Precursor handheld by Crowd Supply
Open hardware phone in Phones & tablets
People recommend it as the most open personal computing device, with open software and schematics. Critics note many components are not open and it is niche.
People recommend it as the most open personal computing device, with open software and schematics. Critics note many components are not open and it is niche.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 65%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fully open software and schematics
“Precursor is the most open personal computing device that can be built currently.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Pebble Watch software is now open source” “You can also get a Precursor, which is open hardware.”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “F-Droid: "Keep Android Open"” “are actually 100% open software and schematics”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Pebble Watch software is now open source” - Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple”
- Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Meta’s Muse is an adorable privacy and security dumpster fire”
Open hardware phone alternative
“You can also get a Precursor, which is open hardware.”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “F-Droid: "Keep Android Open"” “or an open-hardware device like Precursor”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “GrapheneOS – Break Free from Google and Apple”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Many components still not open
“Most of the ICs and components are not open. It does go much further then any other phone.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Pebble Watch software is now open source” “Precursor goes far, but definitely not as far as currently possible.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Pebble Watch software is now open source” Niche, not mature for daily use
“they are not mature enough to daily drive just yet IMO”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Study finds memory decline surge in young people” “it looks quite solid but is really niche”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Jolla Phone Pre-Order”
What people said
22 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Also a Precursor which is similarly open.”
“I can recommend the Precursor for an interesting exploration of that from a verifiable software/hardware perspective.”
“Consider Precusor[0] who's design philosophy could be duplicated”
“uses dynamically injected JavaScript to continuously collect behavioral signals as visitors interact with your application”
“you just have spinners that keep refreshing the page and spinning when you're using Firefox”
“I expect this will be effective for maybe a day.”
“i think this is the right approach”
“Or is Cloudflare appointing themselves judge, jury and executioner?”
“going to completely lock non-sighted/keyboard only users out of large swaths of the Internet”
“Bunnie Huang's Precursor project was a genuine act of rebellion against the locked down nature of modern computing.”
“A Precursor costs about 1000$ and only does cryptography, not Flappy Bird”
“You can also get a Precursor, which is open hardware.”
“or an open-hardware device like Precursor”
“Xous seemed very nice together with Precursor which is the only platform I have seen it run on”
“it's unfortunately limited by Xilinx Spartan-7 availability”
“I fell in love with the metal Dvorak-keyboard Precursor ever since I saw bunnie post about it in 2019”
“it looks quite solid but is really niche”
“Precursor goes far, but definitely not as far as currently possible.”
“Precursor is the most open personal computing device that can be built currently.”
“are actually 100% open software and schematics”
“Most of the ICs and components are not open. It does go much further then any other phone.”
“they are not mature enough to daily drive just yet IMO”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.