Portal

For my girlfriend and I’s anniversary recently, I decided to build a gift I called the Portal.

It consists of two iPhone 5S’s (purchased for cheap on Facebook Marketplace), sitting on metal charging docks (the charging dock style is one that Apple used to make years ago but discontinued, but now a factory in China is pumping them out on eBay).

Each iPhone 5S sits on its dock on our desk.

The gift is modeled after an app called Locket that allows you to send a photo of yourself to your significant other’s home screen widget.

But instead, Portal lets us send a photo of yourself to the other person’s desk, sort of as a digital picture frame.

I built a companion app for our own phones that allows us to take a photo and have it appear on the other person’s desk.

Overall, it was really fun to build! My Portal has been moved from my dorm back home for the summer. Trisha’s may require a replacement iPhone 5S: