Engineer Aaron Christophel is trying to make it simpler to construct Apple FindMy-compatible location trackers on circa-$2 {hardware} — writing an internet flasher to shortly put a firmware and your FindMy/OpenHaystack public key on a Telink TLSR8252 module.
“Completed the Cheapo FindMy/OpenHaystack venture,” Christophel writes on Mastodon. “A easy Webflasher flashes the firmware on the €2 [Telink] TLSR8252 SoC [System-on-Chip], together with your FindMy Public Key.”
Apple’s FindMy platform permits homeowners of its gadgets, together with its devoted AirTag monitoring dongles, to find them on a map — counting on a community of different FindMy gadgets to pay attention out for his or her alerts and relay their location. OpenHaystack is an open-source reimplementation of FindMy which does away with the necessity to purchase official AirTag trackers — and Christophel’s instrument delivers a neater option to flash low-cost {hardware} to create an off-brand “AirTag.”
The online flasher is designed to be used with Telink low-cost TLSR8252, which when mixed with a CR2032 battery holder and battery will be changed into a circa-$2 AirTag-alike utilizing a UART serial connection. The “ATC_FindMy Flasher” runs in-browser, utilizing the WebSerial protocol. All of the consumer wants, other than the goal gadget and an appropriate USB-to-TTL UART dongle, is the distinctive public key to be related to the tracker.
The instrument makes it simple to flash Telink TLSR8252 gadgets — simply add your public key. (📷: Aaron Christophel)
The one small catch: Christophel’s instrument solely automates the client-device aspect of the equation. “[OpenHaystack] will not be easy to make use of,” the engineer admits. “You’ll want to use an Apple gadget, or a MacBook, to make use of it easy; on a [Microsoft] Home windows machine it’s good to arrange a server and so forth.”
The online flasher is on the market on Christophel’s GitHub Pages, and requires a WebSerial-compatible browser; the outline on his demonstration YouTube video contains the elements checklist for constructing your personal goal tracker tag.