server and check for no updates until you choose (firmware reference).
• What the keys do. The labs firmware gives each key an action: ring another room, run a Home Assistant scene, play a story, send a keyboard shortcut. There are games too: press MENU ten times for Snake and Memory.
• The server and apps. TypeScript, AGPL-licensed, one codebase for Cloudflare and a Node server. The device protocol and the federation spec are written down, so you can write your own phone, app or server and still talk to everyone else.

Status

The hardware is an early prototype: four phones on hardware v0.1 dev boards are built and working, running the experimental labs build (0.0.0), lightly tested so far (full testing waits on the Wi-Fi antennas). Expect a revision. We recommend a virtual phone to start and board v1.0 before building your own; board v0.3 is coming for tinkerers, assembled or as a bare PCB.

Start

1. Build the hardware, or try everything first in the browser phone.
2. Make it yours: where to change what.
3. Contributing.