Watch-a making? While most kids would just go and ask for a watch, this eight-year-old decided to build one himself.
We had the pleasure of meeting eight-year-old Omkar back at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014. Since then, the young and talented Maker has been hard at work devising a DIY smartwatch, or what he describes as a “precise timekeeper.”
The aptly-named O Watch uses a real-time clock module, a LiPo battery, an Adafruit charger and a Sparkfun Microview, which is a tiny ATmega328P based board with its own built-in OLED screen. At the moment, the device can tell time, day of the week and temperature, yet Omkar does reveal future plans for games, apps, reminders, an accelerometer, GPS, and perhaps even Bluetooth. We’ll let him tell you all about it himself…
First, there were wearables. Then, there were hearables. Now, get ready for soundables.
Designed by Ylenia Gortana in collaboration with New York musician Birdmask, Showpiece is a jacket that functions as an actual electronic music interface. The garment, which at first appears to look just like an ordinary winter coat, is comprised of touch-sensivtive tiles that replace its typical down insulation.
The entire piece was built using various conductive e-textiles, which are arranged in a matrix of 52 handmade push sensors. Each one responds to a wearer’s touch by emitting a preset sound. These tiles consist of a layer of copper and silver thread, separated by velostatic foil. This enables the sensors to transmit a range of signals, and ultimately, gives each jacket square an on/off switch. Meanwhile, a pair of Arduino Lilypad boards (ATmega328) connect the tiles to a Bluetooth signal module that converts the data from touches into MIDI sound signals.
“The concept of Soundable Fashion [was] developed from the starting point of questioning myself if I can come up with alternative ways of presenting fashion than on a common catwalk. So I came up with the idea to combine music and fashion, which belong together in many occasions anyway, in one object,” Gortana writes.
This wearable device for musicians can be used as a vibrational metronome or in synchronization with an entire band.
While a vast majority of wearable technology has been focused around health and fitness, a Berlin-based startup is hoping to change that with their new vibrational metronome. The aptly named Soundbrenner Pulseis the world’s first wearable gadget designed specifically for musicians to help them keep the beat and become better performers.
For those unfamiliar with the device, metronomes have been used for 200 years to help musicians keep a steady tempo as they play and to improve irregular timing. Unlike its predecessors, the Soundbrenner Pulse embodies a modular design and can be worn around the arm or leg, depending upon the instrument.
The device delivers haptic feedback directly on a users skin that is up to six times stronger than vibrational alerts commonly found in today’s smartphones. Measuring only slightly larger than a sports watch, the device provides musicians with the ability to perform solo or in groups of up to 10 users to follow a beat without the intrusiveness of an audible metronome.
The Bluetooth-enabled wearable can be paired with an accompanying mobile app to offer a customizable music coach, rhythm exercises, as well as multi-player synchronization using one person’s smartphone as the hub.
With the Soundbrenner Pulse, there are various ways that musicians can set the tempo they want to keep. For one, a unique BPM (beats per minute) Tap feature enables musicians to simply tap the desired beat onto the face of the device. This activates the capacitive touch sensor that captures the tempo while a proprietary algorithm translates the tap into haptic feedback in the form of precise vibrations. Beyond that, musicians can rotate the BPM Wheel surrounding the face of the device or use the Soundbrenner app to adjust the number of BPM to 300.
Aside from being embedded with Bluetooth Smart, the Soundbrenner Pulse has a battery of four to five hours along and packs several RGB LED lights that blink in unison with the beat and glow in various colors.
Intrigued? Head over to its official Indiegogo page, where the team is currently seeking $75,000. If all goes to plan, shipment is expected to begin in November 2015.
IDC report forecasts wearable devices to reach 45.7 million units in 2015.
The combination of new vendors, devices and greater consumer awareness will likely drive the global wearables market this year, a new IDC report has revealed. The research firm notes that vendors will ship a total of 45.7 million units in 2015, up a strong 133.4% from the 19.6 million units shipped in 2014. By 2019, total shipment volumes are forecasted to surpass 126 million units, leading to a five-year CAGR of 45.1%.
Fueling this rapid growth in 2015 will be an increased focus on smart wearables, or those devices capable of running third-party applications. These include devices like the Apple Watch, Motorola’s Moto 360, and Samsung’s Gear watches. The total volume of smart wearables will reach 25.7 million units over the next eight months, up a whopping 510.9% from the 4.2 million units shipped last year. Basic wearables, or those that don’t run third party applications, will also jump from 15.4 million units in 2014 to 20 million units in 2015.
“The Apple Watch raises the profile of wearables in general and there are many vendors and devices that are eager to share the spotlight. Basic wearables, meanwhile, will not disappear. In fact, we anticipate continued growth here as many segments of the market seek out simple, single-use wearable devices,” explained Ramon Llamas, researcher with IDC’s Wearables team.
Still, gadgets that users adorn on their wrists will dominate the market over the next couple of years. These include everything from smartwatches to fitness bands. IDC reveals that wristwear will account for more than four in five device shipments throughout the forecasted timeframe.
Another area worth monitoring is modular products, or devices that can be worn anywhere on the body with a clip or strap. These wearables will make up just about 6% of the market with 2.6 million shipments. Not far behind is smart clothing, which is expected to experience a major uptick as companies begin embedding garments like shirts, socks and hats with computing power. This doesn’t come as much surprise, especially following Gartner’s report last year that said less invasive, electronic textiles will potentially disrupt the wearables space so much so that embedded clothing shipments would rise from a mere 0.1 million units in 2014 to over 26 million units in 2016.
Eyewear and earwear (or what we like to call ‘hearables’) round out the list with 2.2% and 0.1% market share, respectively. However, IDC researchers do point out that 4.5 million smart glasses are projected to be shipped in 2019.
“The explosion of wearable devices was clearly led by fitness bands, which until recently commanded prices that provided comfortable margins, but those days are changing,” added Ryan Reith, Program Director with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Device Trackers. “The price of these fitness bands have come down so significantly in some markets that smartphone OEMs are now bundling them with smartphones at little cost. Meanwhile, the market is quickly shifting toward higher-priced devices that offer greater functionality. While Apple’s entry into the market is symbolic, the key to success will be to create compelling use cases for the average consumer. Many users will need a good reason to replace a traditional watch or accessory with a wrist-worn device or some other form of wearable that will likely require daily charging and occasional software upgrades.”
Researchers at the University of Houston have built a brain-machine interface to control prosthetic hands.
When it comes to brain-controlled interfaces, advancements in the space have come a long way since its earliest days of research at UCLA in the 1970s. Under a grant from the National Science Foundation and followed by a contract from DARPA, the papers published following the study marked the first appearance of the expression BCI in scientific literature. Now fast forward nearly 40 years and scientists are inspiring a wide-range of possibilities, including enabling amputees to command robotic limbs with their mind.
That’s exactly what one team from the University of Houston has done. The researchers have developed an algorithm that allowed a man to grasp a bottle and other objects with a prosthetic hand, powered merely by his thoughts. Instead of implants, this non-invasive method uses a wearable EEG cap that monitors brain activity externally through the scalp. During the its demonstration, a 56-year-old man whose right hand had been amputated was successfully able to clutch selected items 80% of the time, which included a water bottle, a small coin, a credit card and even a screwdriver.
While the ability to command prosthetics through brainwaves has been around, earlier studies centered around either surgically implanted electrodes or myoelectric control, which relies upon electrical signals from muscles in the arm. Beyond demonstrating that prosthetic control is possible using non-invasive EEG, researchers said the study offers a new understanding of the neuroscience of grasping and will be applicable to rehabilitation for other types of injuries, including stroke and spinal cord injury.
TagMe is an easy-to-use toolkit for turning personal info into an extended communications interface.
Created by MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group, TagMe is an end-user toolkit for easy creation of responsive objects and environments. It consists of a wearable device that is capable of recognizing the object or surface a user is touching through the use of RFID stickers. These tags are read by an RFID bracelet whenever the user comes in close proximity of the item.
“We present a novel approach to create simple and customizable rules based on emotional attachment to objects and social interactions of people. Using this simple technology, the user can extend their application interfaces to include physical objects and surfaces into their personal environment, allowing people to communicate through everyday objects in very low effort ways,” its team writes.
The wearable was 3D-printed using ABS materials, and its electronic components were embedded on one half of the bracelet, while a battery was placed on the other half. Both halves were then connected via a magnetic closing system. The bracelet also includes an Android application that interfaces with Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS.
“To endow the bracelet with the communication capability between the application and RFID tags, we used different types of electronic components. One of our goals was to make the bracelet as small and lightweight as possible so as to be comfortable being worn on the wrist all day.”
In order to accomplish this, the team used a mini RFID reader along with an ATmega168 MCU to control the entire system, a Bluetooth module to facilitate wireless communication and a polymer Lithium-ion battery to power the device.
According to its creators, TagMe can be implemented in a variety of applications, ranging from healthcare and personal relationships to home automation. The system can be used to create convenient “emergency” buttons, like in the event of a car accident, where by simply touching a tag, a notification is sent directly to 911 dispatchers. Beyond that, a social aspect of the project can enable reminders of things, people and places, or be deployed to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. For instance, every time a user touches a present that someone gave to them, an alert is sent to that person.
Maker creates a wearable sensor suit that reads SEMG and uses those muscle signals to control things.
When you flex a muscle, it gives off a surface electromyography signal, which is commonly referred to as SEMG. After years of working with circuity designed to read muscle signals, Maker David Nghiem decided to create an SEMG pod that was capable of measuring the level of muscle activation and using those signals to control things.
To accomplish this feat, Nghiem used a combination of an Arduino (ATmega328P) to drive the digital circuitry, a bunch of op amps to read the SEMG signals, a half-wave rectifier to handle the negative aspects of the signals, and LEDs to display the signal levels. In particular, the Maker notes that the primary function of the Arduino is to control the digital potentiometer, as well as to map and output the resulting signals to the LED driver.
The concept initially originated as part of a senior project way back in the late ‘90s, and eventually went on to became the idea behind a startup that unfortunately did not succeed. However, Nghiem did learn from the adventure and offered a tidbit of advice that all Makers can appreciate. He explains, “Still, I learned a ton from that experience. Like who to trust, not to trust, what advice is solid, and what advice is pure crap. In any case, I figure documenting your failures so you learn from them, is far more important than successes.”
At its earliest stage, the basis of the SEMG pod was to apply an opposing force to the arm in order to help prevent muscle deterioration in astronauts while in space. It had been devised in collaboration with the MIT Aero Astro Lab and the Boston University Neuromuscular Research Center. This would then go on to spark another idea after a late night jog in his parent’s neighborhood.
“The SEMG product concept started out in 2009 when I was running down a 3-mile route nearby my parent’s home, and the road in particular is dark at night. There are few street lamps, and cars go down at a limit of 40mph, but let’s be honest, most people don’t give two $#!ts about speed limits. There’s no sidewalk, and barely any shoulder. As I ran, I wondered if I could use the SEMG signal from my legs to control a light pattern to warn oncoming cars with a non patterned light show, like how some animals have vivid colors to ward off potential predators with a show of flair — that also meant they were poisonous,” he writes.
After making use of SEMG signals to control robotics along with the versatile capabilities of Arduino, Nghiem had an initial prototype. Looking ahead to a much prettier, more functional wearable device, he acquired a LilyPad Arduino (ATmega328) — this was before the days of Adafruit FLORA — to route the SEMG data through and then sewed it onto a bicycle jersey. Upon completing this model, he still encountered several problems, including having to integrate the unit make it more compact, making it more flexible and improving its sweat resistance. So, he threw that entire design out.
Back at the drawing board, for the next iteration he tried incorporating a MIL-Spec shielded cable, modifying the electrode placement methods on his sleeve, affixing the backs of the electrodes with velcro and transitioning to a bigger analog pot. Unfortunately, he was still coming across some difficulties, such as random shorts and connection issues, no digital control, and lack of LED lights to indicate signal levels.
And after some more tinkering, he found himself closer to a final product. You can check out Nghiem’s well-detailed project log here, along with the videos showing his project at various stages.
The Disco Dog LED vest will flash “LOST DOG” if Fido strays too far.
We love flashing LEDs. We love dogs. We love wearables. So, what do you get when you combine each of those? Disco Dog, a smartphone-controlled vest for any true party animal, which has recently launched on Kickstarter. Created by New York City creative firm PARTY, the pup-adorned gadget enables pet owners to activate animated light patterns and custom scrolling text in thousands of colors via an accompanying app.
Not only will the vest keep your dog visible, and most importantly safe, in the dark, it’s also a fun way to celebrate certain occasions. Owners can choose from a variety of animated modes, including sparkle, stripes, firefly and alarm, as well as turn on text mode to type in their own message. Meaning, you can spread holiday cheer throughout city sidewalks with seasonal greetings, use man’s best friend as an attention-grabbing advertisement, or simply adjust its color to match your daily outfit. What’s more, if Fido happens to stray and the connection is lost, the Disco Dog will automatically display a “LOST DOG” message, encouraging bystanders to help the lost pup find her way back.
The neoprene vest, which comes in three sizes, is decked out with 256 RGB LED lights, a microcontroller, a BLE module, and a rechargeable battery to ensure that you are always ready to illuminate your nightly dog-walking experience. The Disco Dog app is currently available for iOS and Android devices.
Sound like something you and your pup would like? Head over to its official Kickstarter page, where the PARTY team is currently seeking $15,000. Shipment is expected to begin later this year. In other words, with a projected shipping date of November 2015, you can expect to see some four-legged models sporting tricked-out red and green vests on the streets just in time for Christmas.
Maker creates a fully-functioning, self-contained Enigma machine that you can wear on your wrist.
Though the jury may still be out when it comes to widespread smartwatch adoption, you can’t help but want to adorn your wrist with this DIY project. Designed by Maker “Asciimation” the Enigma wristwatch is a fully-functional, self-contained device that replicates the original cryptographic machine, which was used to cipher secret messages in the 20th century. Early versions of the so-called uncrackable tool had been made available starting in the early 1920s, and adopted by the military and government services of several countries including Germany.
Inspired by a recent trip to Bletchley Park, home of the WW2 code breakers, the Maker decided to build his own three-rotor Enigma machine and housed it in a wristwatch.
“To cut a long story short my aim is to recreate a Bombe using Orwell, the little 8-bit computer I have built. In order to know how a Bombe works you need to know how an Enigma machine works (and is used). And the best way to know how something works is to build it yourself,” he writes.
Driven by an Arduino Pro Mini (ATmega328), the wearable features an OLED screen with a resolution of 128 x 64, a three brass button interface and a LiPo battery. In addition, the device is equipped with an on/off switch and a recharging socket along its left and right side, respectively.
As you can imagine, a number of button presses are required to set up each of the three encoder wheels. Its two leftmost buttons act as directional selectors, while the rightmost button is used to choose items from its interface. Side-to-side selections are indicated on the display by left and right arrows.
After turning on the machine, any key press will take you through a series of screens to view and adjust its settings, ranging from its rotor to plug board to reflectors, before finally arriving at the encoder. From there, the left and right buttons let you select the letter to encode. As you encode each one, the display reveals the current rotor positions and the encoded letter in a ticker. The ticker shows five letter groups as this is how Enigma messages were transmitted by radio.
Pebble has pledged $1 million towards development of modular accessories for its latest Time and Time Steel smartwatches.
A few weeks ago, Pebble launched a Kickstarter campaign for its Pebble Time smartwatch. To date, the record-shattering gadget has already garnered nearly $20 million and has been at the center of all the wearable buzz as of late. Aside from the unveiling of its premium Steel counterpart during Mobile World Congress, another big piece of news has proven to be the announcement of modular smartstraps. This open hardware component of Pebble Time will enable Makers, developers and designers alike to create their own add-ons for the device. Better yet, Pebble is now betting big on the initiative by pledging $1 million to fund its development and commercialization.
“If you have an idea and want to be part of the smartstrap revolution, this is your chance! Get a team together, build a prototype and put your project up on a crowdfunding platform. Our team will work to help bring your idea to life,” Pebble writes.
Smartstraps open the door to a wide-range of possibilities, including standalone cellular capabilities, NFC, GPS and even heart rate monitors. Pebble says these bands will be easily interchangeable, and can be swapped out in as little as five to 10 seconds.
In the days following its announcement, the Pebble crew received countless ideas, requests, and suggestions for smartstraps. Two of their earliest favorites came direct from notable names in the Maker community: Spark.io and SeeedStudio.
Seeed Studio has revealed that they will be producing a Pebble Time connector for their Arduino-compatible Xadow boards (ATmega32U4) later this year. Meanwhile, a recent Spark.io prototype demonstrated how an Electron could be used to untether a Pebble and connect directly to the cellular network.
“We are big fans of Seeed and their Xadow modules. They offer 20+ strap-sized modules, which include NFC readers, OLED displays, barometers and GPS modules, and we hear a Heart Rate Sensor is coming soon! The upcoming Xadow adapter for Pebble Time will make prototyping new smartstraps very simple and affordable.”
Keeping in line with its crowdfunding tradition, Pebble is encouraging Makers to get together, devise prototypes and put their projects up on Kickstarter. The team adds, “We will monitor Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms for smartstrap related projects that support Pebble devices, and we’ll back the best of them. We truly understand the value of backing projects in their early state, having started that way ourselves.”
