List of hackable consumer electronic products

Here is my list of amazing consumer electronic devices in the last two decades that are ubiquitous, have significant hacking values, and affordable. Many of them are hackable by accident and is unintended by the manufacturers.

The advent of custom firmwares and hacks have pushed the capabilities and use cases of those devices to far beyond their intended original use, extending their life way beyond their official support lifetime. Normally, hacks and custom firmwares mean the hardware does the same function better and more customizable, but sometimes the hack can steer the course of the devices. For example, NVIDIA GPUs started out being graphics accelerators for gaming. Thanks to CUDA -- initially a hack -- they turned into a catalyst in scientific research, the AI/ML revolution, and the cryptocurrency revolution.

If you are a student with a limited budget to spend on hobbies and want to start working on embedded devices, many of the devices here are great starting devices: That was how I started out.

Table of hackable hardware

Warning: This table is auto-generated. Please do not edit/submit pull requests to README.md directly. Edit the src/toh.tsv file.

UB = Unbrickable: Is this device practically unbrickable/Extremely low risk when installing the custom FW? Y = Yes, N = No, HW = Needs additional hardware to unbrick.
Resources: Links to interesting trivia you might not know. See below.
Custom firmware: + = There are more than one choice.

Hacks that transform devices

Every once in a while, there is a hack that comes out and brings a completely new function to a device. Here are my favorites.

Adding a device/hack you know

Please feel free to make pull requests to add to this list :) To make it to this list, there are a couple of rules-of-thumb:

1. No cat-and-mouse game, both in hardware and software. If a model is listed, then all revisions of such model have to be hackable. The latest firmware of such model should not be able to completely prevent the user from hacking it. For example, many routers that have later revisions with less RAM and unable to run the Custom FW -- that doesn't count. The PS Vita or the Pixel lineup Verizon Variants, for example, have patched software that prevents jailbreaking and rooting so that doesn't count either.
   In other words, being listed here mean hacking such product has to be a guaranteed goal, not a lottery when you read its serial number/manufactured date/firmware version. You shouldn't have to pray for a device you purchased to be hackable. For wildly popular and easy-to-check devices, such as iPhones or Kindles, there are some wiggle rooms.
2. If there exists a jailbroken firmware or development features from the manufacturer, that firmware has to be open-source. At the very least, it has to offer substantial development features. Hacking doesn't mean much if only the manufacturer can "hack" it. For example, the Analogue Super Nt definitely doesn't count, even it has an unofficial firmware. In the Super Nt case, the unofficial firmware is just a way to not get sued, not a way to open new possibilities.

Resources

chrome

• chrultrabook Subreddit
• Remove Intel ME
• Special distro: GalliumOS (note: most other distros work OOB)

chrome_unbrick

• Flashrom
• Unbrick with Raspberry Pi

peppy

• Runs macOS

thinkpad

• You can upgrade their screens and even motherboards

thinkpad_unbrick

• Same as chrome_unbrick. However, you need a dedicated hardware to flash the Thinkpads in the first place.

router3rd

• To look up specs, try wikidevi.
• There are tons of other firmwares such as DD-WRT, ASUS merlin, tomato and other derrivatives, Gargoyle-router

router3rd_unbrick

• Depends on the model, you have to consult openwrt wiki

turris

• Specifications
• Datasheet

otheros

• Geohot's bad rap when sued by Sony
• PS3 fail0verflow talk

ogxbox

• Bunnie's site: Hacking the Xbox
• Modern Vintage Gamer 1
• Modern Vintage Gamer 2

psp

kinect

• adafruit kinect bounty

nook

• HaD

kindle

• HaD

xbmc

• April Fools post

commaai

• OpenPilot supported carts list
• Geohot, the founder of comma.ai, was previously known for the iPhone unlock and the PS3 root key publish
• Geohot once said: The math is simple. For the first time in my life, I'm like, 'I know everything there is to know.'

aauto

• crankshaft subreddit
• aasdk
• android version

retropie

• The Pi works with most controllers, even wireless ones.

tenderloin

• I have no idea why this device is codenamed tenderloin in pretty much every Open Source OS. I think its official codename is Topaz.

steamlink

• The steamlink has the innarts of a Chromecast gen 1
• The steamlink has KODI and retroarch working, but no custom kernel due to locked bootloader
• As of 2018, there are some kexec workaround to load an entirely new kernel but that's very hacky

hackmii

• wiibrew wiki

hackmii_unbrick

• The wii has a nand with no write protection that makes it possible to completely mess it up

hc0xbt

• You need a parallel port on your computer to flash the firmware to the HC-0x

chumby

• bunnie, the person mainly responsible for creating the Chumby sued the US government to remove a section of the DCMA
• I wrote about the Chumby here

iphone

• iPhones using 32-bit A-processors are completely defeated by now