Modifying Transcend WiFi SD Card Firmware

by pearjuice on 4/25/2014, 4:24 PM with 15 comments
  • by fernjager on 4/25/2014, 6:46 PM

    Author here! It was quite a surprise to see one of my old posts on HackerNews.

    For those interested in what happened next: I managed to build and run sqlite, rsync, and dropbear SSH on the SD card using buildroot: http://buildroot.uclibc.org/

    I quickly moved onto other interests as I couldn't work out any practical applications at the time.

    Feel free to reach out to <me AT fernjager DOT net> if you have any ideas, or want to pick my brain on this project.

  • by SixSigma on 4/25/2014, 7:31 PM

    The commercial WiFi power harvester I remembered would be the perfect partner for a WiFi Spy.

    Despite the announcement that "on the CES floor, they were able to charge a BlackBerry from 30% to full in about 90 minutes, using nothing but ambient WiFi signals as a power source. " [1]

    The device has never been turned into a commercial product. [2]

    [1] http://www.ohgizmo.com/2010/01/09/ces2010-rca-airnergy-charg...

    [2] http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/01/07/ces-2011-hey-rca-hows-that...

  • by zdw on 4/25/2014, 7:37 PM

    Does anyone know if the currently available versions of the hardware ( http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3D... ) are still compatible with these modifications?

    I ask because frequently identical outward appearance does not mean identical internal hardware, especially on low cost consumer devices.

  • by tlrobinson on 4/26/2014, 12:00 AM

    Why don't companies sell an open/hackable version of this? Surely they could make a killing off the maker / Hacker News crowds.

  • by kastnerkyle on 4/26/2014, 2:00 PM

    For anyone who is interested, there is pretty good writeup here [1] on how to do kernel builds for this card. I also have a WIP of crosscompiling for this card as part of a wifi connectable (using waypoints) automated quadcopter, though I probably won't get to do more on the copter side until the fall.

    My current writeup is here [2] - I am in the process of using the 8GB Transcend cards to save a few $$. I also did not experience any weirdness with the first 8 bytes of the initramfs, so I will need to investigate that further...

    [1] http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=15&proj=15.%20...

    [2] http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/raw.githubusercontent.com/k...