Uber-mini MicroView dev board has a built-in OLED

The MicroView – which recently made its Kickstarter debut – is a chip-sized platform with a built-in OLED (64×48) display.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1516846343/microview-chip-sized-arduino-with-built-in-oled-di

Essentially, the MicroView allows Makers to see what the Atmel-based board is “thinking” without having to link with a PC. The device, designed by the Geek Ammo crew, is powered by Atmel’s versatile ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU).

Additional key features and specs include:

• Support for the Arduino IDE 1.0+ (OSX/Win/Linux)
• Direct 3.3VDC – 16VDC power input, no power regulator required
• Standard DIP package
• Breadboard friendly or direct solder
• Operating Voltage: 5V
• Input Voltage: 3.3VDC – 16VDC
• Digital I/O Pins: 12 (of which 3 provide PWM output)
• Analog Input Pins: 6
• Flash Memory: 32 KB
• SRAM: 2 KB
• EEPROM: 1 Kilobyte
• Clock Speed: 16 Mhz

“No more cryptic ‘Hello World’ LED blink sequences or shoehorning oversized displays,” a Geek Ammo rep explained.

“Development is much easier when you can [actually] see what’s going on.”

In addition to providing a wide range of tutorials, the Geek Ammo crew has developed a cross-platform MicroView course that takes Makers through a step-by-step process of building 11 different circuits including:

• Blinking LEDs and creating various colors on an RGB LED
• Obtaining readings from a potentiometer
• Taking the input from a push button
• Sensing temperature and light
• Controlling actuators relays, motors and servos
• Generating sound

The MicroView can be powered via a number of sources, including a coin cell battery, AA or AAA, USB, 9V (Square) and 12V (car).

Interested in learning more about the Atmel-powered MicroView? You can check out the project’s official Kickstarter page here.

This 6X USB charger has a current monitor

Frank Zhao, an electrical engineer and DIY hobbyist, has designed a simple 6 port USB device charger with an individual current monitor on each port.

“The problem I faced was that I had too many devices to recharge at once, not having enough chargers and not having enough AC jacks,” Zhao explained in a recent blog post.

“Also my new Sony wireless headset was being picky about both the cable I use and the charger I use. I decided to troubleshoot this problem by building this tool.”

Key project specs include Atmel’s versatile ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU), an INA169 breakout board and an OKR-T10-W12.

The charging current is indicated using RGB LEDs. More specifically, blue means slow charge (under 250mA), green 250mA-750mA, red over 750mA and purple over 1500mA (for tablets).

“Wiring is done using 30 gauge Kynar coated wire. A decently capable wall-wart is needed, anywhere between 4.5V to 12V is acceptable and it must be able to supply enough current for all the devices to be charged,” Zhao continued.

“A DC/DC converter is used to increase efficiency, so a 12V wall-wart supplying 4A can actually charge about 8A total. The D+ and D- signals have the appropriate resistors to enable high charging rates on Apple devices – which is compatible with Sony, Samsung and other brands.”

Zhao also noted that he deliberately omitted a number of features from his charger due to cost and time constraints, including reverse polarity protection, input fuse, individual over-current cutoff and LED dimming.

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

Opportunities beyond the IoT hype

Writing for the EnergyHarvestingJournal, IDTechEx CEO Raghu Das confirms the Internet of Things (IoT) will provide significant value to business and consumers – if corporations are capable of addressing real world problems.

“In the industry, suppliers need to identify problems that the IoT can address – many of which are being addressed as ‘closed loop’ solutions using specific wireless hardware,” Das explains.

“Payback here can be very fast, from locating things and utilizing them more effectively to improving security and safety. Most implementations exist in islands of automation and the next step – if the problem requires it – is to join some of these systems up.”

Similarly, home automation is a strong contender for the IoT suppliers, with governments across the globe rolling out various smart metering platforms.

“It is here that IDTechEx see exciting prospects for the IoT – providing new services and connectivity for consumers. The models need to be thought through – consumers want things for free – with payment coming from other means, such as data use, advertising or consumer data,” he says.

Last, but certainly not least, Das recommends that companies leverage existing hardware such as smartphones to do more useful things – based on new applications – such as indoor positioning systems connected to other hardware platforms, including real time locating systems.

“[Companies can] offer new services to consumers they do not yet know they want. [This is] the biggest opportunity, but challenging to do and involves creative new business models, probably where the service is ‘free’ but paid for in kind by consumer data,” he adds.

In related IoT news, the UK government recently decided to spend an extra £45m on developing Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The pledge, made by British Prime Minister David Cameron, more than doubles the amount of IoT-related funds currently available to UK tech firms.

“I see the internet of things as a huge transformative development,” British Prime Minister David Cameron recently told CeBIT attendees in Germany in a statement quoted by the BBC.

“[It is] a way of boosting productivity, of keeping us healthier, making transport more efficient, reducing energy needs [and] tackling climate change.”

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, the IoT is essentially a combination of multiple market segments, tens of thousands of OEMs and hundreds of thousands of products.

“It is seen by many as the next wave of dramatic market growth for semiconductors. If you look at the different estimates made by market analysts, the IoT market will be worth trillions of dollars to a variety of industries from the consumer to financial, industrial, white goods and other market segments,” Dr. Reza Kazerounian, Senior VP and GM of the Microcontroller Business Unit at Atmel told EEWeb earlier this month.

“Companies that provide cloud-based services, service providers and semiconductor companies will also benefit from this market. The number of small or new companies that are showcasing connective devices has increased – there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020. These nodes will have characteristics such as low-power embedded processing, a human-machine interface and connectivity.”

Interested in learning more about the IoT? You can check out previous Bits & Pieces articles on the subject here.

Building a Yún-powered weather station

The Arduino Yún – designed in collaboration with Dog Hunter – is based on Atmel’s popular ATMega32u4 microcontroller (MCU) and also features the Atheros AR9331, an SoC running Linino, a customized version of OpenWRT. The Yún is somewhat unique in the Arduino lineup, as it boasts a lightweight Linux distribution to complement the traditional microcontroller (MCU) interface.

The Atmel-powered Yún – which hit the streets late last year – has been used in a wide variety of Maker projects that we’ve recently covered on Bits & Pieces, including an electricity monitor, mesh extender platform, Foursquare soap bubble machine, a Gmail (alert) lamp, water heater regulator and Evil Alarm System.

Today, we’re going to be taking a look at how Marc-Olivier Schwartz built a cloud-connected weather station with the Yún. Aside from the Atmel-based board, key hardware specs include:

• DHT11 (or DHT22) sensor and 4.7K resistor (for humidity)
• 
BMP085 sensor on a simple breakout board/Adafruit BMP180 sensor board (for pressure and temperature)
• Photocell with a 10K Ohm resistor (light level)
• Breadboard + assorted male-male jumper wires

On the software side, Schwartz used the Arduino IDE, Temboo, DHT library, the BMP085/BMP180 library, unified sensor library and a Google Docs account for the collected data to be analyzed and stored.

“The hardware connections for this project are actually quite simple: we have to connect the DHT11 sensor and then the part responsible for the light level measurement with the photocell. First, connect the Arduino Yun +5V pin to the red rail on the breadboard and the ground pin to the blue rail,” Schwartz explained in a detailed Adafruit tutorial.

“Then, connect pin number 1 of the DHT11 sensor to the red rail on the breadboard and pin number 4 the blue rail. Also connect pin number 2 to pin number 8 of the Arduino Yún. To finish up with the DHT11 sensor, connect the 4.7k Ohm between pin number 1 and 2 of the sensor.”

Next up is the photocell.

“First place the cell in series with the 10k Ohm resistor on the breadboard. Then, connect the other end of the photocell to the red rail on the breadboard and the other end of the resistor to the ground. Finally, connect the common pin to the Arduino Yún’s analog pin A0,” Schwartz continued.

“For the BMP085 or BMP180 sensor, connect the VIN pin to the +5V, GND to Ground, SCL to Arduino Yún pin number 3 and SDA pin to Arduino Yún pin number 2.”

According to Schwartz, multiple Yún boards can be used in various parts of a single residence.

“You can also customize the email alert part: you can build more complex alerts based on the measured data, or set the project to email you the sensor data at a regular time interval,” he added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out Schwartz’s full Adafruit tutorial here.

Video: Designing an Uno-based energy meter

Electrical engineer Debasish Dutta has designed an energy meter built around an Atmel-powered Arduino Uno (ATmega328 MCU).

)

“I [come from the] village of Odisha, India, where frequent power cut are very common. Continuing studies after dusk was a real challenge [so] I designed a solar system for my home on a experimental basis,” Dutta explained in a recent Instructables blog post.

“I used a solar panel of 10 Watt, 6V for lighting few bright LEDs. Then I decided to monitor the voltage, current, power and energy involved in the system, [which inspired] the idea of designing an energy meter.”

Dutta said he chose Arduino as “the heart” of his energy meter due to the numerous available open source libraries and intuitive IDE environment.

Aside from the Arduino Uno, key project features and specs include:

• 16×2 character LCD display
• Arduino Ethernet shield
• ACS 712 current sensor
• Resistors (10K,330ohm)
• Potentiometer (10K)
• Jumper wires
• Ethernet cable (CAT-5E)
• Bread board
• Supports Xively upload
• SD card data logging

The energy meter uses three primary parameters to measure energy consumption: voltage, current and time.

“Voltage is measured by the help of a voltage divider circuit. As the Arduino analog pin input voltage is restricted to 5V I designed the voltage divider in such a way that the output voltage from it should be less than 5V. My battery used for storing the power from the solar panel is rated 6v, 5.5Ah. So I have to step down the 6.5v to a voltage lower than 5V,” said Dutta.

“I used R1=10k and R2 =10K. The value of R1 and R2 can be lower (one), but the problem is that when resistance is low, higher current flow through it. As a result, a large amount of power (P = I^2R) is dissipated in the form of heat. So different resistance value can be chosen but care should be taken to minimize the power loss across the resistance.”

For current measurement, Dutta used a Hall Effect current sensor ACS 712 (20 A), while leveraging the Uno’s built-in timer. The collected data is then uploaded to Xively.com for additional analysis.

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

Moving beyond the wearable future hype

On March 8th, the Chinese American Semiconductor Professionals Association (CASPA) held a symposium titled “The Wearable Future: Moving Beyond the Hype; the Search for the Holy Grail and Practical Use Cases.”

As SemiWiki’s Daniel Nenni notes in a recent blog post, the symposium, hosted at the Intel HQ Auditorium in Santa Clara, was standing room only. Dr. Reza Kazerounian, SVP & GM, Microcontroller Business Unit of Atmel, delivered a keynote speech at the event. 

According to Dr. Kazerounian, the Internet of Things (IoT) is opening up fresh horizons for a new generation of intelligent systems that leverage contextual computing and sensing platforms, effectively creating new markets.

“One of these platforms is the wearable category of devices, where the combination of sensors using low-power sensor fusion platforms, and short-range wireless connectivity, are giving rise to a variety of exciting end markets. From self-quantification to a variety of location-based applications, to remote health monitoring, wearables are becoming the harbinger for a whole host of services,” he explained.

“With the right set of biometric sensors combined with local fast data analytics, wearables have the potential to revolutionize the health care industry. These devices can provide real-time data and contextual information along with all the health care requirements, improving the quality of care and lowering the overall cost of care.”

Indeed, as we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, sports and healthcare functionality currently dominates shipments and is expected to drive future wearable device adoption. 

According to analysts at ABI Research, the most popular device functionality is heart rate monitoring – with close to 12 million devices shipped in 2013. These single function devices are designed to communicate with nearby hubs such as smartphones or activity sports watches. 
Pedometers and activity trackers were the next two most popular devices, accounting for around 16 million devices combined in 2013.

“The market for wearable computing devices is driven by a growing range of wireless connected wearable sports, fitness and wellbeing devices,” confirmed Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research.

The Atmel-powered (SAM4L) Amulyte Pendant

“Heart rate and activity monitors will outpace shipments of smart watches and glasses for some years to come, and they will provide the essential foundation for the development of the broader wearable market.”

Collins also noted that wearable devices will increasingly move into healthcare services over the next five years.

“Sports, fitness and wellness devices will increasingly be augmented by connectivity to the emerging number of smart watches and glasses devices that become available over the next five years,” he said. “Likewise, general use wearable devices will increasingly support aspects of health monitoring. The interplay between health monitoring and wearable devices will be crucial in the development of both these markets.”

Canalys analyst Daniel Matte expressed similar sentiments about a related space in late 2013 when he confirmed that wearable bands represented a massive opportunity in the medical and wellness segment.

“The wearable band market is really about the consumerization of health… There will be exciting innovations that disrupt the medical industry this year. With the increased awareness about personal well-being they will bring to users, having a computer on your wrist will become increasingly common,” he added.

Tannin is a DIY MIDI controller

Last week, Bits & Pieces got up close and personal with the Atmegatron, an 8-bit mono synth powered by Atmel’s ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU).

Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the Tannin, a DIY MIDI controller built around the Atmel-based Arduino Nano (ATmega328). 

Deisgned by Shantea, the system is equipped with 16 potentiometers, 19 buttons and four LEDs controller.

“It fully supports MIDI Note On/Off and CC messages, including the MIDI In (I’m using that feature in Traktor to control LEDs and set modifiers). It even features experimental MIDI Clock In support,” Shantea explained in a recent HackADay Project post.

“I’ve set it in a way that LEDs blink in sync with that clock, but there’s more work to be done to make it work fully. The buttons also have built-in feature of long press, that is, if you press button for half second (that can easily be defined) it will send another MIDI Note On on another channel (2, regular presses are sent on channel 1). The pots as well send MIDI Note On/Off messages, 6 per pot, depending on their position, with CC messages, of course.”

On the software side, Shantea used The Hairless MIDI to Serial Bridge, routing the messages via virtual MIDI cable software (loopBe30).

“When you match your virtual port in hairless-midi software, the once-serial messages from Arduino will become MIDI messages routed over virtual MIDI cable,” he said. “After that you can easily map your controller to any software which supports MIDI learn.”

In terms of hardware specifics, Tannin’s faceplate is manufactured out of a special plastic board 1.5mm thick (glued to 3mm plexiglas) and houses three PCBs designed in Eagle.

“Two for two groups of potentiometers to get really stable values (I used to connect the pots with wires which often resulted in gibberish values), and they both use ground planes on both sides,” Shantea added. “[Meanwhile], the main PCB [is fitted with the Atmel-based] Arduino, with connectors for two PCBs for pots. Each pot PCB has 4051 chip on it to read potentiometers. Buttons and LEDs [are] connected in a matrix with shared columns.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out HackADay’s introductory blog post here and the project’s official HackADay page here.

UK invests big in the IoT

The UK government will reportedly spend an extra £45m on developing Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The pledge, made by British Prime Minister David Cameron, more than doubles the amount of IoT-related funds currently available to UK tech firms.

“I see the internet of things as a huge transformative development,” British Prime Minister David Cameron recently told CeBIT attendees in Germany in a statement quoted by the BBC. “[It is] a way of boosting productivity, of keeping us healthier, making transport more efficient, reducing energy needs [and] tackling climate change.”

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, the IoT is essentially a combination of multiple market segments, tens of thousands of OEMs and hundreds of thousands of products.

“It is seen by many as the next wave of dramatic market growth for semiconductors. If you look at the different estimates made by market analysts, the IoT market will be worth trillions of dollars to a variety of industries from the consumer to financial, industrial, white goods and other market segments,” Dr. Reza Kazerounian, Senior VP and GM of the Microcontroller Business Unit at Atmel, recently told EEWeb.

“Companies that provide cloud-based services, service providers and semiconductor companies will also benefit from this market. The number of small or new companies that are showcasing connective devices has increased – there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020. These nodes will have characteristics such as low-power embedded processing, a human-machine interface and connectivity.”

Interested in learning more about the IoT? You can check out previous Bits & Pieces articles on the subject here.

An AVR-based public transport display

When it is reliable, public transportation is almost certainly the way to go, especially for those who are environmentally conscious. 

Take Adrian and Obelix, for example. These two university students recently hacked an LED dot matrix display to show arrival times for stops near their dorm.



The duo found the display for the project, albeit with a defective controller, on eBay. However, Adrian and Obelix quickly swapped out the controller for a trusty AVR-based ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU) and TP-Link MR3020.

“The ATmega328P does all the hard work pushing every line into the registers of the display and multiplexing, [while] the MR3020 takes care of network communication where it’s wireless interface comes in handy, because you only need to provide power to the display,” the two explained in a detailed blog post.

“For now, a PC takes care of collecting all information and rendering an image, but this will eventually be done by the MR3020 in the future. For now, it’s more practical to do the rendering on a PC with Python, where later on a C-program would do all the work on the MR3020.”

It should probably be noted that the above-mentioned display actually comprises two separate displays – each with a resolution of 128*16 pixels. Indeed, each line is connected to a binary decoder.

“Both displays have a common line select, clock pin, enable and latch, but separate data pins and data output pins, so we connected the first dataout to the second and get a virtual 256*16 pixel display,” the two added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out HackADay’s write up here and the project’s official page here.

Playing laser tag with an ATmega328P

Skirmos is an open source, versatile laser tag system that features an ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU), Arduino bootloader, color LCD screen (acts as a realtime HUD) and an infrared LED.

Additional key specs include:

• RF module
• SD card slot
• 
Sound card (accepts .mp3 and .wav)
• Speakers
• 
RGB LED grids (stretch goal)
• 
Internal LEDs
• Infrared receivers (38khz)
• 
16mhz clock
• Plastic transparent custom shell
• USB port (data from computer to system)

“The hardware will make Skirmos better than airsoft and lasertag combined. It maintains the realism, range and ruggedness to play outdoors like airsoft, while having the accuracy, feedback, and dynamic cheat-proof gametypes of lasertag,” Skirmos rep Allan Ivanov wrote in a recent Kickstarter post.

“This means the final design of the systems will include accurate iron sights and a rail system for attachments for ranges over 500 feet.”

According to Ivanov, Skirmos rifles communicate with one another via radio, with infrared optics facilitating “extreme ranges” for sniping.

On the software side, Skirmos allows players to easily alter fire modes (semi-automatic, three-round burst, automatic, etc), as well as the rate of fire. Plus, each player is assigned a specific ID to avoid friendly fire incidents.

In addition, Skirmos offers a trio of preset gametypes: basic, free-for-all and team slayer. However, the platform is ultimately expected to boast an almost unlimited number of gametypes.

“Because of the open source aspect, you will be able to create your own gametypes. This might be tweaking with the respawn time on Capture the Flag, to creating your own objectives and modes,”
 Ivanov explained.

“So imagine playing custom gametypes that other users have made like Search and Destroy. Rest assured, you won’t need to be a programming master to design your own games. If Skirmos is successful, we will create an auto-builder, a drag-and-drop program to quickly and easily create new gametypes (stretch goal).”

Interested in learning more about Skirmos? You can check out the project’s official Kickstarter page here.