Weekly Digest 18 – 22 May 2026
Featured Projects
u/Latter_Thought_171‘s parents took away their smartphone and gave them a flip phone. So they built their own phone instead.
That’s the origin story behind this week’s featured build, a fully functional Raspberry Pi 5-based smartphone, put together by a newcomer to Raspberry Pi and Linux over the past three months.
The hardware spec is genuinely impressive: a Pi 5 8GB paired with a Geekworm X1202 UPS HAT, four 2500mAh 18650 cells for battery, a Waveshare SIM HAT running a Quectel EG25-G modem, and an M.2 to mPCIe adapter. On the software side it’s running Ubuntu with Phosh (the phone-optimised GNOME shell), Chatty for messaging, and GNOME Calls for, well, calls. It’s a proper Linux phone stack.
It is slightly chunky right now, but u/Latter_Thought_171 already knows what they want to do about it: solder wires directly to the pogo pins on the X1202 and run them to the contacts on the underside of the Pi to slim the whole stack down. That’s not a beginner thought, that’s someone who’s been digging deep.
Quoted from post: “probably not worth it since I turn 18 in a few months”, but we’d argue differently. This build taught u/Latter_Thought_171 more about Linux, hardware integration, power management, and cellular connectivity than any smartphone ever would have.
News From Last Week in Electronics & 3D Printing
Electronics & Microcontrollers
- Qualcomm Takes Aim at the ESP32 Market – Qualcomm released its QCC74x series of microcontrollers, positioning them as high-performance, cost-effective competitors to the beloved ESP32 line. The top-tier evaluation board comes in at just $13, which means this space is about to get interesting.
- Raspberry Pi Pico 2 Drives Retro CGA Graphics – A clever new project used the Pico 2 to synchronise with a vintage CGA card’s character ROM clocking, injecting custom pixel data to display 60 Hz high-resolution graphics in text mode. Retro computing enthusiasts, this one’s for you.
- Singapore’s FM Builds a Diplomatic “Second Brain” on Pi – In one of the more unusual Pi deployments we’ve seen, Singapore’s Foreign Minister built an AI-powered information management system using a Raspberry Pi, the Claude AI model, and WhatsApp. Proof that the Pi belongs everywhere, including foreign affairs.
- Open-Source Electric Car Runs on Raspberry Pi – Engineers debuted an Open Vehicle Control System (OVCS) that uses multiple Raspberry Pi boards to manage an EV conversion, translating messages between automotive communication buses. Open-source EVs powered by Pi, what a time to be alive.
- Arduino VENTUNO Q vs Raspberry Pi 5 for Edge AI – A detailed comparison landed this week between the Arduino VENTUNO Q (built on Qualcomm AI hardware) and the Raspberry Pi 5 for advanced robotics and embedded systems. Worth a read if you’re spec’ing out an edge AI project.
- Hellbender Raises $12.5M for Physical AI on Raspberry Pi – Physical AI infrastructure company Hellbender closed a $12.5 million seed round to accelerate domestic manufacturing and launch an on-edge camera line built on Hailo AI accelerators and Raspberry Pi compute.
- Raspberry Pi Launches Its Official Podcast + RP2350 Details – The Raspberry Pi Foundation released its first-ever podcast episode, pulling back the curtain on the design of the RP2350 microcontroller. The new chip succeeds the RP2040 with better security, more CPU and memory headroom, and expanded I/O, and it’s priced at around 80 cents per unit in reels, just 10 cents more than its predecessor.
- $15K Open-Source Humanoid Robot Kit – Menlo Research introduced the “Here Be Dragons Edition,” a DIY humanoid robot kit for developers and enthusiasts. At $15,000 unassembled, it’s not cheap, but it uses off-the-shelf components and MJF 3D-printed structural parts, with the company drawing direct comparisons to the Raspberry Pi and Arduino ecosystems in terms of flexibility.
- RPi 5 as a Full Home Lab Hub – A useful perspective emerged this week: the Raspberry Pi 5 is overkill if you’re only running Home Assistant. The better use of its headroom is as an always-on service hub simultaneously managing MQTT, network monitoring, and lightweight databases. If you’ve got a Pi 5 idling, this is your sign to put it to work.
3D Printing
- Proposed Laws Target 3D Printing Files and Hardware – Bills in California and Colorado are targeting 3D-printed firearms by going after the digital files, distribution platforms, and the printers themselves. A developing story worth watching for anyone in the maker and printing community.
- Snapmaker Hires Full Spectrum Color Dev – Snapmaker has brought on “Ratdoux,” the original developer of the Full Spectrum colour-mixing slicer, to integrate virtual colour-mixing into Snapmaker Orca. The FFF technology uses optical tricks to achieve a far wider visible colour range without extra hardware.
- Lynxter Launches Food-Safe 3D Printing Silicone – Lynxter introduced an FDA CFR 21 177-2600 compliant 3D printing silicone material, opening up direct food-contact applications for printed parts.
- 3D Printing Metal Tools on Mars May Be Feasible – Research from the University of Arkansas suggests laser beam powder bed fusion could work in a CO₂ atmosphere, potentially enabling on-site metal tool fabrication on Mars and reducing the need to ship materials from Earth.
- Ceramic 3D Prints That Mimic Real Bone – Tampere University developed a hydroxyapatite-based ceramic implant, the same mineral found in natural bone, with an optimal 400-micrometer pore structure and 45% porosity for cell colonisation.
That’s a wrap for this week’s digest. Got a project you’ve built with gear from PiShop Africa? Tag us, you could be next week’s featured build.
It’s the first time we’re doing a post like this so if you preferred this format over the daily news posts we used to do please leave a comment and share your opinion!
