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Hardware

MPowerUP is a mobile app, so its hardware story is mostly about the devices its users already have — not new manufacture. This page covers device requirements, the offline-first implications, and refurb sourcing.

Device requirements

The target device is a budget Android phone (~4 GB RAM, ~$50–150) — including aging and second-hand handsets in the 2015–2018 class (512 MB – 2 GB RAM, Snapdragon 410–600, 8–16 GB storage, ageing 2000–3000 mAh batteries, intermittent connectivity).

This drives several design constraints throughout the project:

  • Lightweight by necessity. Heavy P2P stacks (e.g. full IPFS/Helia, ~100–200 MB RAM) are unviable on these devices. The candidate evaluation in Software and Communication Architecture scores RAM/CPU/battery on this hardware explicitly.
  • Battery-conscious. No polling, no persistent sockets, no continuous GPS without opt-in. Persistent-connection designs (Tor-always, BLE-mesh-always) carry a real, unmeasured battery cost on aged batteries — flagged as a Known Unknown requiring a measured pilot.
  • Secure enclave where available. DID private keys use the device secure enclave (iOS Secure Enclave / Android StrongBox) when present; otherwise on-device secure storage.

Offline-first implications

The "offline-first" non-negotiable is fundamentally a hardware-environment commitment: MPowerUP's users operate in the same fragile infrastructure (unreliable power, limited/metered bandwidth) that climate disruption amplifies. The aspirational Z0 offline-mesh tier (BLE / Wi-Fi-Direct between nearby devices, Briar-pattern) is the most hardware-dependent piece — it would let a Circle coordinate with no internet at all. An external LoRa bearer (Meshtastic over BLE) is a separate-device off-grid option under evaluation; it needs dedicated radio hardware per user, which is itself a natural Second Boot build/refurb artifact. See Communication Architecture → protocols.

Refurb sourcing & sustainability

Per the BNI Sustainability directive, reuse beats new manufacture — the carbon cost of building a new phone dwarfs its lifetime operational energy. MPowerUP leans on the Second Boot refurb pipeline for this:

  • Awarded refurbished laptops can ship with MPowerUP preconfigured once a desktop/web build exists (MPowerUP Phase 5).
  • A Briar Mailbox on a spare refurbished Android device gives a Circle asynchronous delivery with no server — using exactly the kind of hardware the refurb pipeline produces.
  • A low-power non-exit Tor relay on a refurbished device is a complementary commons contribution.

Refurb sourcing, device selection, and the Ubuntu rebuild stack are documented in the Boot Up program.