While I do agree it was/is weird, and it was/is hard to qualify, toy isn't the word I'd reach for. I find myself using it for some odd task once every few months. Cloning a keycard, temporarily standing in for a broken remote, etc. I'm glad I have it, but I was given it for free and I wouldn't pay for it.
When folks ask me what it is, my answer is 'an electronic Swiss Army knife', which is the best analogy I've been able to come up with so far. The Flipper Zero isn't necessary the best tool for any one specific job, but it's a really good tool for doing a lot of different jobs acceptably.
> This new one is… yeah not sure. More of the same?
Not even. It's an ARM SBC in a weird case. The F0 was interesting because it had a bunch of oddball radio/IO peripherals; F1 doesn't seem to have anything comparable.
Same! I'll occasionally use it for something just to get stared down by an angry dolphin :/
(Most recently, to verify the microchip in our rescue)
It really bugged me that one of its selling features was the ability to open doors and gates and such, but it refused to open my garage door (which has an '80s pre-rolling-codes old fashioned signal, but it's within the standard bands) because of some FCC technicality. I heard there was some third-party firmware that enabled such things, but it made me wary that it might be illegal to install...
I'm curious has anyone tried hooking up abliterated large language models to systems like this for physical pen-testing? I know there has been lots of hype lately on the capabilities of large language models at finding and exploiting bugs in online software. I know very little about physical pen-testing but would large language models also open up vulnerabilities in the kinds of things this interfaces with or do digital door locks and such have higher levels of security?
I have one collecting dust that I stopped using years ago just because I got bored with it so if you wanna work together, I’m happy to. I’d love to see it get more use.
I think the new one might be better as you can run an agent or server on it and get llm to use it. With the old one you had to push buttons as I understand it?
I don't know about security devices specifically, but I have semi-successfully reverse engineered some abandoned IoT devices by giving DeepSeek and Claude access to a USB flash writer, logic analyzer and power relay for the devices.
I imagine they could be used to do physical pen testing just as easily. From my experience with digital door locks, their level of security is on average, somewhere between a piece of tape and a $5 padlock.
I think you're overcomplicating things a little bit. A better example of this would be like what I did recently, where I needed to change some non-user-accessible values on a device, could not get ahold of the firmware, and the spec sheets were all behind NDA walls. Instead, I opened it up and read the flash directly, thankfully it was unencrypted, and let deepseek pick it apart and give me a script to fuck with various values including the one I wanted to edit.
Basically like using a gameshark/game genie with extra steps.
Yes, because technically there are already plenty of solutions out there that can do what the Flipper One does.
No, because Pavel (the guy behind F0 and F1) has explained what makes their approach different, especially when it comes to UX. They even built their own UI kit around their design principles. And what they do basically the level of detailization that nobody goes that deep.
They have done it once with Flipper Zero (many other solutions existed before F0), they do it now again.
I run a startup, InfiShark Tech, where we sell hardware for physical / wireless pentesting.
A new hardware and software product is in the works which will have this type of functionality, including KVM control + AI computer usage. We're aiming to get a Kickstarter out for it early 2027.
Yeah, this is just a Linux computer. May as well get a raspi unless you particularly care about the form factor. Zero was the real interesting product.
flipper zero is just a small device with an SMT32 MCU,
flipper one is a whole bloody linux computer, with an rp2350
I suppose the idea is it combines workflows you'd use a flipper zero + pc for into one device.
Neat in idea, im not certain who it's truly for in practice. A flipper zero 2 with wifi built in and some minor improvements would have been much more welcome in my eyes.
I used it instead if needing to have a pocketful of access keys and garage/gate remotes. Also the remote control was great for random AC units or muting the sound on the airport lounge newsmax horror television.
but it broke too much and I found a better solution
Sorry...for the keys I got a very small chameleon ultra, fits on a keyring, the pocket toy has been replaced with a M5 cardputer which is better at being a real tool than flipper as it has all the sensor options.
The flipper was still a very nice thing to put in the pocket for along time for sure
Yeah, they should have included a comparison on the Kickstart page. If you check out the "we need your help" page, that has a chart with "Zero vs One":
Flipper Zero is for the physical layer: radio, RFID, IR, etc... It is based on a small microcontroller and is mostly "bare metal", think Arduino, ESP32,...
Flipper One is for the network layer: Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 5G, etc... It is a "real computer" running Linux, like a Raspberry Pi.
In this document we introduce a new hardware-based tool for diagnosis
and repair of network related hardware and software problems. This
tool is best suited to addressing nondeterministic problems such as
those described above. This tool has broad areas of application at
all levels of the OSI model; in addition to uses in the physical,
network, transport and application layers, it has been used to
successfully address problems at the political and religious layers
as well.
Flipper was born in Moscow from a collab mostly made of Russians and Ukrainians. They were pretty outspoken against the attack on Ukraine and have moved headqurters and almost completely relocated their employees since then.
I wish they would sell more replacement parts for the old ones. Like the main board or the sub boards.
I have broken mine twice from daily pocket use in wet environments and I don't feel like scrounging parts anymore.
Until the Kickstarter starts, which is planned for November. At which point you can redeem the coupon and back the Kickstarter and get it at a “special price” which is estimated to be $379 (might change up or down). Presumably this is lower than the Kickstarter price itself without the reservation coupon. A bit of a convoluted system, but you can get your $20 back anytime, and it automatically refunds if you don’t back the Kickstarter or the Kickstarter never launches, so that’s cool.
I already nabbed my coupon for the pre-order last week - looks super cool!
My F0 is always close at hand, doing everything from being my go-to trigger for whatever random thing I'm playing with, to being an instant output for any signal I'm trying to read. Plus it's a really fun educational tool for myself and various kids around - I keep a load of little NFC 216 tags around, in my bag, in a pouch attached to my Mac, and showing both young and old how to use them, and read them with the phone, leads to conversations about treasure hunts, hiding them in the pub, showing counters with amusing messages...
We used it as a metronome the other day with its blue light, and on the flip side I've been looking at ways to integrate it into my EDC as a modern key, or a programmable keyring. It isn't super-secure, but that does make it easier to work with.
I'm excited about the F1, mainly curious about its logic analyzer capabilities, since I'm actually designing and building one - even it is fifty times worse than a commercial one, I just want to know how they work. And these little devices help find out how other things work.
Also, this feels.. redundant, i already have those in my laptop, unlike flipper zero, it was about radio, rfid, nfc, ir, among others with great battery life. Right now my laptop i had it customized with modular 5g modem, SDR, meshcore, alfa, among others.
This is not similar, it is more like a Flipper Zero replica with Wi-Fi. Flipper One is almost like an SBC with portability and "better" wireless capabilities.
Just last week I was trying to sell my Flipper Zero as I don't use it. Even though it's legal, my listings have been deleted as the platforms are overzealous as it "might be used for hacking".
Well, if anyone is looking for one in Europe, let me know.
“Multi-WAN network toolkit — connect up to 5 uplinks. Configure dynamic routing, failover, load balancing, and firewall rules. Use it simultaneously as a Wi‑Fi hotspot and client. Tunnel traffic through a VPN and multiple gateways.
”
I haven’t been able to find an off the shelf device that provides this. I travel a fair bit and when sitting in an airport mobile hotspotting is often unusably slow. If I can use this to securely connect to public unencrypted wifi, it will make travelling that little bit easier
I've used a GL.iNet Slate 7 to bring my home network with me when I travel. It can connect to the internet through WiFi, ethernet, or tethered to a cell phone. The Mudi 7 does the same kind of thing, except it comes with a battery and a cell radio, too.
I use the UniFi travel router and it’s… ok? It is inexpensive and small and on paper a simple teleport to your home network. In practice it’s super unreliable. Turns out wifi is complicated.
People don't always have full control of their devices - I can't install arbitrary software on my work machine, for example, so a VPN back to my house isn't possible without a tool like this. This applies for appliances (eg, media streamer) where you can't install a VPN but want to access content from your home network.
There's other reasons too, such as not having to configure arbitrary wifi connections on your devices, as well as making sure there's zero traffic outside the VPN (eg, during the initial few seconds before an on-device VPN connects).
I suppose if you've got a number of devices (phone, laptop, tablet), it's easier to enter Wi-Fi details and agree to any captive portal stuff once rather than three times.
It would, but installing random vpn software on IT controlled hardware is a very much against policy
I also have to remember to turn the VPN on before I connect to the wifi, but only some wifis
Sure they are minor inconveniences, but configuring a device once and being confident I haven’t skipped a step or made a mistake and my network connection is secure - that’s a big deal for me.
Hmm, situational awareness of the local wireless environment? Like a travel router, but more?
Even when working from a fixed desk, I appreciate alternating desk work with strolling-thinking, when the environment permits it. Now, with incoming HMDs capable of laptop-like angular resolution, I've been exploring what an all-day NYC wander-and-pause setup/build might look like. Mobile local computes are easier now than they've ever been. Perhaps a SFF PC with multiple snap on MCIO/quick-disconnect-water GPUs+radiators? But agentic power demands... strolling with rolling battery luggage? Eep.
So perhaps ultra-light instead, a cloud PC, and always-on mobile networking to it? Multiplexing multiple cellular providers, and wifi? Perhaps with panel and cantennas. And... clueful juggling of the local wireless environment?
To get "for a better signal, I should walk along here rather than there"? Accumulating a personal neighborhood heat map? Or maybe "neat, in this weather, a cantenna gets library community wifi from across the river"? Or ...?
Wireless environment awareness has long seemed to me a fun concept, but with unclear use cases. It just now occurred to me this might be one? If not the Flipper One necessarily, something...
WiGLE WiFi is probably something you might find interesting, then. Or possibly Pwnagotchi if you're looking for a more specific use case, to which another comment has linked.
> Flipper One runs on completely open-source Linux firmware with a mainline kernel. This means ultimate compatibility with bleeding-edge kernel versions, free from vendor-specific BSP limitations and binary blobs.
How are they outperforming everyone else here? Even Raspberry Pi lags a little on mainline, to say nothing of the long tail of other SBCs (let alone Android devices)
But I'm guessing it's part Rockchip being more Linux-friendly than Broadcom and a group with a specific goal of a more open boot process. Or more simply, just different objectives or priorities than others in the space. And just to be clear, it's not as if they have everything working completely in vanilla Linux, they list peripherals or functions that aren't supported (NPU, video encoder, CSI).
ipkstef | 9 hours ago
thenthenthen | 8 hours ago
internetter | 8 hours ago
While I do agree it was/is weird, and it was/is hard to qualify, toy isn't the word I'd reach for. I find myself using it for some odd task once every few months. Cloning a keycard, temporarily standing in for a broken remote, etc. I'm glad I have it, but I was given it for free and I wouldn't pay for it.
nhecker | 5 hours ago
duskwuff | 7 hours ago
Not even. It's an ARM SBC in a weird case. The F0 was interesting because it had a bunch of oddball radio/IO peripherals; F1 doesn't seem to have anything comparable.
s3r | 6 hours ago
https://flipper.net/pages/flipper-one
pcurve_ | 8 hours ago
only to find out nfc-b would never come
meh
nja | 5 hours ago
It really bugged me that one of its selling features was the ability to open doors and gates and such, but it refused to open my garage door (which has an '80s pre-rolling-codes old fashioned signal, but it's within the standard bands) because of some FCC technicality. I heard there was some third-party firmware that enabled such things, but it made me wary that it might be illegal to install...
Daniel_Van_Zant | 9 hours ago
AndrewKemendo | 9 hours ago
exe34 | 8 hours ago
orsorna | 8 hours ago
devmor | 8 hours ago
I imagine they could be used to do physical pen testing just as easily. From my experience with digital door locks, their level of security is on average, somewhere between a piece of tape and a $5 padlock.
iugtmkbdfil834 | 8 hours ago
app134 | 8 hours ago
Used the findings to release a jailbreak so you can program the cheap consumer version ($1.6k) as though it were the expensive research version ($15k)
Very fun exercise
https://github.com/a-bissell/UnLeash-Lite
Daniel_Van_Zant | 2 hours ago
monster_truck | 8 hours ago
Basically like using a gameshark/game genie with extra steps.
rootsudo | 8 hours ago
zf00002 | 7 hours ago
mldbk | 4 hours ago
Yes, because technically there are already plenty of solutions out there that can do what the Flipper One does.
No, because Pavel (the guy behind F0 and F1) has explained what makes their approach different, especially when it comes to UX. They even built their own UI kit around their design principles. And what they do basically the level of detailization that nobody goes that deep.
They have done it once with Flipper Zero (many other solutions existed before F0), they do it now again.
george_max | 6 hours ago
A new hardware and software product is in the works which will have this type of functionality, including KVM control + AI computer usage. We're aiming to get a Kickstarter out for it early 2027.
coffeebeqn | 9 hours ago
vbezhenar | 8 hours ago
ChrisArchitect | 9 hours ago
Jemm | 9 hours ago
Eji1700 | 9 hours ago
LoganDark | an hour ago
miladyincontrol | 9 hours ago
I suppose the idea is it combines workflows you'd use a flipper zero + pc for into one device. Neat in idea, im not certain who it's truly for in practice. A flipper zero 2 with wifi built in and some minor improvements would have been much more welcome in my eyes.
jubilee33 | 8 hours ago
but it broke too much and I found a better solution
bronson | 8 hours ago
jubilee33 | 8 hours ago
The flipper was still a very nice thing to put in the pocket for along time for sure
nhecker | 5 hours ago
monster_truck | 8 hours ago
et-al | 8 hours ago
https://blog.flipper.net/flipper-one-we-need-your-help/
The two devices are complementary.
GuB-42 | 8 hours ago
Flipper Zero is for the physical layer: radio, RFID, IR, etc... It is based on a small microcontroller and is mostly "bare metal", think Arduino, ESP32,...
Flipper One is for the network layer: Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 5G, etc... It is a "real computer" running Linux, like a Raspberry Pi.
venusenvy47 | 7 hours ago
shagie | 6 hours ago
Daneel_ | 5 hours ago
shagie | 3 hours ago
RFC 2321 suggests that they are "political and religious" layers. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2321/
duskwuff | an hour ago
forvelin | 9 hours ago
kgeist | 8 hours ago
sigmoid10 | 8 hours ago
jubilee33 | 9 hours ago
dang | 9 hours ago
Flipper One – we need your help - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48220647 - May 2026 (482 comments)
Flipper One Tech Specs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48212046 - May 2026 (177 comments)
devmor | 8 hours ago
imzadi | 8 hours ago
MOARDONGZPLZ | 8 hours ago
vr46 | 8 hours ago
My F0 is always close at hand, doing everything from being my go-to trigger for whatever random thing I'm playing with, to being an instant output for any signal I'm trying to read. Plus it's a really fun educational tool for myself and various kids around - I keep a load of little NFC 216 tags around, in my bag, in a pouch attached to my Mac, and showing both young and old how to use them, and read them with the phone, leads to conversations about treasure hunts, hiding them in the pub, showing counters with amusing messages...
We used it as a metronome the other day with its blue light, and on the flip side I've been looking at ways to integrate it into my EDC as a modern key, or a programmable keyring. It isn't super-secure, but that does make it easier to work with.
I'm excited about the F1, mainly curious about its logic analyzer capabilities, since I'm actually designing and building one - even it is fifty times worse than a commercial one, I just want to know how they work. And these little devices help find out how other things work.
tamimio | 8 hours ago
Also, this feels.. redundant, i already have those in my laptop, unlike flipper zero, it was about radio, rfid, nfc, ir, among others with great battery life. Right now my laptop i had it customized with modular 5g modem, SDR, meshcore, alfa, among others.
sbarre | 8 hours ago
https://highboy.com.br/
george_max | 6 hours ago
Animats | 8 hours ago
dgellow | 8 hours ago
monster_truck | 8 hours ago
But when I do actually need it, for doing something like reading/flashing SPI, I'm very happy I have it.
auguzanellato | 8 hours ago
dalben | 8 hours ago
Well, if anyone is looking for one in Europe, let me know.
dammaj | 7 hours ago
dalben | 7 hours ago
phil-martin | 8 hours ago
“Multi-WAN network toolkit — connect up to 5 uplinks. Configure dynamic routing, failover, load balancing, and firewall rules. Use it simultaneously as a Wi‑Fi hotspot and client. Tunnel traffic through a VPN and multiple gateways. ”
I haven’t been able to find an off the shelf device that provides this. I travel a fair bit and when sitting in an airport mobile hotspotting is often unusably slow. If I can use this to securely connect to public unencrypted wifi, it will make travelling that little bit easier
wl | 7 hours ago
phil-martin | 7 hours ago
You just solved a big worry for me, thank you!
weinzierl | 7 hours ago
twalla | 4 hours ago
kimos | 6 hours ago
WithinReason | 6 hours ago
seanw444 | 5 hours ago
Daneel_ | 5 hours ago
There's other reasons too, such as not having to configure arbitrary wifi connections on your devices, as well as making sure there's zero traffic outside the VPN (eg, during the initial few seconds before an on-device VPN connects).
wolvoleo | an hour ago
Daneel_ | 30 minutes ago
jml7c5 | 5 hours ago
phil-martin | 2 hours ago
I also have to remember to turn the VPN on before I connect to the wifi, but only some wifis
Sure they are minor inconveniences, but configuring a device once and being confident I haven’t skipped a step or made a mistake and my network connection is secure - that’s a big deal for me.
mncharity | 7 hours ago
Even when working from a fixed desk, I appreciate alternating desk work with strolling-thinking, when the environment permits it. Now, with incoming HMDs capable of laptop-like angular resolution, I've been exploring what an all-day NYC wander-and-pause setup/build might look like. Mobile local computes are easier now than they've ever been. Perhaps a SFF PC with multiple snap on MCIO/quick-disconnect-water GPUs+radiators? But agentic power demands... strolling with rolling battery luggage? Eep.
So perhaps ultra-light instead, a cloud PC, and always-on mobile networking to it? Multiplexing multiple cellular providers, and wifi? Perhaps with panel and cantennas. And... clueful juggling of the local wireless environment?
To get "for a better signal, I should walk along here rather than there"? Accumulating a personal neighborhood heat map? Or maybe "neat, in this weather, a cantenna gets library community wifi from across the river"? Or ...?
Wireless environment awareness has long seemed to me a fun concept, but with unclear use cases. It just now occurred to me this might be one? If not the Flipper One necessarily, something...
nhecker | 5 hours ago
yjftsjthsd-h | 7 hours ago
How are they outperforming everyone else here? Even Raspberry Pi lags a little on mainline, to say nothing of the long tail of other SBCs (let alone Android devices)
thatfunkymunki | 7 hours ago
opello | 6 hours ago
https://docs.flipper.net/one/cpu-software/rk3576-mainlining
But I'm guessing it's part Rockchip being more Linux-friendly than Broadcom and a group with a specific goal of a more open boot process. Or more simply, just different objectives or priorities than others in the space. And just to be clear, it's not as if they have everything working completely in vanilla Linux, they list peripherals or functions that aren't supported (NPU, video encoder, CSI).
denysvitali | 5 hours ago