First of all, we would like to sincerely thank the community and our customers for their recognition and support of our products. We also appreciate everyone who has shown concern and provided feedback about OpenSourceSDRLab.
Many valuable suggestions and comments from the community have helped us accelerate product improvements and maintain our technological competitiveness. We truly appreciate all of your feedback.
As long as the feedback is constructive and genuinely helps improve our products, we will always listen with an open mind, carefully evaluate it, and adopt it whenever appropriate. This is how we continuously improve our products.
However, we have noticed that some recent comments contain information that is inaccurate or misleading. Therefore, we would like to clarify the following points:
1. Regarding Our Transparency
We have fully open-sourced all design files for the PortaPack H4M, including the schematic files, PCB design files, Gerber files, and all other related manufacturing documents created during our design and production process. All of these files have been uploaded to GitHub.
We are not sure what is meant by the claim that there is a “lack of transparency.” Could you please clarify what specific information you believe is missing?
The open-source H4M design files have already been reviewed and evaluated by members of the community. In addition, other manufacturers have used these publicly available files to produce fully functional PortaPack H4M units. This demonstrates that our released design files are complete, accurate, and usable.
We believe in openness and transparency.
Regarding the hardware documentation for the PortaRF product line, we also plan to release all related hardware files in August.
For our newly released H4M Pro, we have also publicly announced our open-source roadmap and timeline.
We believe healthy competition between manufacturers or vendors should be based on continuous innovation, engineering improvements, and product iteration. Ultimately, this benefits the entire community and allows customers to receive better products.
2. Regarding the H4M 104050 Li-Po Battery
OpenSourceSDRLab was the first company worldwide to officially release the PortaPack H4M.
When we designed and manufactured the first production batch of PortaPack H4M units, the battery system already included a battery management protection IC from the beginning.
Around November 2024, when we prepared the second batch of H4M units, we made further improvements based on customer feedback and community suggestions. Specifically, we increased the low-voltage protection threshold from 2.8V to 3.0V in order to provide better battery protection and extend the battery lifespan.
Therefore, the battery-related concern had already been addressed in November 2024.
Regarding the electrical tape applied to the battery, we would like to clarify that this is not related to any battery quality issue.
The reason why some separately sold PortaPack H4M batteries have electrical tape is related to the product packaging and assembly design after the release of HackRF Pro. We will explain this in detail with the comparison images below.
Since the launch of HackRF Pro, we have added an additional layer of electrical tape to the Li-Po battery included with separately sold PortaPack H4M units.
Please refer to the following images for comparison.
Since the launch of HackRF Pro, many customers have been interested in combining HackRF Pro with the PortaPack H4M.
A number of users purchased the PortaPack H4M separately (without a HackRF One) and wanted to use it together with HackRF Pro.
However, we noticed that some capacitors on the HackRF Pro have a relatively higher height, which may come into contact with the surface of the 104050 Li-Po battery when the two devices are combined.
Considering battery protection and long-term reliability, we clearly stated in our product listing that we do not recommend using PortaPack H4M together with HackRF Pro.
However, some customers still chose to use this combination based on their own needs.
Therefore, as an additional precaution, we added a strip of electrical tape to the back side of the 104050 Li-Po battery in separately sold PortaPack H4M units. This provides an extra insulation layer and helps prevent direct contact between the capacitors on HackRF Pro and the surface of the Li-Po battery.
This modification was made purely from a user experience and safety consideration. It was not because the Li-Po battery had any quality issue.
It is important to clarify that there is no problem when using PortaPack H4M with HackRF One. The combination of HackRF One + PortaPack H4M works perfectly as designed.
For customers who purchased the complete HackRF One + PortaPack H4M bundle, the battery does not include this electrical tape, because the mechanical compatibility between HackRF One and H4M does not have this issue.
Later, in order to completely optimize the experience of using HackRF Pro together with PortaPack H4M, we developed the new PortaPack H4M Pro, which uses an 18650 battery design. The H4M Pro was recently released and provides a better solution for users who want to combine it with HackRF Pro.
3. Regarding the Issues Mentioned About the H4M Pro
Our product has only recently been launched, and we are currently actively collecting feedback from our first batch of users.
We sincerely welcome any suggestions, comments, or improvement ideas from the community. Your feedback is very valuable and will help us continue to optimize and improve the product.
Please feel free to share your suggestions through our official forum, GitHub, or Discord community.
Thank you very much for your support and valuable input.
https://forum.opensourcesdrlab.com/t/feedback-on-the-hackrf-pro-with-portapack-h4m-pro/71
https://github.com/orgs/OpenSourceSDRLab/discussions/5
https://discord.com/channels/1293523886260097054/1530840000999194745
4. Our Contribution Beyond Hardware Development
We are not only focused on hardware design, manufacturing, and sales. We have always been actively working together with the community and contributing to the open-source ecosystem.
For example, we have invested significant effort in firmware development and adaptation for both HackRF Pro and PortaPack H4M Pro.
Several firmware contributions we submitted to the community have already been reviewed and accepted, including:
Touchscreen pin configuration
Clock initialization
Entering HackRF mode
External clock detection
Other hardware adaptation improvements
These contributions help improve hardware compatibility and provide better support for the entire community.
Moving forward, we will continue to actively participate in firmware development and open-source projects, contributing our engineering experience and resources to the community.
We believe that open-source projects grow stronger when hardware developers, software developers, and users work together. We are committed to continuing this collaboration and making meaningful contributions to the community.