Samwise Makers' News
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
The ESP32 Gets A Web Browser
At Hackaday Europe in Italy, maker Alun Morris demonstrated something previously unseen: a working web browser running on an ESP32 microcontroller. Built on a Cheap Black Display development board, the project runs FreeRTOS with separate HTML retrieval, tokenizing, and UI processes. The browser operates in text mode and successfully retrieved Hackaday as its proof of concept. Web pages can be fetched directly, with a server-side proxy available for difficult sites and image thumbnail generation. While an ESP32 is a powerful microcontroller, Hackaday notes this is the first browser they have seen running on one. The project is published on GitHub, and the dev board costs a few dollars from AliExpress.
Sources: Hackaday
Building A Portable Weather Radar
A maker has repurposed a salvaged Winegard Carryout Anser GM-5000 motorized satellite dome, originally designed to track TV satellites on an RV, into a scanning weather radar antenna. The build uses a cheap software-defined radio that injects an 850 MHz signal, which the dish's low-noise block converter up-converts to 10.4 GHz in the X-band. Raindrops, hail, and airborne debris reflect echoes back, which the LNB down-converts to 850 MHz for the SDR to capture. The project code is hosted on GitHub. Anyone replicating the build in the United States needs at minimum a Technician class amateur radio license, as the 10.0–10.5 GHz 3 cm band is an amateur allocation.
Sources: Hackaday
Thingino Teaches Cheap IP Cameras New Tricks
Looking for an affordable camera to monitor a Prusa 3D printer, one maker turned to Thingino, a Linux-based open-source firmware for cameras built on Ingenic system-on-chip hardware. With support for 166 camera models at time of writing, Thingino replaces proprietary cloud-dependent software with a full Linux operating system accessible over SSH. While official Prusa Connect support lives in a development branch that has not yet merged into the mainline, the author uses a Bash script running directly on the camera to push images into Prusa’s API. The Thingino firmware project is hosted on GitHub at themactep/thingino-firmware.
Sources: Hackaday
Behold The Most Beautifully Ambitious Starship Simulator Yet
Retired maker Kevin Kelm has spent a year building Halcyon Dawn, a fan-made starship simulator inspired by John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War book series. The custom hardware console features 152 physical controls and six screens, all of which are meaningful to piloting the ship through mining, combat, and survival scenarios. The build runs on Enigma, Kelm’s ESP32-based open-source framework of input and output PCBs designed to integrate switches and other physical controls. While the game itself is not being publicly released as a fan-made derivative, the underlying Enigma hardware framework has been shared on GitHub at madgoatlabs/enigma.
Sources: Hackaday
Samsung’s SmartThings API Terminates Free Access
Samsung will end free access to the SmartThings API in October 2026, introducing a $4.99 per month plan for individual developers alongside commercial tiers at undisclosed pricing. The API is used by third-party developers to build custom smart-home integrations, connect platforms such as Home Assistant, and automate devices outside the official SmartThings app. Hackaday notes Samsung is the first major smart-home platform to charge individual developers for API access. Free access continues through the end of Q3, September 2026. Neither rate limits nor API call caps for the paid plan have been disclosed by Samsung, and no commercial tier pricing has been published.
Sources: Hackaday
FreeBSD Just Removed The Last Of Its GPL-Licensed Code
FreeBSD has completed a long-running project by removing the last GPL-licensed code from its base system. The final change replaced the dialog utility with bsddialog, also eliminating the entire GNU subtree from the codebase. While the practical impact will be minor for most users, the licensing distinction matters: the GPL is a reciprocal license requiring derivative works to carry GPL terms, while BSD licenses merely require declaring the use of BSD-licensed code. FreeBSD’s permissive approach has allowed its code to appear in MacOS, the PlayStation’s Orbis OS, and the BSD networking stack used in both Windows and macOS.
Sources: Hackaday
Cassegotchi: Arduino Nano Tamagotchi
A maker going by heychaostheory has published Cassegotchi, an open-source Tamagotchi emulator built around an Arduino Nano R3 and a 168×64 OLED display, housed in a 3D-printed egg-shaped shell. Three push-button switches mirror the original Tamagotchi’s three-button scheme for feeding, scolding, and menu navigation. Power comes from a lithium-polymer battery wired through a Li-Po charging module, making the device rechargeable and pocketable. The firmware is a modified build of ArduinoGotchi, an open-source emulator originally released by Gary Kwok under the GPL license. All design files are available on Instructables for anyone looking to solder and print one over a weekend.
Sources: Adafruit
Waveshare RP2350-POE-ETH: RP2350 Board With PoE
Waveshare has released the RP2350-POE-ETH, a development board pairing the Raspberry Pi RP2350A microcontroller with wired networking via a WIZnet W6300 chip and an optional Power-over-Ethernet module. The RP2350A features dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 and dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 processors both clocked at 150 MHz, 520KB of internal SRAM, 8KB of OTP storage, and 16Mbit of SPI NOR flash. The Ethernet port runs at 10/100Mbps, with a six-pin header for an optional PoE module. The board comes in four variants and is priced from $13.99 to $18.99 on the Waveshare store, supporting MicroPython, C/C++, and Arduino.
Sources: CNX Software
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. HeyGears G1 Series — ~$10M raised (Kickstarter, active)
2. RootBoard — $23,799 / 476% funded (Kickstarter, ended Jul 25)
3. None this week
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. alunmorris/babe32-ESP32-web-browser — ESP32 text-mode browser
2. themactep/thingino-firmware — Linux firmware for 166+ IP cameras
3. madgoatlabs/enigma — ESP32 PCB framework for physical controls
Upcoming Events
Mark Your Calendar
Maker Faire Hannover — Aug 15–16, 2026, Germany
Maker Faire Bay Area — Sep 25–27, 2026, Mare Island
Hackaday Supercon — Nov 6–8, 2026, Pasadena CA
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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