// ITS FOSS — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
MAKERphone 2.0 Lets You Build a 4G Phone and Vibe-Code Its Apps
Most of us carry a phone every day, but very few of us could say what's actually going on inside one. That gap is exactly what CircuitMess is trying to fill or should I say, has been trying to fill.
The Croatian company CircuitMess, founded by Albert Gajšak, ran its first MAKERphone campaign back in 2018, a build-it-yourself phone kit that raised over $324,000 and eventually shipped to more than 6,000 people as "Ringo."
Now there's a sequel. MAKERphone 2.0 is live on Kickstarter (partner link) and it has already sailed past its goal with weeks left to go.
The pitch is the same as before: you assemble a working mobile phone yourself, then learn to code on it. The major difference this time is that you don't need a soldering iron to do it. That's a big relief, for me at least, as I am terrible at soldering.
As you can see, the MAKERphone looks like the normal keypad cellphones. Here are the main details:
The kit starts at $119 for super early backers and climbs from there and goes for a retail price of $169.
This is a DIY gadget, the phone that arrives as a box of parts and a build guide, and you put it together into something that makes real calls and sends real texts over 4G LTE. Pop in a SIM and it behaves like an actual phone.
Now 4G seems like a step down from the usual 5G but the device is not supposed to replace your smartphone. If you are not going to use all those internet connected social media and apps, you don't really need 5G. I explain the concept later.
At the core, there is ESP32-S3, the same family of low-power microcontroller you'll find in countless hobbyist boards. So no, this is not going to compare or compete with Snapdragon or Apple Bionic chip and they don't even pretend to do so.
The original MAKERphone asked you to solder the whole board together. Version 2.0 drops that requirement, which lowers the barrier a lot if you've never touched an soldering iron. CircuitMess says it's built to be assembled by kids from around 11 up, so a functional adult should manage fine.