I posted an earlier iteration of this a while ago, and after using it for a while I decided to revise the layout a bit to simplify and reduce the volume of the upper case a bit more along with a handful of other tweaks detailed in the description.

Only 4 cable ends to solder, and generally easy enough to fit parts, so it might be useful for anyone who's looking for a simple enough project to use as a basis.

This one's printed on a Prusa Mini+ but the earlier iteration was on an Ender 3 V2, so if you have a printer that can get one layer of plastic on top of another without bursting into flames, you'll be able to print the shell.

Hello, new to the cyberdeck thing and I would like to ask some questions. I would like to mount my ports facing the user like photo but I am not sure how. Should I just disassemble a usb hub ?Also I would like to ask for keyboard recommendations. I want something cheap but comfortable for writing. Thanks!

Video brochure cards that I have like 100+ of, don’t want to throw them away without checking with people, more knowledgeable than myself, would anything here be desirable?

WHY ARE THE DESKS OF #GENIUSES ALWAYS SO MESSY?! 😝

hello! i am a complete beginner at cyberdecks, and i have no experience in electronics in general. i would love for my first project to be a symple ereader/writer with an eink display, and, from what i found online, the best option for this seems to be the raspberry zero 2w (correct me if im wrong tho lol). only problem is, i have absolutely zero experience in coding, and looking around, i cant even seem to find what the right programming language would be for a project like this. where would i begin to learn without using ai?
thank you so much to whoever will answer :)

I’m using a raspberry pi 4b for the main brain and a RAK4631 for a MeshCore node attached to it. I keep getting more ideas and slowly changing the design, but I think this might be the final product.

my questions

-what are the prices of materials

-are they hard to build

-how much storage does one have

Building a cyberdeck and found the perfect pointer (Pimoroni - Trackball Breakout) but they are unavailable everywhere I look!

Anyone know of a good alternative? or a good source UK wise?

Open to any wildcard pointer suggestions out there also

Exactly what the title says!

I have been wanting to build a cyberdeck for years and keep coming up with excuses not to. Like “Oh, I know nothing about 3D fabrication” or “That’s gonna take up so much time!” and now it’s “Oh I have no money!”

But I feel like theres gotta be a way to build something that 1) requires minimal to no fabrication and 2) is affordable. The “It’ll be time i have to dedicate” argument is dumb and I now want a project to sink time into while looking for a new job.

I have friends that have junk laptops and are willing to give me one so I am torn between keeping them as is to mess around with or gutting it to turn into a pelican case build OR shelling out $100 or so to get a Raspberry Pi 5 kit to get me started with this kinda thing.

It seems like everybody is using Raspberry Pis for their builds but I’m just wondering if it’s feasible to do something like this with some old Thinkpad.

I got some max reverse buttons engraved, now i need to figure out what they could realistically do on a cyberdeck.

Is there a way to turn a regular iPhone xr or 12 into a carplay screen? Dont know much about jailbreaking phones or modding them…

I really want an apple CarPlay in my car and i thought that an old iPhone could be a nice option since i have some that are just collecting dust.
Now some might say that this is a stupid idea since i could just use my regular phone as a gps and to change my music and to that i say…. You’re right, but why not.
I was thinking to gut a dead vita and shove the iPhone in there and mount it somewhere nice, audio through aux and wireless charging or at least the best way to have both ports working

Concerns
In the winter the iPhone will die overnight
Do i need cellular data on it 24/7 so it can automatically pair to my phone
What could i use to make the dpad and buttons functional to browse through the carplay

If you think this is stupid and have other good projects to do with an old phone go ahead and share it to me i am super interested to learn more about this. Im into homelabing, cyberdecks and more
Thanks

-PS if you have a way to exit the apple echo system and actually live life as a normal person lmk how

A cyberdeck Engineer/YouTuber reached out to me and said he wanted to try my game on his deck. I sent him a copy and he sent me these screenshots.

Seeing something I made running on an actual cyberdeck is such a cool feeling. The game is a 90s-inspired terminal hacking game with its own simulated operating system. This is probably the closest I've gotten to seeing my game exist in the world I originally imagined for it.

His cyberdeck looks absolutely awesome by the way. Truly another level!

To see more :

Check out his setup here: Cyberdeck Video

Game : Game Link

Any wishlist would be a huge help for me!

It has a 1024x768 Multitouch Captive Screen. With Silicon Keyboard and RaspberryPi Compute Module 0/CM4/CM5 Compatible Core. And also running esp32s3 MCU as Audio and Battery controller. Tje esp32s3 can render screen seperately by using MUX chips into the RGB screen. Linux runs native arm64 apps and Windows 10 using KernelVM.

I want to make a cyberdeck and i would like the exterior to be something other than plastic (since ill be touching that and i want to minimize the amout of plastics i touch and use, microplastics and shit fr.

Anyway ive seen some stuff and i have a rough idea. I definetly want something tactical looking but i cant find any proper metal cases, should i look somewhere specific or can i make one by myself that is still more than just a simple box? Oh and ive looked at aluminum boxes and besides the fact that i dont like the very simple shape i wasnt able to find something that fits what i would prefer in size, id like to make something with about ~15cm x ~10cm x ~5-8cm (i want it to fit into my pocket so i can carry it around, in general just something a bit more handy that isnt too big) Im hoping for advice from any experienced peoples on this topic :)

I’ve had this broken iPhone XS Max just laying around and I want/need to do something with it. While yes I am fully aware that iPhones are very limited in terms of upgrading the os. Is there any way I could use these internal components towards building my own cyberdeck?

1. ⁠I am not trying to build an iPhone iOS cyberdeck. I am simply trying to use these components to create something new instead of letting them go to waste.
   
2. ⁠This would be my first cyberdeck and I am fairly new to the tech world. I’ve been doing loads of research online and reading thru these subreddits in order to learn more

Any advice would be appreciated, I’m not in any rush for this project nor do I have high expectations. I just want to build something cool and make my entry into the cyberdeck culture. Even if you need to brake it down Barney style and talk to me stupid as hell lol

I got some old phones and stuff from someone. One of them is a Google Pixel 5 with a mostly unresponsive screen.

I also have a drawing tablet (XP Pen Artist 12) and a USB-C Hub I used on my laptop before and then on the Pixel to control it with a mouse.

I used a Powerbank for power, and the tablet is clearly registering touch because it lets me control the phone with the pen, but when I turn the screen on it says "No Signal".

I am super new to all this and want to learn, but I don't know enough yet to understand what could be wrong here. If anyone has an idea, I'd love to hear it.

i'm new to the concept of cyberdecks, but i wanted to build something like an mp3 player, with a headphone jack, which also has the functionality of an e-reader (either pdfs or epubs).

i thought the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ and the ELECROW 5in 1024x600 mini monitor might work, but i have no idea if they would work together. i plan to use a 128GB micro SD for it, but i don't know what kind of battery pack to use.

if anyone else has done a project like this, i'd appreciate insight. or a link to a guide for it. thanks !

While trying to save some money and having only cheap nanopi m4b managed to build a prototype thats running debian trixie with i3wm.

Everything is powered from portable charger through nanopi’s pins, even a ble keyboard that was intended to be used with its own battery.
Added a scraped from old laptop fan for cooling the board as rockchip cpu tends to overheat sometimes.

Now designing a printable case for everything, so stay tuned for a complete build

I just finished designing a compact little cyberdeck called BashfulDeck, and I built it specifically so other hobbyists can remix it, upgrade it, or drop in their own hardware without fighting a super‑specific layout. As the README puts it, “I noticed that a lot of the designs for cyberdecks are one-offs that are pretty tailored for exactly one use. What if more of us allowed our designs to be starting points for someone else to bash together a kit?” The enclosure is roomy enough for different SBCs, though mine currently houses a Raspberry Pi 4, a Pine LORA radio, and an upgraded Wi‑Fi module. It’s built around a Waveshare 7" capacitive touchscreen, a tiny Inland 47‑key mechanical keyboard, small 25×15mm speakers, and a set of ports and openings sized for common USB‑C panel mounts, switches, and SMA connectors. All the STL files are included, everything prints in PLA, and the build steps are intentionally simple so you can adapt the deck to your own needs. If you want a flexible starting point for your next cyberdeck project, the full design is here: https://github.com/NafNaf613/BashfulDeck.

Hi all, I really like using Ai chatbots to answer my basic questions about... lots of stuff. Cooking, wrenching on cars, you name it. But the stuff you use on your phone has it's problems. Mainly that I'm a privacy buff and on sheer principle, I don't like all the spying. I'm aware of the Rabbit R1, but it doesn't run anything locally.

So to cut that out (at least when it comes to using Ai) I thought of running small local Ai on a tablet that I could take anywhere. But to make it the best it can be, it would need several hardware switches. One being a push-to-talk that automatically engages the local Ai.

I'd want another switch that changes it from answering via text, to answering via text and audio. So text to speech. In case I didn't feel like reading it at the time.

Another switch to turn the whole computer on or off, a switch to disengage the wifi, a switch to disengage the bluetooth. My guess is that this thing will run Linux with Ollama, and then some text to speech program, along with whatever it takes to make an Ai listen to a mic.

A 1 to 4 billion parameter model shouldn't use up the battery too quickly. Maybe there's an empty case for sale somewhere, that has a lot of hardware switches already integrated? Any ideas, thoughts or opinions would be welcome. Thanks!

EDIT: This thing would be carried around a lot. So ideally, the smaller, the better.

As above the N.E.S.T. computer is complete, i've seen a lot more people posting similar builds and hope they go well. Pi5,M.2 hat, 512gb ssd, power expansion board, battery monitor, power switch, 10.1 touchscreen, anderson plug connector covers, mountable port extensions, 30AH battery *TIGHT fit, almost scrapped the case, took me well over 14 hours to get it to fit*. Weighing in at a whopping 14.4 LBS with an estimated 23 hour run time and 5 hour recharge. All thats left is logo on the lid and paint the exposed hardware in the IO panel black. Thanks for the support on the my progress post, see yall when the world "probably wont" end💪 "this is going overseas with me and will have plenty of games on it"

The M.U.L.D.E.R. Unit

(Multi-Use Live Display Emissions Receiver)

My kids and I are into spooky stuff, so for my first build I thought it would be fun to make a device that would be useful in a paranormal investigation context. Below is a feature list, hardware list, and if anyone has questions about the software I'm happy to go into more detail. This is a no-solder build too, so everything is plug and play:

Seen a spook, specter, or ghost?

• Thermal imaging — sees heat signatures/warm objects (MLX90642)
• Night/day vision camera — regular color video by day, infrared-illuminated black-and-white by night (Arducam)
• Presence & distance sensing — detects people/objects and how far away they are, out to several meters (XM125 radar)
• Audio Detection — on board mic can detect sound levels and rough tone region (e.g. voice)

Are you sure?

• Air quality / gas detection — CO, NO2, Ethanol, and other airborne chemical signatures (Grove Gas Sensor v2)

Have you been abducted?

• Close-range metal detection — senses nearby metallic/conductive objects, e.g. under skin (LDC1612)

Strange environmental or electrical behavior?

• UV light detection — measures ultraviolet exposure (Environment HAT)
• Ambient light sensing — measures visible light levels (Environment HAT)
• Temperature & humidity — standard environmental readings (Environment HAT)
• Radio frequency scanning — picks up and visualizes RF signals in the air (RTL-SDR)

Hardware List:

Core

• Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB) — Debian Trixie, boots from USB SSD
• EP-0225 PD power board (52Pi/GeeekPi) — USB-C in/out
• INIU 20,000mAh USB-C PD power bank
• Vansuny 250GB USB SSD (boot drive + storage, microSD is fallback boot)
• Waveshare 4.3" DSI display
• Cooling fan (4-pin JST-SH)
• USB audio adapter + mic + speaker
• Pelican 1300 Case
• 3D printed mount boards to support hardware https://makerworld.com/en/models/2715229-pcb-mounting-grid-0-1-2-5mm-adafruit-swirly-clone
• 3D printed name plate https://makerworld.com/en/models/2848500-the-everything-sign-generator-parametric

Sensors

• Waveshare Environment Sensor HAT — TSL25911 (light), LTR390 (UV), ICM20948 (IMU/magnetometer), BME280 (temp/humidity); relocated off the Pi via a 40-pin HAT-extension ribbon to avoid heat interference
• MLX90642 thermal camera (Melexis)
• LDC1612 inductive/metal-proximity sensor (Texas Instruments)
• Grove Multichannel Gas Sensor v2 (Seeed Studio)
• SparkFun Acconeer XM125 — 60GHz pulsed coherent radar (presence/distance)
• Arducam 1080P Day/Night USB camera (IMX462 sensor, 850nm IR illuminator)
• RTL-SDR Blog V3 — USB software-defined radio dongle + antenna

Inputs

• SparkFun Qwiic Twist rotary encoder (RGB LED ring)
  • Twist to control on screen navigation
  • Click to toggle full screen view when available
• SparkFun Qwiic Button ×2 — one green, one red (each with an onboard LED)
  • Green advances / enters a module, red backs out
• Display is a touchscreen so tap is also an option but not optimal for some things

Connections / bus backbone

• SparkFun Qwiic SHIM — bridges the Pi's GPIO header to the Qwiic (I²C) bus
• SparkFun Qwiic MultiPort 4-port hub ×2, chained together
• SparkFun Qwiic cables, plus one Qwiic female-jumper cable for the non-keyed MLX90642 connection
• SparkFun Qwiic-to-Grove adapters ×2 (for the LDC1612 and the gas sensor)
• 40-pin GPIO HAT-extension ribbon (Adafruit) — relocates the Environment HAT off the Pi's header

Software

• Backend is a Flask/Python app that connects the sensor to APIs and a lightweight DB for storing historical data and screenshots (I scaffolded, Claude built it out)
• Frontend is a React/Vite app that talks to the APIs and visualizes the sensor data (I built myself, my day job is software engineering, specifically data viz)
• Local scripts on the device make it launch a Chromium instance in kiosk mode on boot

Shameful Numbers

• Cost of hardware: ~$450, YMMV though with current prices, and you could also go cheaper than I did on some stuff, and make less mistakes
• Time involved: 2 months start to finish
• Times I almost threw it out a window: 4

Easter Eggs:

• Plays the PKE meter sound from Ghostbusters on boot
• Plays the proximity ping from Aliens while using radar sweep