This page is about any hardware design project ideas I had in the past. Projects here were either put on hold or dropped due to the lack of time, lack of funds, lack of knowledge, the project being unrealistic or the project idea becoming obsolete.
NoteIO
NoteIO is one of the oldest mobile hardware projects I came up with. NoteIO was an idea to create a dedicated notetaking device that is completely offline. The device idea was effectively rendered obsolete with the use of self-hosted wiki instances and file storage that can be accessed from anywhere.
The original idea from early 2019 consisted of an Adafruit Grand Central microcontroller board, Adafruit RA8875 display controller, 7" resistive touchscreen LCD and battery control circuitry.
Later ideas in 2020 to 2022 were much more complex. For example, there was the idea of using an Texas Instruments Sitara AM62x-series SoC with ECC memory.
POW Card Replica
In July 2022, I had the idea of designing a mobile device that is a replica of a 'POW Card' from the 2017-2019 cartoon series 'OK KO Let's Be Heroes'. Initially, I considered using either an NXP i.MX6ULL or Ingenic X2000 SoC due to their low cost.
In January 2024, I considered working on the project again but using the Allwinner F1C200s SoC due to its tiny package size and low cost. Due to potential difficulties in the software stage, relating to the lack of video processor drivers which were only available as binary blobs, the project was shelved.
Later in 2024, there was the idea of bringing back the project using a Raspberry Pi Compute Module SoM. I do not expect to work on this in the near future.
SuperKey
SuperKey was an idea for a keyboard that has a touchscreen display to the side. The idea appeared in November-December 2020 after the success with MediaCow Touch.
Initial ideas for the hardware were comedically overcomplicated: In the initial idea from 2020, there was the idea to use a Cologne Chip GateMate FPGA along with a Cypress/Infineon EZ-USB FX3 USB controller for just the keyboard controller then the system that drives the LCD would be a single board computer with a Rockchip RK3399.
I don't plan on bringing back this project any time soon.