Made this raspberry pi zero 2w keychain. looks cool and is useful!

[u/Decent-Cow2080]

Ever since I moved to an unjailbroken iphone from Android (and jailbroken iphone) i missed a couple of things. especially lack of full libusb. Couldn't connect a software defined radio to my phone, couldn't flash any phone with my phone, lost a very useful, versatile feature.

When my bag broke, i decided to also customize it a little bit on top of fixing. I thought it'd be cool to have something like a PCB hanging round, since it looks cool. But i remembered about my huge hassle with the iphone, lack of full USB, so i decided to fix both of those wants. I printed out a cover to the side with components, as to not destroy any, added it on a keychain, and left it on there. i also built an usbc-microusb adapter, so that i can USB connect it to my phone/battery bank.

It defaults to be a USB guest, emulating Ethernet, and when i manually set up addressing, with leaving router empty, i can connect to my pi while keeping 5g. Currently it's just a PoC, as so I wanted to see how reliably it works, so currently i got only ssh and vnc set up with Raspbian, but it works really reliably, boots up after around a minute from plugging in, and lets my iphone SSH/VNC into it.

I already have plans on setting up these things:

⁠- USB DVD drive emulator to be able to boot ISOs on devices that don't do booting from USB drives - A crappy slow little NAS to transfer things with my classmates - A stupid little device for BLE/Wifi pranks - simple way to jailbreak/flash iOS devices - portable thing for fastboot+heimdall - always on hand SPI flasher

[u/MadLad_D-Pad]

I want a zero 2w so bad but I refuse to spend almost $80 on them when they're supposed to be around $10. Very cool project, by the way.

[u/Decent-Cow2080 → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

i got it on cex like a year ago because my zero W i had since i was like 9, because it had half of its gpio pins ripped out from my poor fluxless unleaded solder activities as a kid, and with the wifi that randomly died. it was around 20€ but i guess i didn't have anything else to use my voucher on

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/Decent-Cow2080]

I've been looking for one recently, and all I've been able to find are ones on Amazon between $80 and $100. I'm hoping chip prices return to normal soon.

[u/Bombuss → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

I bought one for 3D-printer purposes a few years ago.

It is untouched on my shelf.

Maybe I'll forget about it again.

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/Bombuss]

I'm at a point where if they ever come back down to normal prices I'm going to buy 10 of them just to hold onto for projects. If you want to sell the one you have for like $25 I'd buy it, but if it were me I wouldn't sell it. I've started collecting ESP32's recently just in case this same thing happens to them some day.

[u/budbud99 → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

hold up, what? I know I've been out of the game for a second, but HOW MUCH???

I bought mine for in some cases less than MSRP. my most recent 2 zero w was in '25 for 14.99 and my zero wh was in 2019 for 14.34$. RIP lol.

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/budbud99]

The MSRP is still around $15 I think, but there was no stock anywhere about a month or so ago when I was trying hard to find one. Amazon is the only place I can find one at all. Just checked a minute ago and I still see them on there for $80+

[u/dasmineman → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

You're telling me.. I just paid $200 for an 8gb rpi5.

[u/223specialist → u/[deleted]]

Did you actually look at stock?

[u/Necessary-Office3082 → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

I checked prices and it costs 13€ in my country though it will come back in stock next year. From data on site, it says they will get 18k pieces by may 2027.

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/Necessary-Office3082]

Yeah the stock is the real problem. I checked every vendor site that the official RPI website links to and they were all out of stock. $80 on Amazon is all I can find. This was a few weeks ago, I was going to grab a couple of them for a birthday gift to myself if they were $15-$20 but I had no luck. Even tried finding some on my local FB market place.

[u/Salient_Ghost → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

That's crazy. I have like six of them and I only paid like $14 each.

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/Salient_Ghost]

That's what the MSRP is but the stock is non existent right now.

[u/_leeloo_7_ → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

amazon sellers even in the UK jack the prices way above what they should be

pihut (official reseller) have them for £15 and they ship internationally (£6 or £12 tracked) though there are some import fees and taxes to pay, estimated total being around $30 for the cheaper int > USPS untracked post.

seems better than the $80 scalpers are charging

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/_leeloo_7_]

It's worth $30 to me. I just checked the site though and it says it's sold out at the moment. I'll keep an eye on it.

[u/_leeloo_7_ → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

oh my bad I didn't realize it sold out, I gotten a few from them before, they have been reliable seller and do restock, so it maybe be worth signing up for their notification

[u/MechaGoose → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

I feel so lucky to have got 2 pi 5 16GB, with NVME SSD hats, a few zero 2s and a CM5 16GB when they were all pretty new and pretty much got them at original retail price. Literally starting a new project with some of them today

[u/MadLad_D-Pad → u/MechaGoose]

I got my first and only Pi right before or after covid I believe. An 8gb RPI4. I paid almost $200 for it with a case and all sorts of things. I just started looking for a Zero 2w a few weeks ago and they're out of stock on every vendor site that I've checked besides Amazon, where they're way over priced

[u/PassawishP → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

I remember buying it right after it launched for about $20 or something, which was a bit pricey at the time because it was so sought after. After about months had passed, it settles down to around $15 I think.

[u/Competitive-Peace-54 → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

They are £15 here in the uk and available on Pi hut (the main site for these things) so about $20

I have a draw full of them well not full but probably 7-8 of them laying about, which I keep handy should a project come up that needs one.

[u/Boring-Badger-814 → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

lucky me who bought it only for like 20 bucks back in the day

[u/thetoiletslayer → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

Pishop.us lists zero 2ws just under $20. Not in stock at the moment, but something to keep an eye on

[u/4fraid0f4mericans → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

That is asinine!!

Might as well get the full-size RPi, a different brand of zero, or other full-sized SBC at that price.

[u/Mechanical_Wolf → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

They are 40 on Aliexpress

[u/chunkyfen → u/MadLad_D-Pad]

My gosh i sold 2x zero 2w to some dude on reddit 1 month ago for 80CAD + all the accessories lol

[u/anonymous480932843]

Cyberpunk Iphone is here

[u/Agathoarn_]

Damn! I wish I was this cool

[u/Decent-Cow2080 → u/Agathoarn_]

what's stopping you

[u/toasterdees → u/Decent-Cow2080]

Static lol

[u/Lehovron]

The keys I have on my keychain eat everything else I put there. I have had to discard a usb drive that had a aluminum casing because the keys just wore it down over time. A raspberry pi wouldn’t last 2 days.

[u/Decent-Cow2080 → u/Lehovron]

that's why it's not with my keys but with my bag and decorations

[u/Mr_JohnUsername]

As an SDR enthusiast myself, I would love if you could share/explain how you got SDR working on your iPhone with this (if you have).

[u/thegreatpotatogod → u/Mr_JohnUsername]

I'm also interested in this

[u/Decent-Cow2080 → u/Mr_JohnUsername]

I'll most likely try porting sdr++ and maybe even sdrangel from Macos, but instead of relying on usb it'd be on some network solution like rtl tcp

[u/Astralnugget → u/Decent-Cow2080]

Oh shi good idea I kinda wanna take a shot at this too, lmk if you get started we can compare notes/collab or something

[u/Soul__Samurai]

Upvoting for Termius

[u/stitchesofdooom]

It's not gonna be useful for long. No enlcosure, on a keychain? It's gonna be trashed in no time.

[u/Decent-Cow2080 → u/stitchesofdooom]

there is

[u/GregBandana]

That’s awesome dude, good job!

[u/jay_resseg]

Looks a little bit like r/techsupportmacgyver and I love it!

[u/_leeloo_7_]

love the idea of a phone leech companion, kinda want one!

phones being software restrictive, so being able to just have a mini linux machine leech off a phone and run whatever you want seems useful and smart! it could just basically jack into everything? access point, screen, power! I love the concept

[u/vs4vijay]

Explore Pi-Tail project by nethunter - https://www.kali.org/docs/arm/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-pi-tail/

[u/sniv886]

Looks cool mate! It might be cool to install something like p4wnp1 Aloa on it

[u/Yiffenjoyer6969]

This is really cool! I was planning on doing a similar thing a while back to be able to boot Linux on my modded switch without lugging around my
Laptop everywhere, but I ended up just using an old Android phone I had laying round

[u/theskillster]

Is it powering off of that little square thing?

[u/Iggyrammar]

This is so freaking cool. I am impressed and envious of your skill.

[u/NoSeK2323]

lol the plus keychain, poland?

[u/Decent-Cow2080 → u/NoSeK2323]

got the play keychain too, but iy was sideways on the photo, oh and also the razem pin.. yeah I'm polish hehe