this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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I saw this on Mastodon the other day and started digging into it. Seems like a really cool project although the chip they used appears inferior to the ESP32? I found a few similar projects based on the ESP32 but they seem to be limited to wifi/bluetooth captures only with the possibility of other options if you swap out the firmware. This makes me question why the ESP32 with 4MB of flash cannot do much more than the Flipper Zero with its 1MB of flash and a CPU that runs at 1/3 the speed (or less) and only a single core? Anyone have some ideas, and/or have seen other open projects based on the ESP32 that do all and more that the Flipper Zero can do?
You're comparing a microcontroller to a purpose built device. Its apples and oranges.
There are add ons to the flipper that incoporate an esp running maurader firmware for wifi tools
Yeah I saw there was the add-on board for wifi testing, but it seemed like this plugs in externally and isn't a normal part of the toolkit? So if the Flipper itself isn't performing the wifi test then I guess I don't see why the ESP32 couldn't just add in everything else the Flipper does? All the other hardware I saw, for IR, NFC, RFID, and one-wire connections... that could all easily also be added to the ESP32 with pins to spare, so what am I missing?
…the same reason you don’t see Sony releasing every PS5 with a dev board. Of course you can extend the ESP32 or whatever microcontroller to do anything the Flipper can. That’s obvious. Go search around on GitHub there are thousands of projects you can do with the ESP32 that will have the FBI making a personal visit to your house. The whole point of the Flipper is it’s turnkey and makes it easy for people that are less skilled or don’t have the patience to do all that.
Gotcha. Yeah I have plenty of experience with getting circuit boards made and even working with SMD parts (actually working on some boards right now) so I tend to forget that not everybody just has this stuff lying around. Maybe the hardware is the limitation preventing a lot of ESP-based clones of flipper from being available out there.
Meshtastic commes to mind, it allows you to set up an offgrid communications network that can mesh with other devices and allow you to send messages through the netork.
Probably just a matter of writing the right firmware and building the right hardware. I don’t think anything is stopping you from doing that.
The problem with microcontrollers is that code isn’t easily portable, so this device is stuck with its hardware.
Yeah I wasn't too concerned about the hardware side of things, I was just curious about finding software because I don't really know anything about pentesting. Guess I'll keep looking around.
The ESP32s are nice chips, but the STM32s are also really nice to work with and will work fine for this task. Changing to an ESP32 wouldn't make any real difference to the user so the choice is moot really.
I've designed products around both CPUs and they're both pretty nice. The STM32 has somewhat better documentation, has cleaner low power modes and is a bit simpler when delving into the nitty gritty details. The ESP is more powerful and has some nice if complex features but I don't like its low power handling as much.
Overall I think I'd choose the STM32 for this task since it's a little easier to make small, battery powered devices with it.
From the limited reading I've done on the subject, it seemed like a lot of power in the Flipper was based around wireless testing (both wifi and bluetooth) although I also saw a number of things based around other bands. I guess I'm just not following why this was considered an add-on when the ESP32 has all that stuff built in already (and you can certainly shut down the radios to save power when you're not using them)? Plus it also includes native support for other popular busses like I2C, I2S, and CAN so it seems like it could be useful for sniffing out what's attached to a lot of different types of connections. Maybe I'm just straying outside the realm of basic pentesting, the idea just caught my attention about how handy it might be to have a small device that could work with a lot of different types of electronics.
The STM32WB55 in the flipper has a versatile wireless peripheral built in which can be used to implement various protocols including Bluetooth, zigbee, etc.. Support for I2C, I2S and CAN is pretty standard stuff - the ESP32 is nothing special in these respects.
Maybe they chose the STM32WB55 because its wireless support is more flexible than the ESP32 and allows them to implement a wider variety of protocols? Or possibly just better documented, giving them the chance to do things they can't on the ESP32? I haven't compared the inner workings of the two chips' wireless support so I can't say for sure.
Hmm interesting. I'll have to dig more into this chip to see what it's about. I know the ESP32 is usually avoided when battery life is a high consideration, I haven't really played around with anything other than a few ardunos and the ESP8266 so I don't have much to compare it with. I guess I've just seen so many projects where someone tagged on an ESP chip to an arduino project just to get wireless capabilities with no understanding that the ESP series is quite a lot more powerful than the arduinos (some people I've talked to literally had no idea the ESP chips were programmable microcontrollers) so it's easy to jump the gun and assume that's what is happening in other projects also.