Key Takeaways
- The Pi Tele Cow project is a compact VoIP phone that utilizes a Raspberry Pi Pico W.
- It’s still a work in progress, with some things working, while other things don’t.
- Once complete and software ready, there will be a kit sold to make it on your own.
There’s no shortage of awesome Raspberry Pi projects on the internet, with aspiring tinkers and veterans putting their skills to the test to produce some of the most interesting projects using some of the most popular SBCs in 2024.
Related
Best SD cards for Raspberry Pi in 2024
The Raspberry Pi uses a microSD card for storage to save on initial costs. Here are the best cards to use with it.
With that said, you’re going to want to check out this fantastic project that utilizes a Raspberry Pi Pico W and creates an ultra-compact and portable VoIP phone. The interesting project was spotted by the folks at Hackster and was originally published on GitHub.
A work in progress
The project is called the Pi Tele Cow, and as mentioned before, is a compact and portable VoIP phone. Now, don’t get too ahead of yourself here, as you won’t be taking this out and about to connect with your favorite pals for a quick chat, since it’s meant to run on Wi-Fi. So, for the most part, you’ll be limited in the places that you can use it.
Derek Woodroffe, who is the mastermind behind the project, made this device to be as basic as possible, speaking with Hackster. In addition to the Pi Pico W, the device also utilizes an SD card, internal battery, microphone, speaker, 15 key keyboard and tiny OLED display.
When it comes to functionality, at the moment, it looks like things are still a work in progress, with some things working, while other things aren’t. For example, the notes list that audio tends to go in and out, and calls can’t be canceled once initialized. Of course, there are other goals listed to improve the experience in the future.
While you can try and build this yourself using the same components, it appears that Woodroffe will aim to sell this as a kit sometime in the future once things are working properly. You can check out all the details on the GitHub page, like the source code and list of components, to get the full scoop.
If this seems a bit lofty of a project, then you can always go check out some of our favorite Raspberry Pi projects that are meant for beginners.