ReVault is the world’s first wearable private cloud

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Not just a smartwatch, ReVault lets you back up and access your files on the go.

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We know, we know, another smartwatch? But before you say anything else, this wearable band has a rather unique feature. Not only can it reveal the time, it can impressively act as a wireless storage device that lets you back up your files and open them without ever needing an Internet connection. Think about it, in this day and age of multi-screen use, everyone has data that they want to access to on all of their gadgets. And sure, many of us tend to employ popular services like Dropbox or OneDrive to accomplish this; however, local storage happens to be a bit more secure.

Cognizant of this, one Swedish startup has set out to make the private cloud a little more personal and portable with ReVault. Currently live on Indiegogo, the Atmel | SMART SAM4S powered gizmo is being billed as “the world’s first wearable private cloud” that enables users to securely access and sync all of their files. Instead, the wearable drive connects to a laptop, smartphone or tablet over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Not only does ReVault allow wearers to easily carry their most important documents wherever they go at all times, but once connected, it can be set to automatically back up and synchronize those files across all devices via its accompanying app. This application is available on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, meaning it should be pretty simple to pair data despite the platforms one may use.

ReVault has been designed with the utmost security in mind, and rightfully so. We are talking about personal and sensitive information here! This was accomplished through AES-256 encryption, as well as two-factor authentication. In other words, only trusted devices and users can connect to the wearable unit.

Aside from safeguarding data, the watch has been created with superior durability to withstand the inevitable bumps and scratches of everyday use. Equipped with a stainless steel and water resistant case, the full-color display is protected with Gorilla Glass 3. A wearer can also choose between a variety of faces, including one for private cloud data, a digital or analog clock, as well as a custom screen built with the ReVault API. Though the battery only lasts for approximately three days, ReVault can be charged using a standard Qi wireless charger — 80% battery life takes roughly an hour, while 100% calls for just about an hour and a half.

ReVault comes in both 32GB and 128GB models. What’s more, for those who aren’t really into the whole “smartwatch thing,” it can be transformed into a necklace or keyring using its chain converter. Is it time to reclaim your data? Then hurry over to its official Indiegogo campaign, where the team is closing in on their $65,000 goal. Shipment is expected to begin in January 2016.

TZOA is a wearable tracker that will help you find clean air

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This elegant wearable device wants to help you breathe cleaner air and plan your day accordingly. 

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While a majority of the wearable space has been focused on tracking what’s inside of our bodies, such as activity and stress levels, a new kind of device is emerging, one in which monitors what’s going on outside of us — specifically in our environment. Unlike others on the market today, TZOA is a gadget that measures air pollution in a user’s immediate surrounding area using advanced sensor technology.

The tiny, round tracker — which recently made its Indiegogo debut — is equipped with an optical laser that quantifies air quality, as well as an assortment of sensors to keep tabs on things like UV light, humidity and temperature, all of which transmit data to a companion smartphone app via Bluetooth. With these tidbits of information, a user can determine whether they need to open a window in their home, step outside to catch a few rays, or simply take a different route on their way to the office.

TZOA comes with a social component, too. Once the device is activated, not only will the user access information specifically catered to their surroundings, that data is also relayed to a crowdsourced pollution map of their area. Should the levels of any tracked metric rise, the app will send a notification to the user’s phone to alert them.

At the heart of TZOA lies a custom optical quality sensor that is tasked with detecting tiny particles (known Particulate Matter 2.5 and 10), many of which have been proven to cause permanent damage to respiratory and cardiac systems. The palm-sized instrument features a fan directly beneath its triangular cover that swoops up the air in its vicinity, and a laser tasked with counting the pollutants. It can even identify larger particles in the air, including allergens, which can be rather useful this time of year.

“The air can be worse inside your home than outside (2-5 times worse on average). You spend the majority of your life in your home, we all have the right to know if its a safe environment,” the team writes. “If you suffer from asthma or allergies you’re already greatly affected by the air you breathe, if you have more data you can help to manage your condition and enjoy the air once again.”

What’s nice is that, even on the go, users can receive instant feedback without ever having to delve into their pockets for a smartphone. For instance, when riding a bike or jogging through the park, looking down at a mobile device isn’t always convenient. Instead, a simple tap will emit a color-coded system that fluctuates based on air quality levels. This data, in combination with GPS, can offer up real-time suggestions on the best pathways and neighborhoods for outdoor activities.

Seeing as though people often spend upwards of 90% of their daily lives indoors, even the littlest environmental changes can have a positive effect on mood and productivity levels, not to mention long-term health.. Interested? Head over to TZOA’s official Indiegogo page, where the team is currently seeking $50,000. Delivery is expected to begin in May 2016.

DrumPants will turn you into a walking one-man band

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This open-source, Arduino-compatible wearable controller lets you make music and play games from your body.

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Admit it, you’re the best darn drummer that your morning carpool has ever seen. The only problem is that, as you thump your thigh to the beat of your favorite song, the world can’t enjoy the awesomeness that resonates from your leg. Well, thanks to the latest Indiegogo campaign from Bay Area-based startup Tappur, now they can.

DrumPants 2.0 is exactly what you think it is: a wearable musical kit that magically turns your clothing into a full band with over 100 built-in sounds. If this seems familiar, that’s because you may have come across the team back in 2013 when they successfully introduced their first prototype on Kickstarter. Initially conceived by Tappur co-founder Tyler Freeman as a prank to play on his drummer friends, the concept eventually transcended well beyond a simple stunt and into a master’s project, an educational tool used to teach teenagers about programming and music production, and finally what it has become today: an industrial, production-ready wearable music kit.

DrumPants is comprised of two wearable sensor strips and a control box, that when attached to any item of clothing, enable a wearer to play a beat by simply tapping their body. The pair of sensors can easily be removed as well, making it the ultimate portable instrument. Its control box — which is based on an Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-M3 MCU — is equipped with an ultra-low latency Bluetooth 4.0 chip, an embedded sound engine for a 1/8″ headphone jack, 128 instrument sample banks and a micro-USB for connecting to a laptop or PC. Meanwhile, its sensors can be placed anywhere on the body, whether that’s a snare drum on an upper thigh or a cymbal on a knee. Want a kick drum or a looping pedal, too? Wearers can bring that functionality right inside their shoe through a set of footpads.

After the successful completion of its crowdfunding campaign, the latest iteration of DrumPants features dramatically improved software and firmware upgrades, along with support of Apple’s Bluetooth over MIDI protocol. What’s more, the team says it will be unveiling their hardware designs to the open-source community, as well as Arduino libraries and sketches for making high-performance wireless instruments.

“We will also release the firmwares needed to run the hardware: an Arduino Due library+sketch for converting sensor data into individual hits and MIDI messages, the UI (LED control and knob/buttons), and EEPROM memory/storage management. It will also include a patch to the Arduino project source code for a class-compliant USB MIDI implementation on the Arduino Due ARM processor (SAM3X8E),” the team writes.

Every musician — whether recreationally jamming out in the car or professionally putting together some tunes in the studio — can use DrumPants’ wearable controllers to play 150-plus sounds, and record, loop and edit their melodies with more than 300 music apps in the Apple store, not to mention any MIDI/OSC apps. This lets users rock out with all four limbs and create music in ways not possible with an MPC or tabletop MIDI controller. There’s also a built-in metronome for those looking to hone that rock steady tempo while on the go — whether that’s on the bus, on a coffee break, or at home waiting for a YouTube video to buffer.

Users can either play the DrumPants with headphones, or an external speaker for those confident enough to share with others. Though DrumPants were originally designed with the music industry in mind, the sensors actually provide a number of additional uses. As billions upon billions of connected objects emerge, this system will prove to be a prime example of a creative, alternative way to control those smart devices. In fact, the kit can be programmed to perform additional actions with a tap, whether that’s silencing a phone, browsing a website, switching slides during a PowerPoint presentation, interacting with virtual reality games, or assisting those with disabilities to command in-home appliances. No buttons or new gestures required.

“It’s 2015. Wireless instruments are the future of performance and electronic musicianship. A completely portable one will help you make music easily. Now, you can invent a beat or melody, and tap it out on your body—just like you already do,” its creators add. “We hope it will provide an educational base for many Bluetooth musical instruments to come: as a solid codebase to make your own DIY instruments, and as a reference for other musical instrument manufacturers to implement MIDI over Bluetooth LE.”

Geared towards the Maker crowd, DrumPants is Arduino-compatible and allows tinkerers to devise their own sensors and upload their sketches for maximum hackability. This opens up a plethora of possibilities, ranging from using it as the brain for a piezo drum trigger or plugging in any kind of resistive sensor to send MIDI CC data with bend sensors, photoresistive light detectors and ribbon sliders.

Want a set of DrumPants of your own? Head over to its Indiegogo page, where Tappur is currently seeking $35,000. Shipment is expected to begin in September 2015.

Not just for the music crowd, here’s a look at some other cool things these wearable sensors can do.

10 (+1) invaluable steps to launching your next IoT product

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Let’s transition your products from a ‘dumb’ to ‘smart’ thing.

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Many enterprises, startups and organizations have already been exposed to the innovation land grab stemming from the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT). What’s available in the product/market fit arena? This is the hunt to cease some segment of the multi-trillion dollar growth reported to gain from the IoT, enabling embedded system connectivity coupled with the ecosystem value-add of a product or service. Even for that matter, transforming a mere idea that centers around connectivity solutions can present an array of challenges, particularly when one seeks to bring to market disruptive ways for the end-user to adopt from the more traditional way of doing things (e.g. GoPro, PebbleWatch, FitBit, and even to as far as e-health monitors, tire subscriptions, self-driving vehicles, smart bracelets, connected medical apparatus or Industrial Internet devices, home automation systems and more).

All together, there’s one overlaying theme to these Internet-enabled products. They are all pervasively SMART technologies that help monetize the IoT. Now, let’s get your products to transition from a once ordinary, mundane object to a much smarter, more secure “thing.” When doing so, this too can often present a few obstacles for designers, especially as it requires a unique set of skills needed to interface systems with connectivity to the cloud or Internet.

To top it all off, there may already be various product lines in existence that have a mandate to leverage a connected ecosystem/design. In fact, even new ones require connectivity to the cloud, having designs set forth to enhance via customer usage then combining this user data with other associated data points. Already, the development to enable such devices require an assortment of skills. It’s an undertaking, one in which requires knowledge and expertise to command stable connectivity in the infrastructure and design a product with security, scalability, and low power.

Moving ahead, here are some recommendations developers and Makers should know:

1. Identify a need and market: The value of the smart device lies in in the service that it brings to the customer. Identify the need to develop a strong offer that brings value or enhances efficiency rather than creating a simple gadget. (See Marc Andreesen’s infamous blog on product/market fit for more tips).

2. Validate your ideation: Carry out market research. Do your due diligence. Determine whether the device you think of creating already exists. Can improvements be ascertained with testimonial as an enhanced or unique experience? Indeed, benchmarking will allow you to discover any competitors, find sources of inspiration, develop a network of ideas to pool and find other areas for improvement as well.

3. Prototype toward MVP: New device fabrication techniques, such as 3D printing, are the ideal creative validation for producing prototypes much faster and for less money. They also promote iteration, which is an integral process when designing the device towards MVP.

4. Connect the ‘thing’ then concert it into a smart ‘thing:’ Right now, there is no mandatory standard for interconnecting different devices. Selecting the right technology is essential, particularly if the device requires low-power (speaking of low-power….) and event and state controls, which highly optimize extended power and the services to enrich the information system and eventally enhance user experience with a roadmap toward an ecosystem.

5. Develop the application: Today, the primary smart devices are linked to an dedicated mobile app. Since the app transforms the smartphone into a remote control, it must be be easy to use for your end-users, and more importantly, simply upgraded via the cloud.

6. Manage the data: Fitted with a multitude of sensors, connected gadgets generate an enormous amount of data that need to be processed and stored with the utmost security across all layers even to as far as using cryptography in memory. (After all, you don’t want your design become a ‘Tales from the Crypt-O” horror story.) 

7. Analyze and exploit the data: By processing and analyzing the data, a company can extract the necessary information to deploy the right service in the right place at the right time.

8. Measure the impact of the smart device: Set up probes to monitor your devices and data traffic quality. Answer questions objectively as to how it would securely scale and evolve should there be an instant high volume success and usage. This will help you measure the impact of the smart device in real time and adapt its actions accordingly, and model into the product roadmap and MVP spec.

9. Iterate to fine-tune the device’s use: After launching the project, the process has only begun. Feedback needs to be taken into account in order to adjust and fine-tune the project. Due to its very nature, digital technology requires continuous adaptation and iteration. “Try and learn” and present riskier ideas to products are the fundamental principles behind transformation when imposing a new use.

10. Prototype again: Continuous adaptation and iteration means that your company needs to produce a new prototype.

Here’s 10 + 1 invaluable steps to launching your IoT project or product.

11. Take advantage of the hands-on training in your region.

As an application space, IoT sensor nodes are enabled by a number of fundamental technologies, namely a low-power MCU, some form of wireless communication and strong security. With this in mind, the newly revealed Atmel IoT Secure Hello World series will offer attendees hands-on training, introducing them to some of the core technologies making the Internet of Things possible, including Wi-Fi and CryptoAuthentication.

What’s more, these sessions will showcase Atmel’s diverse Wi-Fi capabilities and CryptoAuthentication hardware key storage in the context of the simplest possible use cases. This includes learning how to send temperature information to any mobile device via a wireless network and how to enable the remote control of LEDs on a SAM D21 Xplained Pro board over a Wi-Fi network using a WINC1500. In addition, attendees will explore authentication of IoT nodes, as well as how to implement a secure communications link — something that will surely come in handy when preparing to launch your next smart product.

As you can see, so far, everyone is LOVING the Hello World sessions — from hardcore embedded engineers to hobbyists. Here some recent social activity following the recent Tech on Tour events in both Manchester and Heathrow, UK. Need we say more? These tweets say a thousand words!

Connected and ready to go… all before lunch! (Yes, there’s food as well!)

 

Atmel’s Tech on Tour and proud partner EBV Elektronik proudly thankful for the successful event in Manchester, UK.

 

Atmel’s Tech on Tour just successfully completed a full house attendance training in Manchester, UK

 

BLE, WIFI, IoT, IOE, ToT, OMG! How does Big Bang Theory and IoT relate to Tech on Tour?

Find out how you too can receive in-depth IoT training. As the Atmel | Tech on Tour makes it way throughout Europe, Asia, and North America, make sure you know when the team arrives in your town!  Don’t miss it. Upon registering, you will even receive a WINC1500 Xplained Pro Starter Kit to take home.

These movement-responsive wristbands emit real-life superhero sounds

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Bam! Pow! Zap! Boom!

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If you’ve ever read a comic book, then you’re well aware of the one thing that every superhero has in common: they all have a special power, whether it’s memory manipulation like Professor X, web-spinning and crawling like Spiderman, or x-ray vision like Superman. Unfortunately in print, a reader can’t actually experience the sound effects that coincide with these actions. Instead, they are typically spelt out inside a callout bubble. BAM! POW! ZAP! BOOM! 

Well, Makers Niki Selken and Annelie Koller thought it would be a fun idea to channel their inner superhero by creating what they call Action Bands — wristbands that emit sound and light effects as they move. In other words, these wearable devices bring those callout bubbles to life.

To accomplish this, the Maker duo used an Adafruit FLORA (ATmega32U4), an accelerometer, a piezo, conductive thread, a LiPo battery, some NeoPixels, a headband and laser-cut plexiglass icons. These icons were then attached to a store-bought headband and shaped with a sewing machine to fit the wrist.

From there, the FLORA and accelerometer were connected with conductive thread. The Makers then loaded the code to produce sounds and light effects depending on X,Y and Z coordinates and acceleration. The sounds were compiled from a library created by MIT, while the LEDs employed the Adafruit NeoPixel Library, of course.

“The hardest part was discovering the X-Y-Z access thresholds for the gestures that trigger the sound. We have three unique gesture sets that trigger three different sounds. Part of the fun is finding those gestures and discovering the sounds we programmed,” Selken explains.

Want one of your own? Grab your cape and zoom on over to the project’s page, where you can find its detailed instructions, schematics and more.

Maker creates a steampunk name badge for the wearable computing era

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A badge even H. G. Wells and Jules Verne would want to wear. 

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With Maker Faire season upon us, we’re bound to see a ‘faire’ share of steampunk projects over the next couple of months — from hat-mounted clocks to wooden 3D printers to slick wristwatches. Given all of the buzz around wearable computing as of late, Maker Rob Reilly decided to do something a little different by creating a pseudo-Victorian name badge.

“I chose a name badge because I attend and speak at quite a few tech conferences and events. Breaking the conversational ice with 8,000 strangers can be a bit daunting. A one-off ‘badge’ might grab people’s curiosity and show off some practical wearable computing vibes at the same time. Also, almost everybody likes steampunk,” Reilly writes.

As fate would have it, the Maker received a 1.8-inch color LCD screen for Christmas, capable of displaying bitmaps at a resolution of 160 x 128 pixels and being easily programmed using a Linux notebook through the Arduino IDE. Driven by an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328) soldered to an LCD breakout board, the badge itself features a digital temperature sensor, a battery pack, an integrated micro-SD card, and a handmade brass frame to hold it all together. The Pro Mini and display board are both suspended within the badge’s frame, while some 22-gauge copper wire from a CAT 5 cable is tasked with connecting the more discrete components, like the temperature sensor and resistors.

“The programmable/microcontroller approach lends itself to exploring ‘networked’ wearable computing in upcoming version 2.0 and beyond versions,” the Maker says.

In terms of programming, Reilly notes that it was relatively straightforward through some good ol’ Arduino code. Beyond that, he used examples from the Adafruit_GFX and Adafruit_ST7735 libraries, then added lines that cycled through a couple of bitmaps, such as a “Dr Torq” image and a text readout of the ambient temperature.

As impressive as version 1.0 may be, the Maker already has some ideas for future iterations. A few notable improvements to beef up its steampunk aesthetics and hackability include swapping out its AAA batteries, replacing fake with real leather, and using 10-pin female headers on the MCU side to connect the 10-pin male headers on the LCD breakout board. Reilly is also looking to migrate from the Pro Mini to an Arduino Yún (ATmega32U4), which would enable him to wirelssly connect the badge with his smartphone.

Want to make one of your own? Head over to the project’s page here.

MyoWare is an Arduino-compatible, wearable muscle sensor platform

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This wearable sensor platform allows you to harness the power of muscle signals.  

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Using our muscles to control the world around us is something we are all accustomed to — whether that’s pushing buttons on TV remotes, pulling door handles or toggling game joysticks. But what if we could take those things out of the equation? In other words, what if you could remove the middleman by harnessing your muscle’s electrical activity, amplifying it and then converting it into a form that can be used to command an Arduino, a robot or an assortment of everyday devices?

Measuring muscle activity by detecting its electric potential is commonly referred to as electromyography, or EMG. The process has traditionally been employed throughout the medical industry, albeit not so much the hobbyist crowd. However, with the advent of the Maker Movement paired with rise of ever-shrinking yet more powerful microcontrollers, EMG circuits and sensors have found their way into all kinds of control systems. And so, MyoWare was born.

Now in its fourth iteration, the wearable muscle sensor platform enables users to measure the filtered and rectified electrical activity of a muscle. Simply stick the MyoWare sensor on a few electrodes and place onto a person’s skin. When the brain tells their muscle to flex, it will send an electrical signal to that muscle to start recruiting motor units — these are those groups of muscle fibers responsible for generating force strength.read the voltage out and start pumping up those muscles. The more a wearer flexes, the more motor units are recruited to generate greater muscle force. The greater the number of motor units, the more the muscle electrical activity increases. MyoWare then analyzes this electrical activity and outputs an analog signal that represents how hard the muscle is being flexed.

The latest version of the platform allows the sensors to be plugged directy into a 3.3V–5V development board, like an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328), and eliminates those pesky wires by letting Makers easily snapping the embedded electrodes onto MyoWare. Advancer Technologies has also added a secondary output for RAW EMG waveform, an on-board on/off switch and a pair of LEDs that will serve as a power indicator as well as a gauge for muscle flexing.

As any Maker knows, extending capabilities is key when a project is under development. And so, the team admittedly decided to take a page from the highly-popular Arduino platform’s playbook and incorporate shields into MyoWare. These modular boards consist of a cable shield for when embedded snaps are not suitable, a proto shield with tons of through hole pins, a power shield with two 20mm coin cell batteries to give MyoWare all of the juice it needs to operate, and a meter shield.

“The Mighty Meter Shield is what got us really excited about the prospect of shields. This shield takes the MyoWare output and lights up an LED bar depending on how hard you flex. The harder you flex; the more bars will light up. It even holds a 20mm coin battery so you can just stick shield+sensor assembly on your muscle and start flexing,” the team writes.

What’s more, the startup has been providing its sensors to several organizations to enable a range of impressive projects that are truly making a difference in this world. Take Limbitless Solutions for example, who has been able to craft 3D-printed myoelectric prosthetic arms and donate them to children in need. During their crowdfunding campaign, Advancer Technologies has committed to donating one sensor a child for every five backers of $25 or more.

Intrigued? Head over to its official Kickstarter page, where Advancer Technologies is currently seeking $10,000. Delivery is slated to begin in July 2015. In the meantime, you can check out its earlier version on SparkFun here.

Report: Smart clothing shipments to hit 10.2 million annually by 2020

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Body sensor shipments will reach 3.1 million units annually by 2020, new report says.

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In today’s Internet of Things (IoT) era, wearable technology will undoubtedly migrate from simple wrist-adorn devices to various biometric sensors embedded within our clothing. According to a new report from research firm Tractica, this change will take place over the next five years where more than 10 million items of smart clothing will be shipped annually. This increase will be driven by quantified self adoption, which includes the collection, measurement, tracking and analysis of body data to help wearers live healthier lives.

(Source: Polo Ralph Lauren)

These latest figures follow in the footsteps of Garner’s recent study, which projects nearly 26 million e-textiles to be in use by 2016. This niche isn’t anything entirely new; in fact, athletes and avid sports enthusiasts have been using sensor-laden shirts, shorts, bras and socks for a little while now, all in an effort to acquire biometric information around muscle, breathing rate and heart activity. Over the next several years, the appearance of smart clothing is expected to change in appearance from high-tech athletic apparel to everyday street gear.

Meanwhile, the body sensor sector is also experience a transition as heart rate monitors decline in unit volume and newer devices like baby and pregnancy monitors, headbands, posture monitors and 3D trackers begin to build momentum. Tractica forecasts that shipments of embedded garments will jump from 140,000 units in 2013 to 10.2 million units by 2020, while body sensor shipments will decrease from 3.0 million units in 2013 to 1.2 million by 2017, before rising again to 3.1 million units in 2020.

“The ultimate wearable computer is a piece of smart clothing that one can wear as a garment or a body sensor that can track and measure specific vital signs,” says research director Aditya Kaul. “Both of these device categories are designed to seamlessly integrate with users’ daily lives.”

While we’ve already seen a number of major brands, ranging from Polo Ralph Lauren to adidas, take giant leaps into the smart clothing market, we can’t overlook the number of soft electronics DIY projects either. Inspired to create their very own e-textiles, Makers have already begun to embrace various easy-to-use wearable platform, including the Arduino Lilypad (ATmega328) and Adafruit’s FLORA (ATmega32U4), which can be easily daisy chained with various sensors for GPS, motion and light.

Want to learn more? You can find the entire Tractica report here.

DrumPants puts an entire band in your pocket

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This kit lets you play music right from your body using 100+ sounds and 300+ music applications.

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Ever catch yourself drumming on your pant leg? Your table? Your desk? Your steering wheel? Well good news, starting a one-man band is now as simple as wearing DrumPants. Dubbed by its creators Tyler Freeman and Lei Yu as “the world’s industrial quality wearable musical instrument,” the kit magically transforms your outfit into a full ensemble with 100+ high-quality sounds.

As previously reported on Bits & Pieces and recently seen on ABC’s Shark Tank, DrumPants is comprised of two wearable sensor strips and a control box, that when attached to any item of clothing, enable a wearer to play a beat by simply tapping their body. The pair of sensors can easily be removed as well, making it the ideal portable instrument.

Though DrumPants were originally designed with the music industry in mind, the sensors actually provide a number of additional uses. In fact, each strip can be reprogrammed to trigger actions within a wide variety of apps, ranging from answering their phone, to controlling a streaming video, to playing a game. The software can also take output data from certain Atmel based Arduino boards and manipulate it in real-time, in case any industrious Makers wish to utilize the sensor strips to drive another gadget entirely.

Its control box — which is based on an Atmel | SMART ARM Cortex-M3 MCU — is equipped with an ultra-low latency Bluetooth 4.0 chip, an embedded sound engine for a 1/8″ headphone jack, 128 instrument sample banks and a Micro-USB for connecting to a laptop or PC. Meanwhile, its sensors can be placed anywhere on the body, whether that’s a snare drum on an upper thigh or a cymbal on a knee. Want a kick drum or a looping pedal, too? Wearers can bring that functionality right inside their shoe through a set of footpads.

DrumPants comes with its own apps — DrumPants PRO and Neil Peart — allowing users to easily adjust the tone and pitch of each sound and to upload their own customized effects. What’s more, the kit is compatible with all MIDI or OSC apps, including Loopy, Ableton Live, Reason, Animoog and Pandora to name just a few. This lets users record, loop and edit their own musical masterpieces, or even map taps to keystrokes for games. And for those wishing to extend their system’s capabilities, an Expander Kit offers users with six additional sensors.

Co-founder Tyler Freeman first developed DrumPants as a prank to play on his drummer friends, but went on to modify the innovation into an industrial, production-ready wearable music kit. Since its successful launch on Kickstarter, its creators have gone on to make numerous event appearances and modify a few of its features, some of which were stretch goals during the crowdfunding campaign. These include a built-in metronome for those looking to hone that rock steady tempo while on the go — whether that’s on the bus, on a coffee break, or just at home waiting for your videos to buffer. Beyond that, the device now boasts a volume range of audio samples, customizable MIDI note duration, more robust firmware, and improved pedal algorithms.

Interested? Check out Tappur’s official project page here, and watch it in action below. Heading to Maker Faire Bay Area? Get ready to rock out with the team inside our booth!

WEZR is like a personal weather station that clips onto your jacket or keychain

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WEZR is for anyone who wants to know the accurate, real-time weather forecast of a specific location.

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Sure, nowadays you can whip out your smartphone and quickly pull up the weather, but that might not always be accurate enough to fulfill your real-time needs. Take for instance those heading out on a hike, those looking to catch some waves or even those planning a weekend getaway, a small tracker that provides a personalized, up-to-the-minute forecast can come in handy at crucial times.

WEZR is comprised of a connected sensor and an accompanying app that attaches to any device, jacket, backpack, keychain, bike handlebar, ski pole or some other sort of accessory, and offers precise mile-by-mile geolocated forecasts with continuous monitoring and updates beamed right to your phone. The unit itself features a BLE module and a number of microelectromechanical systems, in addition to an ARM-based architecture for the pre-processing and storage of data.

“WEZR tackles weather forecast reliability and accuracy through a combination of sensors, engineering, distributed networking and cloud computing,” the team writes.

How it works is relatively simple: An adapter reads the current status of the weather based on air pressure, humidity and temperature in an area by way of the WEZR device. An embedded sensor tracks and communicates atmospheric data directly to the app (iOS and Android compatible) over Bluetooth, which in turn, is relayed to a cloud-based service. There, advanced algorithms analyze the live information and combine it with traditional weather predictions. This data is then displayed directly onto the smartphone and updated every five minutes.

“Our goal was to create a new concept featuring a simple sensor that easily transfers the data to the algorithm and then to your smartphone instantaneously and seamlessly to provide you with the most-accurate weather information possible,” the team adds.

At the moment, WEZR forecasts will only be available in specific areas with expansion into new territories contingent upon the amount of funding. To start, the startup hopes to roll out to most of the U.S. and a large portion of western Europe, with Japan and Australia to follow.

Interested? Head over to its official Kickstarter page, where WEZR is currently seeking $200,000. Delivery is slated for December 2015.