Webelow Wear

For over a year now we have been lucky owners of Android OS enabled phones.  Recently, Google has released the Android Scripting Environment, which allows users to write simple code (even on the phone) that uses many of the powerful Andorid API classes.

This new application brings Android features to the masses and also allows for rapid prototyping and on-the-fly development.  As an added bonus, the phones has it’s own sensors (compass, accelerometer, etc.)  and screen output, as well as an all-important connection to the internet, which can be used to push or pull data or even advanced features like text-to-speech.

We first learned of the Android Scripting Environment through CellBots, a project that uses ASE and Arduino to make robots that use the phone’s sensors along with the sensors connected to the Arduino for navigation and  remote control.

This is an interesting area for wearable technology because 3g phones are gaining market share.  Scripting languages for phones that interact with electronics essentially give us ultra cheap computers – more powerful than a cheap microprocessor alone.  We can and should use the phone to cut back on the power and size costs of features like GPS location, internet connectivity and heavy duty processing.

We found the Email Counting T-shirt by Chris and Madeliene Ball through Talk2myShirt and this is a perfect example of using ASE and Arduino.  The shirt uses a ridiculously simple python script to access the Gmail RSS feed and transmit the count data through serial to the Lilypad.  Additionally, this is also a good use of screenprinting and wearables. 

Read more info after the jump.

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That Guy.

Yes, Apple has crossed over and is looking far into the future with new Senior Prototype Engineer, Richard DeVaul on the payroll. After an angry fist shaking session, we took a step back and examined the situation. While DeVaul has taken our dream path straight to Jobs (ha…a job with Jobs), us Mom-and-Pop wearable shops needn’t fear the Walmart-ing of our companies and brands. This, ladies and gentlemen, could mean an industry boom for wearables.

Wearables, like every other industry, has it’s layers. There are the couture designers trying to make you Gaga-ed out, the  Ipod wearable helping people-on-the-go move to a beat, the rave-scene wearable, the kitschy wearables products for all wearbles geeks,  the DIY wearable upgrade to entertain the wearbles tinkerers, the biometrics wearables used in military and medicine,  practical wearables for mass use and the home based wearables.  Apple’s position in the industry?  Considering the I-everything (Ipod, Iphone etc.) craze and DeVaul’s background, we’re in for a long ride of very cool, user friendly wearables.  But remember, this is one section of a growing industry!

Our advice: stay positive, stay informed, keep innovating because the industry was just put on the map in big way.

Via [ComputerWorld]

We were recently able to get some work done figuring out the Zilog ePIR sensor and  learning more about the hardware and software challenges of the Mona Lisa following eye EL project.

In our a breadboard setup, all we needed was our Arduino Barebones Board , the Zilog sensor and a necessary resistor.  As far as wiring goes, this was a pretty basic build.

There are two ways to interact with the sensor.  The Hardware Interface Mode gives a very direct connection to the sensors and doesn’t use the single board computer (SBC) to do any special analysis.  All tuning parameters are set by input voltages.

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Artist rendition of the Mona Lisa

They say that the Mona Lisa’s eyes fix on the observer at any angle as if by magic.  Like the famous da Vinci eyes, the desire to make this into a wearable piece has followed us obsessively for a year now.  We want to reproduce this magic using El panels, sensors and Arduino.

The ultimate plan is to have a shirt with motion detection input, an EL-panel array output and a kickass design that will use motion detection software to trigger the EL eyes to point in the direction of the last movement.

While we’re still a bit down on Sparkfun after getting stiffed on free day, they made a comeback in our hearts with this Zilog PIR (passive infrared – if you forgot) sensor with onboard processing chip.

Sparkfun Product page

This onboard chip has a serial interface that sends, amongst other things, direction data of the object being tracked.  We’re still looking at the datasheets but it looks like this 5/8″ x 1″ sensor will provide the size and functionality we need to make this design work as a wearable piece.

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We want to give a quick nodd to Calvin Harris’ Humantesizer. We saw links to this on IheartSwitch and talk2myshirt but it wasn’t until we saw it the next day on DailyMotion that we had to mention this cool project.

Calvin, a musician from across the pond, worked with his electronics friends and some bathing suit beauties to make an orchestra using conductive paint and conductive pads connected to Arduinos. This is right up our shaded alley of coolness.

For a bit of a technical explanation, the pads on the floor are painted with conductive materials and connected to Arduinos as input switches. The people are “wired” with body-safe conductive paint from Bafe Condutive. The wire runs from a foot to a hand on either side, making each person able to switch two different devices at a time.

When a person stands on a pad and touches painted hands with a person on another pad, a circuit completes and the Arduino sends signals to Max/MSP, which is a program that can connect real-world circuits to music synthesizer programs.

We didn’t know about conductive paint until the Berkeley workshop but now we’re looking into making some controlled thermochromic designs using conductive paint on either side of a semi-conductive layer. We’re still a bit new to the concept but screen printing circuits is probably much easier than sewing.

We hope to see more human orchestras in the future. If you have footage, please send it to info@webelowwear.com.

So friends, be warned. When the next youtube party has lost it’s kick, we will be whipping out the conductive paint and making some Webelow music.

WW

Well we decided to work with the triacs that came when we ordered the EL Escudo.   After a long time of just not getting it and a trip to Cantina Marina, we were able to get the circuit going on the breadboard with three lights.  So, we’re beyond prototyping with the Sparkfun boards and we’re making a breakout board.  We’ll probably put the accelerometer on the breakout board along with the connections for the inverter, the lights and the microprocessor.  It’s crazy but the only electronic components involved are three triacs and three 1k resistors.

It would be cool to actually print a board for this but since we’re lazy and very busy this week, we’ll just wire it, solder it and call it a day.

We have to give props to Mykle Hansen, the speed vest dude and the Mikey Sklar, the blinky bag guy who is a bit hardcore but helpful.  We’ll be posting our own DIY instructions over the next couple of weeks.

WW

We got our EL Escudo last week and put it to work right away.  The first thing we learned was that the Barebones board doesn’t work with any standard Arduino shields out of the box because of differences in the pin-outs.  I was being cheap and adventurous when I put together this BBB kit and it has served it’s purpose up until now.  Sometimes, being cheap and adventurous only leads to more work in the end.  Arduino shields are getting popular so keep that in mind when choosing a prototyping platform.

In order to get things going, we had to mate the pin-outs and power from the Arduino to the El Escudo.  This wasn’t a huge deal to link +5v to +v and ground to any of the ground pins on the board. There is some significance to pin 10 in the code but we’re still working through that.

We used the CoolLight inverter Sparkfun suggested but we also bought a cheaper one to mess around with.  The cheaper inverter has a 3v input rating and it doesn’t work as well for our applications.  Even directly powering our panels with the smaller inverter from a 3v power source just doesn’t give the brightness that we want.  The tiny inverter also heats up quickly.

Connecting the inverter to the board was very easy.  There are 4 connections, 2 for inverter output  and two for power.  The 9v cables on the ends of the inverters make them easy to alligator clip or connect to a battery pack.

The example code and library is pretty basic.  It all works around the basic on/off functionality of the lights.  The pin constants are A-H with A starting at pin 2.  We found that the EL_PULSE function is a good time-saver.  We wrote some simple code to turn 3 lights on/off and delay.  Everything seems to work fine except for the fading.   That’s not a huge concern right now, so, we’ll revisit fading at another time.

Once everything worked (usb powered from BBB) we switched over to the lilypad with USB power.  This worked well.

Overall we’re still very pleased with the outcome but we did by some triacs to take it further than the prototyping stage.  The very funny part of this story is the other product they offered the same day -The EL Sequencer.

Sparkfun EL Sequencer

EL Escudo does sounds cooler than EL sequencer and has a cooler shape but honestly, this board is an all-in-one board and makes the other board look like a tire with no wheels.  It has an ATmega168V chip onboard and it’s compatible with the Lilypad Arduino libraries.  There is an additional LiPo power connection which makes a lot of sense.  The only downside is that there is no array of inputs.  There is only a footprint for a wireless board.

So, for prototyping and using a real Arduino, EL Escudo is better.  For a finished product that already has a microprocessor on board, the EL Sequencer is a good choice.  For the most flexibility, just use some triacs and make your own breakout board.  Stay tuned for more on the breakout board.

RicSeasons