Samwise Makers' News
Sunday, June 21, 2026
QuadRF Puts Phase-Coherent Four-Channel SDR in Makers’ Hands
The QuadRF project brings phase-coherent, four-channel software-defined radio (SDR) within reach of hackers and researchers. Built around a Lattice ECP5 FPGA and a Raspberry Pi 5, the RF board features four patch antennas covering 4.9 GHz to 6.0 GHz with switchable polarization, connected to the Pi via MIPI cables for high-speed data transfer. Multiple boards can be tiled into larger phased arrays. Compatible with GNU Radio, its standout built-in application is an RF camera scanning the full frequency range at 30 frames per second, spatially visualising detected signals. Developers demonstrated it tracking a drone in flight and distinguishing between the craft’s two separate radio transmitters.
Sources: Hackaday
Pine64 Launches PineVoice, a $50 RISC-V Smart Speaker for Home Assistant
Pine64 has launched the PineVoice, a $49.99 RISC-V smart speaker aimed at Home Assistant users who value local, private voice control. The device runs on the Bouffalo Lab BL606P, a RISC-V wireless MCU pairing a T-Head C906 core at 480 MHz with a T-Head E907 at 320 MHz. Onboard connectivity covers WiFi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee, backed by 32 MiB of pSRAM and 16 MiB of Flash. Hardware includes dual microphones, a speaker, USB 2.0 OTG, volume and mute controls, and four RGB LEDs. Pine64 describes it as a smart speaker devkit still in early-stage development, with wake-word detection flagged as a known performance limitation.
Sources: CNX Software
iFixit Teardown of Oura Ring 5 Exposes Smart Ring E-Waste Crisis
iFixit’s teardown of the Oura Ring 5 highlights the e-waste problem posed by sealed wearable devices. The $400 smart ring required extreme heat to separate its inner ring from the metal-and-epoxy outer shell, at which point its tiny 10.5 mAh LiPo battery had already popped from thermal stress. Further disassembly required damaging force, leaving the ring entirely non-functional and no longer waterproof. The teardown arrives as the EU’s February 2027 deadline for user-replaceable batteries approaches, creating pressure on manufacturers to fundamentally redesign devices like smart rings or exit the EU market. Nintendo has already produced a special Switch 2 variant for EU battery compliance.
Sources: Hackaday
ESP32-S3 Brings Smart Lighting Sync to Bambu Lab P1S via MQTT
A maker has added a smart external LED light strip to the Bambu Lab P1S 3D printer using an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, synchronising it with the printer’s internal chamber light via MQTT over the local network. When the P1S chamber light activates during a print, the ESP32-S3 listens for the MQTT message and triggers the external strip, providing matched ambient illumination for time-lapses or monitoring. The project is a clean example of extending a closed commercial 3D printer’s behaviour through its network interface rather than physical modification, requiring only the ESP32-S3 module, the LED strip, and access to the printer’s local MQTT broker.
Sources: Hackster.io
Ghost Edge AI Sticker Puts nRF54L15 SoC into Paper-Thin Sensor Node
The Ghost Edge AI Sticker is a paper-thin, flexible sensor node built around Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF54L15 wireless SoC, designed as an unobtrusive, sticker-mounted edge AI platform. The form factor is closer to a label than a traditional PCB, yet the nRF54L15 provides wireless connectivity and sufficient on-device compute for local inference tasks. The project targets applications where conventional rigid PCB sensor nodes would be intrusive or impractical, including smart packaging, structural health monitoring, and wearable sensing at scale. The nRF54L15 handles Bluetooth Low Energy communication and on-device processing without external cloud dependency, keeping data processing entirely at the edge.
Sources: Hackster.io
Edgeberry Zero Carrier Board Gives Raspberry Pi Zero a Field-Ready IoT Foundation
The Edgeberry Zero tackles a recurring frustration for Pi Zero IoT builds: fragile connectors and inadequate power handling. The carrier board mates with a Raspberry Pi Zero and provides a robust power supply alongside a purpose-built interface connector designed for reliable field deployment. The goal is to give the bare Pi Zero a stable hardware foundation for IoT edge applications without requiring builders to source and assemble power regulation and connector circuitry from scratch. The project addresses the gap between the Pi Zero’s capable compute and its bare-board form factor, which lacks the ruggedised support components many real-world deployment scenarios require.
Sources: Hackaday
Inside a Cooked 10 Gbit SFP+ Module: What Kills These Network Transceivers
A maker performed a detailed autopsy of 10 Gbit SFP+ networking modules that began dropping frames after extended operation, running at 40 degrees Celsius even while idle. The teardown examined the internal circuitry of these small form-factor pluggable transceivers and investigated the thermal and electrical failure modes responsible for degraded performance. The analysis is useful for network tinkerers who rely on SFP+ modules in home labs or small-scale infrastructure, where heat buildup inside dense switch chassis can quietly degrade 10 GbE link quality long before a module fully fails. The hands-on disassembly applies the right-to-repair lens to networking hardware.
Sources: Hackaday
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. CardputerZero (M5Stack) — 12,057 backers, $10,017 goal — Kickstarter
2. xTool WonderPress — active campaign — Kickstarter
3. Revopoint POP 4 (3D scanner) — active campaign — Kickstarter
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. davidmonterocrespo24/velxio — Arduino/ESP32/Pi browser emulator
2. wled/WLED — LED control firmware (v16 milestone)
3. arduino — 600k+ stars across official org repos
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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