How to make a very slim watch and keep battery life long? In this Hack-a-Gecko project, they tried to catch two birds with one stone.
The Idea
We thought it would be cool to utilize the extremely low power EFM32 in combination with an extremely low power display to create a wrist watch demo application. And usually, the smaller and thinner something is, the cooler it is. (Admittedly, wrist watches do not necessarily follow this trend… big watches.)
Anyway, we wanted it slim. The starting point was the memory LCD display from Sharp (link). It is truly a Nano ampere display technology. And it is also thin, only 0.75 mm. A watch also needs a battery, cool new technologies exist such as the Thinergy battery, but the voltage of 4.1 V is a bit awkward. We decided to use a standard 3.0V CR1616 cell as it can power the EFM32 and display directly. Thickness of battery + display is 2.35 mm, is it possible to design the electronics as well within this thickness limit…? Challenge accepted!”
” The Pocket Mini Computer was designed by Jeff Ledger.
The Pocket Mini Computer is pre-installed with a COLOR BASIC. COLOR BASIC is similar to the BASIC found on common microcomputers of the 80′s and early 90′s.
Explore micro computing with a machine which: Can be successfully assembled in an evening. Can be programmed in BASIC. (and other languages) Can play games and run programs. Most importantly: Can be understood.
The Pocket Mini Computer Kit arrives as a project which requires a small amount of soldering, all components are “thru-hole” making it an easy project for anyone with modest soldering skills.
“Smartphones are equipped with dizzying array of wireless communication capabilities. Some of these features just go totally unnoticed. One such wireless communication protocol is called ANT+. A friend of mine wanted to make a working prototype of an idea he had using ANT+ technology. While there are other mcu’s (read atmega/arduino) already had some libraries and code written for communicating against ANT+, it wasn’t enough for me.
Most of the existing code only worked as a slave, where it just tried to receive data sent by Garmin Heart Strap.
This slave implementation was only on either arduino or PC (python and C)
What I was more interested in was to leverage the ANT+ radio to not just receive data, but also send data. I wanted the mcu to interact with the world and use ANT+ to transmit data to my cellphone, for example.”
Löschen von Bildern mit einem Knopfdruck – und ein freundliches Aufblinken der Flüssigkristallanzeige – COOL!
Versiegelte 3-V-Uhrenbatterie braucht niemals ersetzt zu werden.
Das Boogie Board Tablett hat ein ultradünnes Profil (1/8 ″) und lässt sich leicht in Handtaschen, Planern, Aktentaschen oder Rucksäcken verstauen.
Gehäuse und LCD sind aus robusten Kunststoffmaterialien. Sicher für die Verwendung in der Schule und im Haus, Büro und Auto.
Die druckempfindliche LCD-Schreiboberfläche des Boogie Board Tabletts erzeugt Linien von unterschiedlicher Dicke je nach Druckanwendung – genau wie bei Papier und Bleistift!
Schreiben oder zeichnen Sie mit dem zugehörigen Edelstahlstylus oder anderen geeignete Instrumenten – auch mit dem Finger! Nie wieder nach einem Stift oder Bleistift suchen!
That’s cool, on http://blog.section9.co.uk/2010/03/iphone-rfid-reader.html you can see the work process in pictures. The RFID chip is from http://www.id-innovations.com/new%20launch.htm.
“The idea behind this project is to see what the iPhone’s serial is capable of and to try and have a little fun with RFID along the way. This reader works with the low frequency (125Khz) tags but I have a half working version for MiFARE Hi-Frequency as well.”
For just $49 you can start with mobile development. And yes the watch shows the time out of the box.
“Overview
The eZ430-Chronos is a highly integrated, wireless development system based for the CC430 in a sports watch. It may be used as a reference platform for watch systems, a personal display for personal area networks, or as a wireless sensor node for remote data collection.
Based on the CC430F6137<1 GHz RF SoC, the eZ430-Chronos is a complete CC430-based development system contained in a watch. This tool features a 96 segment LCD display and provides an integrated pressure sensor and 3-axis accelerometer for motion sensitive control. The integrated wireless feature allows the Chronos to act as a central hub for nearby wireless sensors such as pedometers and heart rate monitors. The eZ430-Chronos offers temperatureand battery voltage measurement and is complete with a USB-based CC1111 wireless interface to a PC.
The eZ430-Chronos watch may be disassembled to be reprogrammed with a custom application and includes an eZ430 USB programming interface.
What’s Included:
eZ430-Chronos wireless watch
eZ430 USB programming and debugging interface
CC1111 USB RF access point
Mini Phillips screwdriver
CD containing documentation and development software”
“This article shows how to build a small, cheap and simple frequency meter, without any fancy, out of reach components. The simple proposed design can measure frequencies up to 40 Mhz with errors below 1%! This degree of precision will be more than enough to debug most of your analog and digital circuits, and will give you the ability to analyze many aspects that you were unable to see before.”
“Familiar with the concept of hardware keylogging? A hardware keylogger is a perfect solution for monitoring user activity, at very low risk of disclosure. A hardware keylogger is a purely electronic device, so no access to the operating system is required, no traces are left, and software has no possibility of detecting such a device. However, the hardware keylogger concept inherits one weakness: physical access to the keylogger is required for retrieving captured data. This problem has finally found it’s solution: a Wireless Keylogger.”
hackaday did a great work with the creation of a 100% DIY picture frame. It seems to be a must have gadget, because you can build one by yourself.
“We set out to build a 100% DIY, scratch-built digital picture frame. Our frame has a 12bit color LCD, gigabytes of storage on common, FAT-formatted microSD cards, and you can build it at home. ”
“Atanua is a real-time logic simulator, designed to help in learning of basic boolean logic and electronics. It uses OpenGL hardware-accelerated rendering and a custom UI designed for a fast workflow and a very low learning curve, letting the students concentrate on learning the subject instead of spending time learning the tool.”
“In this article Frank Zhao details his project to make a Logic Analyzer with an ATMEGA168 microcontroller. This is the same microcontroller used in the popular Arduino platform so many of you should be able to make use of this project. The ATMEGA168 does the work of taking samples and works with Processing and Java to implement an nice user interface to the logic analyzer. Frank includes all the source code for both the firmware and the Processing programming language.”
“Want to learn about inkjet printer technology, and apply it with a robot or by waving an inkjet nozzle over a piece of paper? Parallax, Hewlett-Packard Specialty Printing Systems, and Matt Gilliland have combined to produce this unique kit. The hardware and documentation are designed around HP’s Thermal Inkjet 1.0 technology. Using the Parallax Serial Inkjet Printer board, your microcontroller sends a string of serial data which is printed as 1/8” tall characters. Waving the inkjet cartridge over a piece of paper or mounting it on a Boe-Bot produces print-quality text in the font of your choice!”
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