Tag Archives: Boris Landoni

Video: Hacking a Valentine with the ATtiny85

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The OpenElectronics crew has presented a project dubbed “HeartThrob” in honor of Valentine’s Day weekend.

“You [may] be inclined to think that this is the usual heart-shaped Valentine gadget,” OE’s Boris Landoni explained in a blog post detailing the project.

“In reality this is something much cooler as it’s capable to create beautiful and complex light games… Just shake HeartThrob and it will turn on and crate incredible light animations.”

HeartThrob is powered by Atmel’s versatile ATtiny85 microcontroller (MCU), as the OpenElectronics team required a compact controller that was easy to program and offered a precise balance between energy consumption and performance.

In terms of software, the HeartThrob can be modified according to the specific needs of a user, including duration, vibration detection and number of functions for those who want to add or remove lighting effects.

Interested in learning more? You can check out HeartThrob’s official project page here.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel’s ATtiny85 MCU is routinely tapped by both DIY Makers and professional engineers to power a wide range of projects. To be sure, quite a number of devices and platforms built around the ATtiny85 have surfaced in recent months, including the LED SMD firefly, astrophotography tracker, vibrating timepiece, ATtiny85 ISP!, and Cuboino (Digital Cuboro). 

LEWE is an open source biometric wristband

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LEWE – an open source biometric wristband – is built around the Atmel-powered Arduino Mega board (ATmega1280) and a number of shields, including Bluetooth, RTC and color LCD.

According to Boris Landoni of OpenElectronics, the goal of Project LEWE is to leverage available tech and create a low cost platform using sensors for data collection.

“Clearly this version is quite hulking, but we wanted to explain how to make the [platform],” said Landoni.

“[Ultimately, everything can be] integrated into a single board or two, in a more compact fashion that can be worn thanks to a special container with a wristband.”

The current iteration of the LEWE prototype currently supports at least five functions, including:

  • Measuring body temperature and sweat rate
  • Local display of recorded data
  • Relaying information to a smartphone app
  • Sending and storing data to the cloud
  • Organizing data in graph form for analysis

On the app side, LEWE is designed to communicates with an Android smartphone.

“The app consists of a main activity, in which the last data received from the wristband are shown, [along with] a secondary activity that displays the diagram containing all the data,” Landoni added.

“By clicking the icon of the gear, you can enter the app settings [to] connect and configure the cloud access information.”

Interested in learning more about LEWE? You can check out additional information on OpenElectronics here.