Category: Wearables

IoT Muscle Sensing ‘Sup Brows with Kate Hartman

We spend a lot of time trying to send messages to each other through talking, texting, emailing, and more. What if you could send a message to your friend by simply raising your eyebrows?

This project is a collaboration with Kate Hartman.

In this wearable electronics project, we’ll learn to make muscles send text messages! This learning guide will show you how to use a MyoWare muscle sensor and a Bluefruit Feather microcontroller to transmit a signal through the phone to Adafruit IO and If This Then That to trigger an SMS. Let’s get started!

For this project you will need:

Before you begin, please review and understand the following prerequisite guides:

(more…)

WiFi OLED FeatherWing Brooch

Create an internet connected display brooch and wear your data on your sleeve (or jacket, or backpack…)! This simple Adafruit IO project pulls forecast data from IFTTT and displays it on a FeatherWing OLED display, made wearable with a magnetic pin back. It also toggles to display a favorite quote, or serve as a nametag!

For this project you will need:

Before you begin, please review and understand the following prerequisite guides:

(more…)

LED Matrix Snowflake Sweater with Bluetooth Control

Create a tacky sweater controlled by your phone! It’s easy to put together this Bluefruit and NeoPixel matrix circuit to display snowflakes in a sweater, and control the animation and color using the Adafruit Bluefruit LE Connect app for iOS or Android. 

This is an easy project to build but probably not best for a “first project” as there are a lot of concepts being mixed together and the matrix can use quite a lot of power. You can build it with any of our Bluefruit products and the microcontroller of your choice, such as FLORA with its BLE module, or the all-in-one Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE.

Before you begin, read and understand the following prerequisite guides:

For this project you will need:

(more…)

Flora + Fona SMSsenger Bag

Scroll text messages on your bag, jacket, or any other surface, using a Flex NeoPixel Matrix and Flora + Fona! Combining these two powerful boards can create the wearables projects of your dreams! This guide starts by covering the particulars of hooking Fona up to Flora including wiring and code modifications, so you can take most any Fona project and build it with Flora.

Before you begin, make sure to familiarize yourself with the following prerequisite guides:

Supplies

To build this project, you will need the following parts and tools:

(more…)

Talking Dog Collar with Bluetooth Control

Make a bluetooth-activated talking dog collar for Halloween or just to show off at the park! This intermediate electronics project was inspired by Dug from the movie Up– his talking collar translates his thoughts for communicating with humans. Using the Audio FX board and Bluefruit Micro, this project enables you to trigger sound samples through the Bluefruit LE Connect app for iOS and Android. The sounds are played through a mono amp connected to a mini metal speaker.

The collar itself is made from a leather belt, with 3D printed “greebles” to make it look like the collar from the movie.

It’s easy to adapt this circuit for any phone-triggered audio project by swapping out the sound samples!

Before you begin, familiarize yourself with the following prerequisite guides:

For this project you will need:

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.

(more…)

Mystical LED Halloween Hood

Create glowing eyes for your costume! This project is ideal for any character with glowing eyes, like the Black Mage from Final Fantasy, Jawa from Star Wars, or Orko from He-Man. Two NeoPixel Jewels can appear any color or animating pattern, and they are driven by a GEMMA microcontroller powered by a 500mAh lipoly battery in a 3D printed pocket.

Before you begin, check out these prerequisite guides:

For this project, you will need:

(more…)

How To Sew NeoPixels with Conductive Thread

What’s a wearable project without LEDs? Designed specifically for wearables, bright RGB LEDs are paired with a constant-current driver chip. The contacts are easily sewn with conductive thread. Use this guide to test your first pixel and start on a blinding wearables project with Circuit Playground Express, FLORA or GEMMA!

Each pixel draws as much as 60mA (all three RGB LEDs on for full brightness white). In theory, FLORA can drive up to 500 pixels at 30 FPS (above which it will run out of RAM). Circuit Playground Express can drive more than that.  However, above about 20 pixels (and/or if the overall length of conductive thread exceeds ~6 feet/2 meters), the nontrivial resistance of the thread adds up and can affect the power supply. For large quantities of pixels over 20 or if you need to insulate your circuit, you should upgrade to silicone coated stranded core wire, which will provide better conductivity for the pixels – the current draw will add up fast!

Before you begin, familiarize yourself with the following tutorials:

(more…)