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How to make a DIY opensource cellphone with an Arduino board

Today you can find smartphones everywhere, on internet, shops, 2nd hand, all brands and types. You wish you could understand how they work and make your own DIY cellphone at home? You are at the good place to build your own cellphone and for $200.

A maker called ''David Mellis'', researcher at the MIT Media Lab created a DIY open source and open hardware cellphone with an arduino. You can actually call and receive phone calls and text messages. This is how he did it.

To start, you need to gather the following hardware:

An arduino board (Mega)
An Arduino GSM shield
A Nokia LCD screen 5100 or a 8 characters 5 x 7 led matrix
A laser cutted plywood for the case but you can decide to make your own with maybe 3D printing
Buttons for the keypad
A microphone
A speaker
and electronics components for the circuit board (resistors, capacitors, a battery...)

And also skills to weld the board or you can just give it to a professionnal to have the job done well.

The firmware has already been made with the arduino sotfware that you can just download and upload to your board like you'll do it with a conventional arduino board. The link for the firmware is right after: Firmware for DIY Arduino smartphone

All the details about the components, the firmware, how to use the cellphone, how to build the cellphone, solder it can be find with the following llink: How to build a DIY open source and open hardware cellphone with an arduino

Using the phone after that is like other cellphones or smartphone, you can add contact, call them, send message and receive text message.

Let us know what you think about the project, if it can be improved and don't hesitate to share your creations, the article on the social media if you liked it and subscribe to our newsletter (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Youtube).