NYC Resistor

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Xbee Ninja Wireless Gloves

By: Max Resistor
December 14th, 2008

The awesome teaching team of Kate Hartman and Rob Faludi ran a workshop today on Wireless Wearables. They covered what wireless is and isn’t (“calling it wireless is about as accurate as calling it tomatoless”), how to choose materials for soft circuits, and common problems when configuring the XBee. They rolled out the new Lilypad XBee mount, designed specifically for radio communication on your personal area network. Now your hat can tell your shoes what’s going on up there.

Folks paired up and got wireless morse code working with just a Lilypad, an XBee, a 9v battery and one LED. No microcontroller required. The circuits were stitched into gloves for secret chatter among hackers: the perfect communication method for CW conversant ninja HAMs.

You can watch two test circuits light each other up and check out a closeup of the Lilypad Xbee after the jump.

Comments
  • Hammerhead
    Very Cool ! CU on 30CW
  • devin
    This is cool! I am a 16 year old ham (cw only!) who does arduino stuff and this looks like fun! Now, if you could wirelessly trip a relay to key up an HF CW tcvr, that would be cool AND useful! Then you could build a keyer into the arduino... My brain is thinking too much now. Thanks for the ideas!
    -devin (KB1OSI)
  • yet another Mike
    Hello. Excuse the nitpicking, but the sentence "No microcontroller required" is not entirely accurate, since it has one ( an Arduino Lilypad ) built in. Other than that,the idea for wireless wearables sonds like a cool project.
    Mike
  • There really is no microcontroller required. The Lilypad XBee breakout board provides an FTDI interface to the XBee, easy-sew soldermasked tabs and power regulation. It can be used with a Lilypad Arduino, but it stands on its own as well.

    When you pair two XBees, you can designate a digital in pin on one XBee as a digital out pin on the other. Put high voltage on D6 on Radio A, and D6 goes high on Radio B. Very neat!
  • Matt
    The xport controllers have similar albeit more robust functionality built into them as well.
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