Dirt Cheap Hacking Tools Blog

The Dirt Cheap LiDAR Detector is an small device which uses PIN silicon infrared diodes, a Schmitt Trigger, and some math to detect the TrueDepth Dot Grid Lattice LiDAR projected from the backs of iPhone Pros, and possibly other LiDAR sources too!

I originally made this because Samy Kamkar inspired me with his laser mic talk and then fellow hackers at DEF CON discouraged. I did it anyway after pointing my phone at a flipper zero a few months later and remembering all of that.

I wrote a couple of blog posts for my day job employer about the hardware and firmware design process, you can read those here and here.

Final Design Features

• Can operate standalone (USB-C)
• Plugs into the Flipper Zero (requires 5V rail and installing an app I made)
• 6 discrete IR Pin silicon photodiodes with individually tunable gains
• iPhone Pro TrueDepth LiDAR detection (but you could hack it to detect most any kind of 940nm IR signal maybe!)
• Detection Indication via RGB and Discrete LEDs, Interrupt Pin, and Serial

Final Design Prototype

TODO upload pictures

When can I get one?!

Project State

• Concept
• Design phase
• Testing
• Blog Posts for Work
• Feature Creep, add flipper headers, dazzle LEDs, fancy up design and UI
• Redesign for Dual USB/Flipper format
• Prototyping
• Testing
• Maybe something special, but probably not!
• Small Batch Order and Sales Round One
• Find contract manufacturer
• Mass produce
• Sell