FunKey S Handheld Games Console Opens Crowdfunding, Aims to Put Open Emulation on Your Keyring
Mimicking a Game Boy Advance SP, but considerably smaller, the Arm-powered FunKey S puts classic games in the palm of your hand.
Tiny, microcontroller-based games consoles are ten a penny, but the FunKey S aims to stand out from the crowd: It's a foldable design, mimicking that of the Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP — but shrunken down.
Compact handheld consoles are all the rage, from larger devices like the ODROID-Go Advance to the work of maker Bobricius and the classic Arduboy — now receiving an upgrade so it's no longer limited to storing a single game in memory at a time. While the FunKey S isn't quite at the miniaturization level of FabNiWorld's ultra-compact creation from earlier this year, it's an interesting design — given that it is hinged in the middle.
"The FunKey S is tiny enough to fit on your keychain, while powerful and comfortable enough to let you play thousands of retro games," claims Michel Stempin of the project. "You won't need to think about bringing another device with you in the morning, it's already there with you!"
The comparison to the Game Boy Advance SP isn't limited to the hinge, either: The FunKey S is meant to emulate a range of consoles, including Nintendo's eight- and 16-bit families. "Already a dozen of retro consoles is playable on the FunKey S right now," Stempin writes, "and the list won't stop growing: NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega Game Gear, PlayStation 1, Atari Lynx, WonderSwan, Neo Geo Pocket."
The display is a 1.54" IPS LCD with a 240x240 resolution and 50Hz refresh rate, while power comes from an internal battery charged via micro-USB. Inside the housing is an Arm Cortex-A7 single-core processor running at 1.2GHz, 64MB of DDR2 SDRAM, a small monaural speaker, and room for a microSD card up to 128GB.
The design has another selling point, too: The hardware, software, and firmware are all open source, including the custom FunKey-OS operating system, launcher, emulator source files, electronic design files, and even STL files to 3D print the case. These are available on the project's Hackaday.io page, where it grew from an earlier prototype dubbed the Keymu.
The FunKey S has opened a crowdfunding campaign page on Kickstarter, where it has already blown past its funding goal priced at €62 with the console, micro-USB cable, keychain lanyard, and 16GB microSD pre-loaded with the operating system. More information can be found on the official website.