Cell Phone Blocking Pocket

Pesky phone always ringing at just the wrong time? Worried about your phone transmitting data even when it’s off? Make a simple cell phone sleeve from conductive fabric to block RF transmissions.

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Lifehacker Interview: I’m Becky Stern, and This Is How I Work

Lifehacker Interview: How I Work

Is Becky Stern an artist or engineer or designer? At Adafruit Industries, it’s all of the above. As Director of Wearable Electronics, Becky combines her DIY skills with crafting talents to build cool gizmos that utilize all sorts of electronic components.

You might recognize Becky from her work at MAKE, her Youtube videos, or her Adafruit tutorials where she shown how to make everything from RFID rings to pixel hearts. How does Becky pull it all off? We caught up with her to learn about Becky’s favorite gear and work habits.

Location: Work in west SoHo, NYC, live in Brooklyn

Current Gig: Director of Wearable Electronics, Adafruit

One word that best describes how you work: Speedboat

Current mobile device: Nexus 4 running CyanogenMod

Current computer: 27″ iMac

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Unlock Your Phone with NFC – Ring & Manicure

Unlock your phone by just picking it up! No more pesky password or gesture PIN, just scan an NFC tag! This guide covers creating an NFC ring, putting an NFC tag in your nail polish, modding your Android installation to read tags from the lockscreen, and creating an automation toolchain to unlock the phone when the desired tag is scanned.

The software side of this project can be pretty tricky, and even scary if you’ve never jailbroken a phone before, which is required to get the phone to read NFC from the lockscreen.

However, you can still do a lot of fun projects without modding your Android install, just skip that step and head straight to the page about NFC+ Tasker Automation. You won’t be able to log into your phone with your nail polish, but you could do all kinds of other things like start playing Barry White when you place your phone on the nightstand (just sayin’).The following pages were very helpful while making this guide:

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NeoPixel Punk Collar

Get your cybergoth on with five color-changing NeoPixels studded onto a leather collar. The tiny GEMMA microcontroller can display endless animations on this fun funky accessory that’s easy to make with a little soldering!

GEMMA jewelry! The bitty board fits perfectly in the center of a NeoPixel ring for flashy hoop earrings or a charming pendant. Read on to build your own!

Before you get started, follow the Gemma M0 guide or the Classic Introducing GEMMA guide.

Supplies

  • Gemma M0 or Trinket M0 – you can also use a classic Gemma
  • through-hole NeoPixels
  • leather collar or cuff
  • 150mAh rechargeable lipoly battery and charger
  • solderless breadboard and alligator clips for prototyping
  • soldering iron and solder
  • solid core or stranded wire (20 to 26 gauge)
  • helping third hand tool
  • pliers
  • wire strippers
  • flush diagonal cutters
  • awl or other pointy tool to pierce leather
  • sharp utility knife
  • cutting mat
  • ruler
  • marking pen/pencil
  • gaffer tape or other material to protect battery
  • velcro tape to secure battery to collar
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