1
We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
Refuting the common and flawed argument of
Topics /
Hardware & Electronics
The most popular blog posts about hardware & electronics on Hacker News. 326 posts.
2
Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones
I’m surprised that you’re surprised
3
Two new PebbleOS watches
Including my dream smartwatch…
4
Hosting a website on a disposable vape
Someone's trash is another person's web server.
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Pebble Watch software is now open source
Pebble Watch Software Is Now 100% Open Source + Tick Talk #4 - PT2 Demos!
6
Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android
Simple tools for smart, attractive people like you
7
Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio (2024)
Last week, I went on an adventure through the electromagnetic spectrum!
8
Steam Brick: No screen, no controller, just a power button and a USB port
Brick your Steam Deck - one way or another…
9
Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end
In 2020, Apple released the M1 with a custom GPU. We got to work reverse-engineering the hardware and porting Linux. Today, you can run Linux on a range of M1 and M2 Macs, with almost all hardware working: wireless, audio, and full graphics acceleration.
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Root shell on a credit card terminal
In this project, I started to reverse engineer payment card terminals because they seemed to be an interesting target for security research, given the high stakes involved. Although I initially didn’t know much about this industry, I did expect a ton of security features and a very security-hardened device. And to…
11
Design for 3D-Printing
Deep dive into mechanical design that is optimized for 3d-printing.
12
Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?
How Chinas strategic focus on 3D printing and patent incentives since 2020 created a "minefield".
13
Self driving 1993 Volvo with open pilot
Together with some friends, I decided earlier this year to particpate in the Carbage run 2025 Winter edition. This is a 6-day journey in winter all the way through Sweden to the polar circle, and back down to Helsinki in a group of roughly 400 cars. One small catch (you might have guessed it from the name): your car…
14
UK's hardware talent is being wasted
Imperial, Oxford, and Cambridge produce world-class engineers. Yet post-graduation, their trajectory is an economic tragedy - and a hidden arbitrage opportunity.
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Blog hosted on a Nintendo Wii
If you are reading this message, the experiment below is still ongoing. This page was served to you by a real Nintendo Wii.
16
I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives …
17
1.5 TB of VRAM on Mac Studio – RDMA over Thunderbolt 5
Apple gave me access to this Mac Studio cluster to test RDMA over Thunderbolt, a new feature in macOS 26.2. The easiest way to test it is with Exo 1.0, an open source private AI clustering tool. RDMA lets the Macs all act like they have one giant pool of RAM, which speeds up things like massive AI models. The stack of…
18
Homemade polarimetric synthetic aperture radar drone
Designing a cheap synthetic aperture radar mounted on FPV drone.
19
Building a T1D smartwatch for my son from scratch
The software from this project has been ported to the new Pebble watch here . Source code for the Pebble watchface is available here .
20
How does a screen work?
From electron guns to tiny electric crystals - digital displays have always been the unsung hero of computing.
21
No I don't want to turn on Windows Backup with One Drive
Microsoft is doing everything in its power to alienate users. When it's not enshittification, it's user hostility. You can't even dismiss forced reminders.
22
What's the strongest AI model you can train on a laptop in five minutes?
What’s the strongest model I can train on my MacBook Pro in five minutes? I’ll give the answer upfront: the best 5-minute model I could train was a ~1.8M-param…
23
Exploiting the IKKO Activebuds “AI powered” earbuds (2024)
So my journey with these earbuds started after I saw them on this Mrwhosetheboss video about pointless tech. This device seems to be also popular on TikTok. My suspicions were confirmed, this runs android. So of course i went ahead and bought them. 245 euros later... and they finally arrived!
24
The most unhinged video wall, made out of Chromebooks
This is the story of our three year long journey to turn a fleet of laptops into what can only be described as the world's most unhinged video wall.
25
Wanted to spy on my dog, ended up spying on TP-Link
I recently bought a cheap Tapo indoor camera to see what my dog gets up to when I am out of the house.
26
I can't upgrade to Windows 11, now leave me alone
Microsoft has deprecated windows 10, yet million of users still use it. They say the hardware is not supported, yet they keep pestering us with endless pings.
27
US Intel
The U.S. taking an equity stake in Intel is a terrible idea; it also happens to be the least bad idea to make Intel Foundry viable.
28
Why is my CPU usage always 100%?
If you’re new to this series, I’ve been documenting the process I went through upgrading my old PXA166-based Chumby 8’s 2.6.28 Linux kernel to a modern 6.x version. Here are links to parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , and 8 . At this point in the project, all of the main hardware peripherals were working great. I…
29
MacBook Pro Insomnia
Update (01.08.2025): fixed broken link, typo, clarified problematic behaviour For a number of years now I have a MacBook Pro Silicon M1 Max. It worked beautifully. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I started noticing that the battery drained over night when I left the notebook somewhere, not connected to power. This got…
30
The AirPods Pro 3 flight problem
Testing Apple’s latest noise-cancelling earbuds at 39,000 feet reveals a potential flaw most users won’t notice, until they fly.