The Nibble Zero is a fully-functional LoRa node supporting Meshcore, Meshtastic, and Reticulum created by the Retia team for workshops at the 39th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany. 

The Nibble Zero is designed to be used independently, or can be mounted as a Flipper Zero add-on to use the Flipper as a battery and keyboard.

Design Goals

 

The Nibble Zero uses an upgraded sx1262 LoRa radio, ESP32s3 microcontroller, and Flipper-compatible pinout to make LoRa mesh nets easy for beginners to learn. 

The project builds on lessons from the previous designs:

1) Original Nibble (Open Sourced at 38c3 2024)

This design used an RFM95 radio, small surface mount resistors, and gave the user a choice between using the RP2040 or ESP32s3 microcontroller when building your own node. It was frequency locked to a specific region by the radio, and difficult for some people to solder

2) Nibble Connect

Created for cyber camps in Montana, this redesign uses the upgraded sx1262 radio that can be used in multiple regions, replaced the surface mount resistors with through-hole, and added a slot for a BME280 weather station sensor.

3) Nibble Screen Connect

Made for Defcon 2025, this breadboard-compatible version of the Nibble Connect featured a screen and buttons for use as a companion node and lots of through-hole resistors. 

4) Nibble Zero

Designed for Chaos Congress, this version of the Nibble is designed to be fully pre-assembled for beginner classes, replaces most resistors with a 10k resistor matrix, and is pin compatible with the Flipper Zero. It also includes reverse polarity protection, an improved 3.3v regulator to reduce the likelihood of burns under heavy use, and improved antenna attachment design. 

The team

The project leader for the Nibble screen connect was Kody Kinzie.

Concept design and art were created by Wolfgang Beck. 

Vector art and silkscreen conversion was done by Felix Orozco. 

PCB design, antenna testing, emergency logistics, and test software development was bravely shouldered by Zac Beran

Support for Meshtastic and Meshcore by Brandon Paiz, Nick Godshall, Whiskey26, and ViezeVingertjes.

Support for Reticulum by Ben Wasserman

Assembly, kitting, and testing by Zac Beran, Wolfgang Beck, Kody Kinzie, Bradon Paiz, Nick Godshall, Irish Jan, Cody Thorpe, and many volunteers from the Null Space Labs hackerspace

Hardware

 

The Nibble Zero is built around a Waveshare ESP32s3 Zero and Seeed Studios WIO sx1262 module.

 

Waveshare ESP32s3 Zero - https://docs.waveshare.com/ESP32-S3-Zero

Notes: 

This minimal design has the powerful esp32s3 and is easy to surface-mount solder, with minimal issues. It features 8 GPIO pins only accessible on the button, which we used for the first time in this design. We discovered lead-free solder paste tended to bridge these pins.

The 3.3v regulator on the S3 Zero board is underpowered and can get hot enough to cause burns with continuous use of the LoRa radio. We added a more appropriate 3.3v regulator on the Nibble to fix this. We’ve tested completely removing the 3.3v regulator on the Waveshare board, and see no ill effects or heat spikes. 

Seeed Studios Sx1262 - https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/wio_sx1262/

Notes:

 

An exceptional radio with a quirk that is very important to understand. This radio comes in 2 flavors, WITH ipex connector and WITHOUT ipex connector. 

 

Radios WITH the IPEX connector are NOT connected to the antenna pin. 

Radios WITHOUT the IPEX connector are connected to the antenna pin.

This means, radios with the IPEX connector can only use an IPEX compatible antenna, and radios without an IPEX connector must use the antenna pin located on the ear of the Nibble.

While some radios allow you to switch this based on changing a resistor, there does not appear to be a way to change this on these radios.

Other hardware:

Neopixel Tail - The Nibble features support for a single Neopixel, and attaching strip of neopixels to create a light-up tail, addressed via GPIO 17.

I2c sensor - Designed to be used with a BME280 weather station sensor, the Nibble Zero supports easy installation of any i2c sensor.

Screen - The Nibble supports an SSD1306 OLED display.

Buttons - There are 6 top-mounted buttons, with the goal of supporting an on-screen keyboard.

LED and resistor - Standard LED and 330 ohm resistor to prevent blowing up the LED.

Jumper system - The Nibble has 3 jumpers for debugging or bypassing optional components. 

J1 - If you do not install the additional 3.3v regulator on the Nibble and wish to only use the 3.3v regulator on the S3 Zero, solder J1.

J2 - Solder this jumper if you wish to use the 3.3v regulator on the Flipper Zero to power the board. Disabled by default to prevent getting both 5v and 3.3v at the same time from the Flipper.

J3 - Solder this jumper to bypass the diode protecting the Flipper from reverse polarity. If your diode is missing or backwards, this will fix the issue. The flipper does have it’s own reverse polarity protection, but we added the diode to make absolutely sure. 

Pinout:

 

The Nibble Zero is designed to be flipper compatible, and features a diode to prevent reverse polarity to the Flipper. If this diode is reversed or disconnected, it can prevent the Nibble from getting power from the 5v pin of the Flipper.

 

Software

The Nibble supports Meshtastic, Meshcore, and Reticulum.

 

Meshtastic

Meshtastic is compiled via Github Action. You can compile your own here: https://github.com/nsgodshall/retia-boards

For compiled binaries, you can see the releases section, or flash them via www.nugget.dev

Meshcore

Meshcore binaries are also compiled by Github action. You can get flash them from the nugget.dev website.

Reticulum

A single working Reticulum binary has been compiled, instructions are listed on Ben’s github repo here: https://github.com/bwasserm/RNode_Firmware/tree/nibble-dev?tab=readme-ov-file