- The Flipper One is more than just an incremental upgrade over the Zero
- The team behind it has already set up a developer portal and is engaging with end users as it aims to offer a completely open source ecosystem
- Pricing information has yet to be made public, but one can expect a significant premium over its predecessor
The Flipper Zero has earned a reputation as the Swiss Army knife for modern security researchers, enthusiasts, and penetration testers, and its development team is now looking to take things to a significant new level.
Its new Flipper One aims to focus squarely on higher-level networking, with modularity, extended I/O, and the ability to run applications and tools that require considerably more muscle than the Zero.
Despite this, the Flipper Zero’s successor isn’t meant to replace it but rather to complement an already successful design that has sold over a million units to date.
A much more versatile offering with a focus on open source
With plenty of additional features under the hood, including support for 4K 120Hz via a dedicated HDMI port that allows it to function as a capable media box, support for NVMe SSDs, built-in WiFi 6E support in addition to dual ethernet ports, the Flipper One has plenty to offer versus the more physical layer-centric Flipper Zero.
Something the company has identified and aims to address is the popularity and support tools such as the Flipper Zero have seen from a thriving developer community. To this end, it has already set up and is looking to hire a manager for their developer portal. With a plethora of documentation in place, even as the Flipper One has yet to reach most developers’ hands, the team is looking to build rapport with its target audience, a move that has already sparked discussions on multiple forums, including Reddit.
The most significant difference lies in the operating system. While the Flipper Zero runs a customized build of FreeRTOS, the Flipper One will ship with a full Linux kernel. This makes it considerably easier to develop for, run programs on, and take advantage of its modular expansion slots, including GPIO.
A co-processor approach to things
The Flipper One leverages a co-processor architecture, using an octa-core ARM-based SoC (Rockchip RK3576) as its primary driver and a low-power microcontroller for ancillary functions, allowing users to leverage the device even without using Linux for certain tasks.
Flipper is also pushing for a “truly open” ARM-based Linux offering by focusing on open source packages for its upcoming device and collaborating with Collabora to ensure it has a fully functional open source stack at the time of release.
The team did not mention a price point for the Flipper One, but one could assume it would be priced considerably higher than the $200 its sibling currently costs, especially given how ambitious it is and the volatile components and memory markets, which now play a larger role in its final cost.
With the Flipper Zero staying put for the foreseeable future, the One may just be an excellent value-added option for those who can fork over the extra we expect it to cost, even if some of its purported features, such as an integrated offline LLM, have yet to be demonstrated.
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