Show HN: Hacking a $20 4G wireless hotspot into a texting device

xx_ns

This is a really cool project! A mini cyberdeck that doesn't seem too impractical to use. Repurposing the Clicks keyboard is a genius idea.

dgf18

Really cool!

harhargange

I often ditch my phone and carry my hotspot device for my internet. The only drawback is that for viewing my texts and OTPs i end up putting the sim in my phone or opening up the web interface on my laptop. This seems to work very well as a dumbphone per se.

notpushkin

This is really nice! It so happens that I’ve just bought a $10 4G dongle [1], guess I’ll have to check what’s inside now :-) [1]: like this: https://img.joomcdn.net/ea91b4418997d83d802339fad0bbcf878b9d... --- Aside, but it appears some MSM8916-based dongles run Android UI despite having no display: https://github.com/u0d7i/uz801#screenshots

walrus01

Based on the work the person has done, if they wanted to make something with an exceedingly long battery life, and the battery setup there already seems to be basically a 1S li ion, they could graft in a back side battery holder for two high quality 18650 cells in parallel. It would probably last weeks.

VinnyBarreca

It would be pretty cool to put Hermes Agent or some agent system on that thing, assuming the OpenStick build has enough RAM/storage. That would be fire.

msm8916

OpenStick is super old though, there are Linux and OpenWRT builders that track the upstream kernel, check hkfuertes and others.

catidegla

One layer down from where this thread is looking: the SMS never lives in the Android userspace on these sticks. It sits in the modem's own store, either on the SIM or in modem memory, and the vendor web UI is just a thin thing reading it out of there. So you don't need a messaging app that still runs on Android 4.x. If the device exposes an AT port, AT+CMGF=1 then AT+CMGL="ALL" dumps everything, and AT+CPMS picks which store you're reading. On the Qualcomm ones that keep the AT port hidden behind QMI, libqmi reaches the same thing through the WMS service.

DingleDodies

This is cool and all, but what is the point? I have a feeling it could be useful for me but what is it really for?