The PC doesn’t feel personal anymore. That was the all-too common sentiment Flipper co-founder and CEO Pavel Zhovner shared with Gizmodo as he talked up his company’s latest device, a “network multitool” called Flipper One. In effect, it’s a small PC built to be as customizable as you need it to be. If you’re the type to read Gizmodo, you’ve probably seen enough cyberdecks around that you’ve imagined building your own small, cyberpunk-flavored computer. Flipper wants to get you halfway there with the help of a single-board computer and a dolphin mascot aiding your journey into network computing.
Flipper’s last device was a big “f*** off button” called the BUSY Bar, but the company’s big claim to fame is the signal hacking device called Flipper Zero. By comparison, Flipper One is meant to be its own beast, or at least a sidekick to that device’s NFC and low-level RFID connectivity. In a video interview with Gizmodo, Zhovner said that the goal of this new gadget was to fix many of the personal bugbears he had with other DIY computers. Mainly, he doesn’t enjoy the one-cable power connection requirement of a Raspberry Pi-based device. The Flipper One is billed as a networking multitool, but it’s a full-on computer. © Flipper He also found that many cyberdecks running open-source operating systems based on Linux often required a mouse or trackpad to click on teeny tiny images on a phone-sized screen. As such, Flipper designed the Flipper Zero so that users could navigate it using a simple D-pad interface and several programmable buttons. While the team’s still working out the layout of the UI, Zhovner said the device could also support its own Flipper OS and app store, just like Flipper Zero. The company is sharing its entire development process online and asking its community to share ideas. The Flipper One is running on a Rockchip RK3576 processor, which Zhovner said was better than a Raspberry Pi 5 in multi-core CPU performance, even if it was slightly worse in single-core settings. Flipper is building this device for networking or IP-based communications, though that’s just its base level functionality. If you were trying to add a screen to your router or reconnect your hotel internet to get the best speeds, the Flipper One could be an ace in the hole.
