Prototype pretentions

23 Aug 2012

My latest electronics/as-little-hardware-munging-as-I-can-get-away-with project is definitely at prototype stage, but it has some features already.

  • battery powered and USB rechargeable
  • completely wireless (on the outside!)
  • connects to my home xbee network…
  • …and thus to my computer and the wider world, making it extensible, crucially, without hardware rejigging.

It’s interesting how different something feels when it becomes hand-held. The same electronics, performing the same functions, feel very much less useful when they’re spread out over a table in a tangle of wires with other bits all over the place and soldering irons knocking around.

The “gadget” is thus far doing nothing I can’t do on a smart phone, of course. But the battery life seems good - I didn’t even charge the battery up and it ran overnight - and I’m planning to make this into part of my burglar deterrent system.

Of course, if you’re a burglar, and you’re reading this (my respects to you, if you are), you will still need to know about all the secret bits of the system involving door sensors and webcams.

Tags: electronics, xbee

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