Neptune looks reverse the roles of the smartwatch and smartphone

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Montreal-based startup looks to usher in a Dick Tracy-like future. 

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Ever since you can probably remember, the smartphone has been the focal interest of your day. From waking up to a set alarm to checking your email to texting friends, they are seemingly attached to our hands at all times. In recent months, we’ve also seen a number of smartwatches enter the market; however, each of them have essentially been an add-on to your phone. But what if they were to swap roles? That’s the idea behind Neptune Duo, a two-device package featuring the “world’s smartest wearable,” Neptune Hub, and a pocket-sized companion device, the Pocket screen.

The wrist-worn gadget runs on Android Lollipop, while packing the capabilities (and power) of an ordinary smartphone. This includes a quad-core processor, 4G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and NFC. Instead of using a handheld device, the Hub comes paired with a smartphone-like 5-inch display of its own. The aptly named Pocket syncs with the watch and can remotely run apps through its capacitive touchscreen. Not to mention, it also promises to recognize scribbled writing from a finger to form letters and send a message. The screen is equipped with 8mp camera on the back and a 2mp camera on the front with LED flash, as well as a built-in microphone and speaker.

“Much like a mouse, a keyboard, or a computer monitor, the Pocket screen is simply an interface for the Hub. It’s not very smart, it doesn’t need to be,” the company explains.

Whether a user is with or without their Pocket, they will always be able to stay connected with the Hub. In fact, the screens are interchangeable as well, which means you’ll never have to worry about leaving your phone behind again. The wearable allows users to place calls, send and receive messages, glance at notifications, track fitness and much more right from their wrist.

With a combined battery capacity of 3,800 mAh, Neptune Duo can last a few days of normal usage on a single charge. Furthermore, the Pocket can serve as a portable battery juice pack for the Hub, recharging it whenever it needs power.

“The current wearables market is saturated with Bluetooth-paired smartwatches and fitness bands,” said Simon Tian, CEO and Founder of Neptune. “The issue is that they all depend on the presence of a nearby smartphone in order to have full function. This is mainly because the wearable usually acts as a ‘dummy’ device that tethers to your smartphone, the ‘master’ device. But what if the roles were reversed? What if smartphones were completely rethought to simply become dummy pocket-sized displays, void of any computing or connectivity, that paired with a smart wearable on your wrist instead? That’s what Neptune Duo is.”

With most smartwatches we’ve seen so far rely on your smartphone to supply the main computing power, the Neptune Hub acts as the main supply and the screen merely a companion device, meaning of all your personal information will stay securely on the wrist. With all apps and files stored on the Hub, a misplaced or stolen Pocket screen won’t mean lost data anymore.

Intrigued? Head over to the company’s official page here. The Montreal-based startup is currently taking early reservations in various combinations of pay now/pay later. For instance, it’ll cost $798 if paid upon shipment later this year, or $498 if paid for now.

BlueMatrix: An Arduino-based LED matrix display

Designed by Dentella Luca, BlueMatrix can be controlled remotely via a PC, smartphone or tablet.

Key project components include:

• An Atmel-based Arduino Uno (ATmega328 MCU)
• 
LED matrix display based on the HC1632C controller
• 
Lipo Rider
• 
Lipo Fuel Gauge
• 
HC-05 Bluetooth module
• 5mm plexiglas enclosure

The modules are connected as follows:

“The Arduino Uno is the heart of the project, [as] it manages the display, checks the battery status and talks (using a simple protocol) with the controlling device (Windows application or Android app),” Luca explained in a recent blog post.

“The BlueMatrix is powered by a Li-po battery (1 cell). The battery’s state of charge is monitored by Lipo Fuel Gauge, which sends the actual SoC (State of Charge) value to Arduino via I2C bus. The Lipo Rider module rises the battery voltage to 5V to power all the other modules and allows it to recharge the battery using a simple, mini-USB power supply.”

Meanwhile, the HC-05 module is tasked with managing Bluetooth connectivity.

“After having established the connection with the remote device, it transparently transport the data received/transmitted by Arduino via serial connection,” said Luca.

On the software side, Luca developed two applications to control BlueMatrix: a .Net application (developed in C#) and an Android app.

“BlueMatrix was designed to be portable, therefore I suppose that it will be mostly controlled using a smartphone; this is the reason why the Android app is better designed than the desktop one and it’s also available on Google’s Play Store,” he added.

Interested in learning more? You can check out the official BlueMatrix project page here and download the Arduino sketch on GitHub here.

Atmel debuts mXT106xT2 touchscreen controller lineup

Atmel has expanded its popular maXTouch T lineup of touchscreen controllers with the mXT106xT2 family of devices. The new series incorporates a wide range of features for 7 – 8.9″ mid-sized tablet displays including hover, stylus and optimized noise immunity.

As Atmel exec Patrick Hanley points out, the maXTouch is the only product currently available that enables finger hovering up to 20mm on devices larger than a smartphone. This capability allows users to interact with their devices – without physically making contact with the screen.

Indeed, the T Series incorporates Atmel’s Adaptive Sensing technology to facilitate dynamic touch classification, which automatically switches between self- and mutual-capacitance sensing – providing a seamless transition between finger touch, hover, passive or active stylus, as well as glove touch. Additionally, Adaptive Sensing dramatically reduces power consumption, facilitating longer battery life for mobile devices.

“The mXT106xT2 offers features required in today’s tablet devices, including 0.4mm thin cover lenses and multifinger glove support for users in cold weather climates,” said Hanley. “For [those] who seek the extensive benefits in going paperless, the mXT106xT2 also [includes] stylus capabilities in either active stylus through Atmel’s maXStylus, or passive stylus with a 1mm tip to facilitate more precise selection.”

Essentially, the 106xT2 offers the same performance features as Atmel’s T Series maXTouch controllers, while enabling capacitive button, slider and wheel control via an embedded hardware module known as the Peripheral Touch Controller (PTC). This feature allows systems to integrate capacitive buttons without tying up nodes from the touch controller, while performing with improved noise immunity and lower power than when implemented via firmware.

The new devices in the maXTouch T Series are currently in production, with the 8.3” screen size evaluation kit slated to ship in May.

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s popular maXTouch T lineup of touchscreen controllers? You can check out the product’s official page here.

Report: Wearables to drive significant battery revenue

Analysts at IHS say the global market for batteries used in wearable electronics will increase more than tenfold in just four short years, propelled by new devices suitable for active sports and fitness lifestyles. 

Indeed, worldwide revenue for wearable electronics batteries is projected to reach $77 million by 2018, up considerably from a mere $6 million by year-end in 2014.

In addition, industry revenue will have grown nearly 120 percent from 2014 levels.

“Wearable electronics will be the key to sustaining the current very-high-growth levels of battery revenue in consumer electronics,” explained Thomas McAlpine, power supply and storage component analyst for IHS.

“The tremendous expansion in store will come thanks to an increase in the shipments of smartwatch products, wearable health monitoring devices and smart glasses—products geared toward an active lifestyle combining advanced technological trends in miniature computing with newly smart consumer imperatives in fitness and fashion.”

In addition, annual shipments for wearable electronic devices will reach an estimated 56 million units by 2018, fueling continued demand for the batteries that power these products.

“Of the total number of batteries expected to be installed in wearable electronics by 2018, lithium polymer batteries will take the predominant share, accounting for 73 percent of total wearable electronics battery revenue,” said McAlpine. 

”Lithium polymer batteries are typically the preferred choice as they are lighter in weight and can be manufactured into a wider range of shapes and sizes, compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries.”

Image Credit: Vega Edge

Smartphone and tablet PC demand will continue to drive the majority of revenue growth in the lithium battery market for portable electronics over the next couple of years, with the combined shipments of these devices projected to grow 46 percent from 2013 to 2015. 

However, shipments will decrease from 2015 onward, and coupled with projected erosion in the average selling prices of lithium battery cells, growth will decelerate for the overall lithium battery market for portable consumer electronics.

“This means the emergence of new applications in the market is critical. Lithium batteries will remain an integral component for innovation in consumer electronics,” McAlpine added. “To achieve sustained market growth, new wearable electronics and other devices need to be introduced and adopted by the mass market, similar to what is occurring now in recently emerging product categories.”

Adafruit’s Becky Stern

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, Atmel is right in the middle of the wearable tech revolution, with the the soft electronics DIY Maker community adapting various Atmel-powered platforms specifically for wearables, including the Arduino Lilypad (ATmega328V) (developed by MIT Media Lab professor Leah Buechley), along with Adafruit’s very own Gemma (Atmel ATtiny85) and Flora (ATmega32u4), the latter of which can be easily daisy chained with various sensors for GPS, motion and light.

In addition, Atmel’s microcotrollers are found in a number of smartwatches and wearable medical devices.

Interested in learning more about wearables? You can check out our extensive article archive on the subject here.

Transforming your smartphone into a stethoscope

Those who are new to the exciting world of 3D printing often choose to create a simple personalized smartphone case as their first project.

 However, Suman Mulumudi decided to take things one step further.

Using an Atmel-powered Makerbot Replicator 2, the high school student turned his iPhone into a stethoscope with a unique 3D printed case (Steth IO) designed to collect and relay low-frequency sounds. 

After 3D printing a number of Steth IO prototypes, Mulumudi founded a company known as StratoScientific, which applied for a patent to cover the technology and is currently eyeing FDA approval for the innovative device.

“People have tried to put the microphone over the chest, but that doesn’t work,” Mulumudi, a resident of Washington state, told Blake Eskin of the official MakerBot blog.

“Interestingly enough, that’s how the first stethoscope was invented.”

In addition to the Steth IO, Mulumudi has also prototyped the LesionSizer, which leverages the technology behind an optical mouse to help doctors performing angioplasties select the appropriate stent.

Mulumudi now attends Seattle’s Lakeside School, where Microsoft founders Paul Allen and Bill Gates went to school.

“People like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz — mostly Washington people — they all did one thing: They took an idea and expanded that concept into something that changed the world,” he added.

LEWE is an open source biometric wristband

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.

Video: Atmel’s AvantCar demo

Earlier this month, Atmel debuted its AvantCar concept at CES 2014 in Las Vegas. The fully functional console features two large curved touchscreen displays – without mechanical buttons. 

Instead, the touchscreens integrate capacitive touch buttons and sliders, allowing users to navigate general applications typically found within an automotive center console.

This includes global navigation system (GPS), car thermostat, audio controls for a radio or media player, seat controls and more. AvantCar also allows drivers to personalize their in-vehicle environment using advanced touch capabilities and LIN connectivity system to control ambient lighting.

According to Atmel Marketing Director Stephan Thaler, AvantCar successfully demonstrates the future of human machine interface (HMI) in upcoming vehicles. Indeed, next-generation automotive designs will be influenced by a wide range of trends in the consumer market such as slick and curved centerstack designs, as well as customization by appearance, color, navigation and interaction with a smartphone or tablet.

Atmel offers a number of comprehensive platforms and solutions to address the current and future requirements of a modern in-vehicle human-machine interface (HMI). However, the AvantCar Centerstack demo is the company’s first fully functional concept showcasing groundbreaking solutions within the automobile.

 To be sure, AvantCar is powered entirely by Atmel technology, including maXTouch (two touchscreens), XSense (curved panel design), QTouch (touch buttons and sliders), dedicated algorithms running on Atmel touch chips and microcontrollers (proximity detection), as well as LIN-based ambient lighting control.

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s AvantCar demo? You can check out our in-depth article on the subject here.

This drone is powered by an Arduino and smartphone

Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology are using a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone paired with an [Atmel based] Arduino board as the brains behind a small, inexpensive drone dubbed the SmartCopter.

Annette Mossel, a graduate student behind the project, told Rachel Metz of the MIT Technology Review that the ‘copter is envisioned as an inexpensive, autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicle capable of surveying disaster zones. Indeed, harnessing a smartphone as the processing unit cuts costs and makes it easier to update the drone’s software. Excluding the phone, the copter cost approximately 300 euros ($412) to build.

“We wanted to keep the costs low and build our ‘copter based on open hardware approaches,” Mossel told the publication. “We don’t think, ‘Okay, in a year we will make a company and turn it into a product. But I think it’s pretty possible for all of us who are working on it.”

According to Mossel, one of the biggest challenges the researchers faced was determining how the drone could navigate without activating using the phone’s built-in GPS, as the technology is only accurate to within 26 feet.

“The group’s first prototype solved this challenge in a fairly low-tech way: by detecting paper markers that had been set up in the area the drone needed to track,” Metz explained. “An app on the smartphone tells the drone to lift itself to a predetermined height, from which it starts looking for the markers. Each time it finds a new marker, it is added to the drone’s map.”

The software is currently capable of determining the drone’s position by analyzing markers and evaluating sensory input from the smartphone’s accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. If there are no new markers to be found, the drone hovers and awaits new instructions from a remote laptop monitoring its flight. The drone can also be programmed to land in a specific spot once its job is completed.

So what else does Mossel envision for the SmartCopter? A wide range of use cases, including inspecting the condition of walls and ceilings, analyzing open rooms in churches and museums, as well as helping shoppers navigate malls.

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

Atmel-powered 1Sheeld (ATMega162) hits Kickstarter

Integreight’s 1Sheeld – powered by an ATmega162 MCU – is an easily configurable shield for Arduino boards. Essentially, 1Sheeld connects to a mobile Android app that allows users to take advantage of various smartphone features including the display, gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, GSM, Wi-Fi and GPS.

“Our product consists of two parts. The first part is a shield that is physically connected to your Arduino board and acts as a wireless middle-man, piping data between Arduino and any Android smartphone via Bluetooth,” an Integreight rep wrote in a recent Kickstarter post.

“The second part is a software platform and app on Android smart phones that manages the communication between our shield and your smartphone and let your choose between different available shields. By doing that, you can use 1Sheeld as input or output from Arduino and make use of all of the sensors and peripherals already available on your Android smartphone.”

So what can you do with 1Sheeld? Well, according to Integreight, “the sky’s the limit.”

“You have a powerful Android smartphone that can be used to control your RC car, tweet when plants are thirsty and have fun playing with your friends. This is just a fraction of what you can actually do with 1Sheeld, [as the] possibilities are endless,” the Integreight rep explained.

“And you can hook it up with Tasker! Of course you can control your home with your phone and Arduino, like controlling heat, ventilation and air conditioning, yard watering, pet feeding and the list goes on. However, we’ve integrated a plugin to Tasker on Android, by linking Tasker to the hardware; you get a whole new experience of home automation. You can use any hardware event to trigger an action on the phone or vice-versa, you can use a phone event to trigger an action on the hardware.”

On the software side, 1Sheeld is running a custom version of the Firmata protocol which allows the microcontroller to quickly scan each pin of the Arduino and report any status change to the app.

“You can use this functionality out-of-the-box without the need for our library. There is another mode also which relies totally on the Serial peripheral of the Arduino (Pins 0,1),” said the rep. “Here our library comes in handy, we built a protocol above the Firmata protocol to send huge amount of data to a specific shield on our app, that allowed us to implement LCD, Twitter, Seven Segment – with only two pins from Arduino instead of taking a whole port.”

Aside from the embedded ATMega162, key technical specs include:

• Standard HC-06 Bluetooth adapter (Bluetooth 2.1)
• Range up to 30 feet
• 16 MHz operating frequency
• Communicates with Arduino via UART

Interested in learning more about the Atmel powered 1Sheeld? You can check out the project’s official page on Kickstarter.

Atmel’s maXTouch T hits next-gen smartphone and phablet markets

Atmel has expanded its popular maXTouch T lineup of touchscreen controllers with the mXT640T, mXT336T and mXT224T. The new devices offer a comprehensive set of features, supporting next-gen mobile devices such as smartphones, phablets and mid-size tablets with touchscreens ranging from 3.2”-8.3.”

Key touch features include 1mm passive stylus and maXStylus (active stylus), hover capability, moisture immunity and multi-finger glove support.

“Essentially, these devices build on Atmel’s success of its single-chip maXTouch T series products for large-screen applications – mXT2952T and mXT1664T – which were launched in the second quarter,” an Atmel engineering rep explained.

As we’ve previously discussed on Bits & Pieces, the T series deftly incorporates Atmel’s Adaptive Sensing technology to enable dynamic touch classification – automatically and intelligently switching between self- and mutual-capacitance sensing. This provides users with a seamless transition between a finger touch, hover, passive/active stylus or glove touch. Meaning, users no longer have to manually enable “glove mode” in the operating system to differentiate between hover and glove.

Adaptive Sensing also helps significantly reduces the power consumption of a device, thereby extending battery life. Meanwhile, the analog front-end is equipped with advanced and flexible settings to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) prior to digital processing – eliminating signal distortions induced by water and noisy chargers.

“The new T Series enables superior touch performance with single-layer sensors as compared to the most recently announced solutions. Simply put, the latest devices will enable Atmel to extend its industry leadership in the large-screen market to the smartphone and phablet spaces,” said the engineering rep. “In fact, we are already working with a range of ITO and LCD manufacturers to support various stack-ups such as OGS, G1, GF and On-Cell which are targeted for production early next year. Plus, Atmel has begun sampling the new T Series devices with a number of OEMs who have provided positive feedback about the new touch products and their performance.”