Erwin Ried's Mayhem Hat Gives the Flipper Zero Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Capabilities — and a Camera
With its integrated camera and additional radios, this Flipper Zero accessory offers a major upgrade to the popular multi-tool.
Maker Erwin Ried has built an add-on for the popular Flipper Zero electronic multi-tool which aims to increase its capabilities still further — adding Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, additional general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, and even a color camera sensor.
"Instead of buying a expensive WiFi Dev board," Ried writes of his creation's selling point, "you have the same functionality plus much more for a fraction of the cost. No need to hack anything, messy wiring, bodge an SD Card reader, and you get a nice layout for three-pin sensors. It is [even] cheaper than the prototype boards pack!"
The Flipper Zero, which entered mass production back in November 2021 and that has been selling out near-continuously ever since, is designed to combine Tamagotchi-like virtual pet capabilities with a surprisingly functional multi-tool for GPIO and wireless projects. It includes a sub-gigahertz radio, RFID and NFC readers, can act as pre-programmed USB input device, and boasts a selection of GPIO pins to its top — and it's these pins to which Ried's Mayhem Hat connects.
Designed to work around the stock Flipper Zero's lack of Wi-Fi support, the Mayhem Hat includes an Espressif ESP32 module with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity plus a Nordic nRF24L01 radio transceiver. There's a microSD slot for storage, a flashlight LED, and what is possibly the most unusual add-on for the tool: an Omnivision OV2640 camera module.
"This will give you access to the following features," Ried explains. "The Marauder firmware, which is a portable penetration testing tool created for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth analysis. The firmware also includes microSD functionality, allowing you to dump PCAP files. Camera (2MP JPEG) and flashlight, accessed through the ESP32CAM Marauder app, [It can also act in Nintendo] Game Boy Camera style (low res 128x64 BMP) with preview on the Flipper Zero. QR code reader. Motion detection."
Full board details are available on the project's GitHub repository, along with source code under the permissive MIT license. Ried has begin selling kits and pre-assembled boards on Tindie at $40, but at the time of writing had already sold through the first production batch.
