Beginner Tips for DIY Wearable Tech

Here’s a guide I’ve been meaning to make for a while– consider it your jumping-off point if you want to get started making your own wearable tech. I’ve published dozens of DIY wearables projects over the years, from LED costumes to Internet-connected sensor jewelry. Here are my best tips for beginners, including answers to common questions.

The first thing you need to get started is an idea. Think about solving a problem or enhancing an experience, either for yourself or someone you know. Maybe there’s a costume or cosplay you’ve always wanted to wear.

The second thing you need is the curiosity, drive, and resourcefulness to learn the skills needed for your idea, which you do not already possess. I’m hoping this guide will help with some of that.

The final thing you need is some motivation to start and/or finish your project, which may come from within, or maybe an event or contest.

It’s important to evaluate your skill level and bite off an appropriate amount of new material to chew on, so as not to get too frustrated to finish your project. Work smarter, not harder. Readymade battery-powered fairy lights, LED strips, and EL wire are perfectly acceptable materials, especially if you’re not ready to take on microcontroller programming or soldering.

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CurrentBody LED Face Mask Teardown

Welcome to another teardown! This time we’re taking a look at the CurrentBody LED red light therapy mask. Masks like these promise to improve various signs of skin aging. 

This project was a collaboration across three continents: my friend Michelle from Lab Muffin Beauty Science in Australia, my other friend Ruth Amos in the UK, and myself (in NYC). We were very curious about these devices. How do they work? What’s the science backing up the marketing claims? Is it really worth the $400 price tag? Could we make a DIY version? We all got on the horn to talk about it.

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YouTube Makers Secret Santa 2024 – PS4 controller sequencer for Look Mum No Computer

This year for YouTube Makers Secret Santa, I got Look Mum No Comupter. Sam performs with his modular synth and other cool audio equipment and collects obsolete technology for his museum in Kent UK. We share a love for hacking toys and other ways to use electronics to be creative. I built him an audio sequencer in an old PS4 controller using sounds from his museum’s sample packs.

Materials and tools:

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DIY Pen Plotter Wedding Place Cards with NextDraw

Here’s how I made the place cards for my wedding reception using my NextDraw pen plotter and the NextDraw Merge software. Not only do they welcome guests to their seats at dinner, but each one has a personal note inside from me, my new husband, or both of us. Follow along if you’re interested in making place cards or notes like this for your own wedding or other special occasion.

Event photos by Arius Photography

Overall, I’d consider this an intermediate-level project, and an ideal first project with NextDraw Merge. This was my first big project with any plotter and the whole reason I bought it in the first place. So I’m new to plotting, and was still able to pull off this project without any problems. But I’m not new to vector graphics software.

For this project, you will need:

Use code BECKYBANTAM for 10% off art machine products thru 2024.

The NextDraw plugin works within InkScape, the open-source vector graphics software, to plot your drawings. The software comes with some sample files to test out and get familiar with plotting. Admittedly I’m more familiar with Adobe Illustrator than I am with Inskcape, but the skills are transferable.

I picked some brown letter-sized paper and experimented with some different gold Gelly Roll pens.

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I’m in the 2025 Princesses with Power Tools Calendar

It’s here! The 2025 Princesses with Powertools calendar, featuring yours truly as miss January. I’m honored and thrilled to join these 11 other amazing women and nonbinary individuals in this year’s lineup.

More about the calendar:

We set out to create a calendar featuring the classic Princesses many of us grew up with. Too often, young girls are presented with the idea that they can be either a princess or an engineer: we are proving they can be both. Our Princesses with Power Tools Calendar is a perfect example of that– featuring 12 incredible women and nonbinary individuals in STEM and the Trades doing their work in a princess gown.

Inspired by Beauty and the Bolt’s incredibly popular #PrincessesWithPowerTools program which has taught nearly 17,000 kids to use their first power tool, this one-of-a-kind calendar is back! With your help, Reinvented Inc. is determined to get even more calendars to students and teachers in 2025 than ever before!

My princess bio:

In a vibrant underwater kingdom, there once lived a princess named Becky who had a boundless curiosity and a passion for crafting wonders from the trinkets she collected. With an enchanting voice that could light up the darkest depths, Becky penned countless magical guides, teaching her friends everything from seaweed knitting to sparking life into mystical gadgets. During her reign, Princess Becky has held esteemed positions crafting innovative treasures at the Instructables workshop, leading enchanted wearable projects in the illustrious Adafruit guild, and producing captivating tales for a renowned magical scroll (MAKE Magazine). Now with every new dawn, Princess Becky eagerly gathers fresh hobbies and crafts to share with her kingdom, forever inspiring and enchanting those around her. Her story is a testament to the magic that arises from following one’s heart and the endless wonders that await those who dare to explore.

And some behind the scenes:

Sewable CR2032 Coincell Battery Holder with Switch (files included)

Today I’m making a coin cell battery holder – my first assembled PCB product.

I have been selling purple coin cell battery holders in my LED sewing kit for years. They’re perfect for making a simple circuit, and they have a handy on-off switch so you don’t have to take the battery out to power off your project. Before these boards were available, I would use a surface-mount coin cell battery holder with tiny holes in the metal tabs. I had just enough space to sew a few stitches through those holes with conductive thread. They weren’t designed for this purpose and didn’t have that handy switch, but they were better than the through-hole variety available since those don’t have holes in the tabs at all.

There are a handful of circuits like this on the market that include a coin cell battery clip, a single on/off switch on a PCB, and tabs or holes to connect it to the rest of your circuit, either by soldering to the pad or sewing through the holes with conductive thread. The design I was using in my kit was a knockoff of a SparkFun Lilypad product, an open-source design. I don’t feel great about buying the clones, but I was looking for the best price available for my kits. My version observes the open source license, which means you can download my files too.

To make my own version, I started with that same open source design for the sewable LilyPad CR2032 coin cell battery holder. I used Autodesk Fusion for this project, partially because it’s what I already know how to use, and because the design files are Eagle files, which is the previous name of the software package that was rolled into Fusion. The personal use version of Fusion is free and it has enough features to do all the things I’m going to do today.

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Rewiring vintage lamps

Today we’re rewiring old lamps. I got invited to participate in this lamp show at my hackerspace, NYC Resistor, and it got me dusting off my yellow antique banquet lamp. This thing used to be a gas lamp, and at some point, it was converted to electrical. So it has a socket and a bulb and a cord. But the cord is not up to modern safety standards, and it’s kind of ugly.

So I took the opportunity to clean the whole lamp, which made it easier to also rewire the cord while I was at it.

This is an easy project you can do at home, but it’s a little dangerous because you’re plugging into AC mains power. So double-check your work with somebody who knows what they’re doing, and be sure to unplug the cord while working on the wiring.

The supplies you will need are:

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Electronics and Taxidermy?!

Electronics and Taxidermy! That’s what’s on the menu for this diorama project collaboration between Emily Graslie and me. In this project, we will build a plywood diorama box and fill it with cityscape features like a brick wall with a dryer vent and LED lighting. Oh, and rat taxidermy. You’d be surprised how much overlap in tools there can be. Check out how many of the tools we need are carried by DigiKey!

Supplies

[DK list https://www.digikey.com/en/mylists/list/7XKTVCR5D6 ]

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Ultrahuman Ring AIR Teardown

Today we’re looking at the Ultrahuman Ring AIR, a biometric tracking smart ring. The device consists of two parts: the ring and the charging base. It also comes with a charging cable, but no charging brick. That’s a benefit in my opinion, since I already have plenty of AC adapters lying around.

The ring has a flat part inside that lines up with the flat part on the charging base. Ultrahuman provided two rings for this video, so big thanks to them for being down for this destructive and reverse-engineering type of review, which they did not get to influence otherwise.

Thanks to David Cranor for lending his EE expertise and to Lumafield for the 3D scan of the (ring) and the charging base.

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