IrDA Box

Somewhere in a drawer, your 1998 PDA still works perfectly — it just has no way to talk to anything built this century. The IrDA Box fixes that: a WiFi-to-IrDA bridge that lets infrared-only devices (Palm PDAs, Handheld PCs, ancient laptops) reach the internet through your modern wireless network.

The build: an OrangePI Lite running Armbian, an IrDA adapter wired through GPIO with a custom device-tree overlay, an 18650 UPS battery module, status LEDs, buttons, and a 3D-printed case. There's a web UI for configuration, and the whole thing is compact, portable and low-power.

Currently a prototype, but the repository documents the complete DIY build — pin maps, precompiled overlays, everything. Because a device only becomes obsolete when its owner stops fighting.