We are currently trialing a staff portable device for use when supervising the fablab. The rationale is that while nominally 'in the office' fabrication lab supervision duties currently cover about 500 square meters of floor space, with only one staff laptop available. This results in missed emails, messages, etc.

The aim is to have a single device type that we can trial, document, and if proven viable, roll-out for all programming staff. The devices then stay onsite for use by staff members.

We researched android handset(s), that cost between 300 and 400 AUD that are less than 2 years old as of 2017, and have unlockable bootloaders.

At this point Android phones offer the most cost effective way of getting the functionality we require. With our in-house knowledge of linux tools, we can create a level of customisation and adapt the chosen devices.

The mi5 is a mid-range chinese market smartphone. As of early 2017 it had an relatively easy to unlock bootloader, however this process has gotten more restrictive in later versions and as of August 2017, there is a 72 hour delay from permission to unlock to the unlock software being able to actually run.

Trello, Slack (push),

google account (drive, sheets),

dropbox,

spotify.