Is that a rom in your locket?

posted Jul 25th 2011 2:03pm by
filed under: HackIt

[Andrew] recently ordered some lockets to bejewel them with some LEDs but got a bonus small locket for free with the order. Not really having a plan for the small locket it kind of sat around until finally some inspiration hit. Meet the ee-locket which contains a tiny circular pcb with a 64k eeprom, a few passive support components and a male pin header on the back so you can quickly plug it into the micro of your choice.

While the uses of such a thing may not be obvious at first, just sitting down writing this I thought of a few applications, such as some form of key and lock system, mission impossible dreams, or just going full out geek at your next job interview. Its a pretty spiffy idea no matter what its used for, and we just love it when people shove electronics where no one expect them.

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30 Responses to Is that a rom in your locket?

  • Mike says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    Is that a male pin header in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

    Reply Report comment
  • liard nelson says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    oh, look at my new locket, i am so steampunk! doh.

    Reply Report comment
  • HAD says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    iButton does the same thing and has water/dust proofing.

    Reply Report comment
  • DJ Charlie says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:22 pm

    @liard nelson: Funny, I see no mention of Steampunk anywhere in the article, or this post.

    May I suggest getting your glasses check and/or cleaned?

    Reply Report comment
  • b says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    “we just love it when people shove electronics where no one expect them.”

    That’s just not right.

    Reply Report comment
  • Steve McCool says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    “and we just love it when people shove electronics where no one expect them.”
    I’m sorry, is it just me or does that sound so dirty 3:)

    Reply Report comment
  • pin says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    it kind of looks steamish

    Reply Report comment
  • liard nelson says:
    July 25, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    yes, it looks really steamish. maybe reversed steampunk’d. Instead of adding useless shiny metal to working hightech, we see the adding of practically useless shiny hightech to shiny metal jewelery.

    Reply Report comment
  • Spork says:
    July 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    Looks cool, but is not very functional for anything. Why not make a flash drive locket with a micro usb port or something?
    Also, what kind of dude wears a locket?

    Reply Report comment
  • The Ideanator says:
    July 25, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    ^ CyberSteam?

    Reply Report comment
  • Microguy says:
    July 25, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    I wonder how hard it would be to put a small micro in there, and a small color LCD. So when you open it the picture of your loved one pops up. Kinda like those tiny photo key chains.
    I may just have a project…..

    Reply Report comment
  • mjrippe says:
    July 25, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    “we just love it when people shove electronics where no one expect them.”

    Sounds uncomfortable!

    Reply Report comment
  • Hirudinea says:
    July 25, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    Load a PGP key onto the eeprom.

    Reply Report comment
  • N0LKK says:
    July 25, 2011 at 7:41 pm

    I’m sorry if I’m missing something, but what does it do, other than store data in an EEPROM? Why not stick a micro-SD card inside the locket, something that many devices that can make use of?

    Reply Report comment
  • Aaron says:
    July 25, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    Spork: Dudes don’t wear lockets. Men wear what they damn well please.

    Reply Report comment
  • Dacap says:
    July 25, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    I didn’t know you could reuse surface mounted items like this. if anything props for recycling?
    perhaps you could get it to log hiccups

    Reply Report comment
  • becky says:
    July 25, 2011 at 8:57 pm

    You could give it to your geeky wife as an anniversary with something special like poetry on it.

    Reply Report comment
  • N0LKK says:
    July 25, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    @becky So are you that geeky wife?

    Reply Report comment
  • Necromant says:
    July 25, 2011 at 9:12 pm

    microsd did not fit in.
    I use the eeprom to store the private keys for ssh. And, frankly, put the whole whing onto the usual keychain

    Reply Report comment
  • Necromant says:
    July 25, 2011 at 9:13 pm

    @becky I’m not yet married (that’s why I do have some time for this). But you are kind of right: the locket with leds will be a present =)

    Reply Report comment
  • cde says:
    July 25, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    Should have turned it into a passive rfid rom, or an ibutton or something.

    Reply Report comment
  • steve says:
    July 25, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    What a steaming pile of punk.

    Reply Report comment
  • Mad Max says:
    July 25, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    Yup, I’d go with the RFID version too. At least it would be usable in some vaguely magic-looking sort of way to open stuff. There might be problems with the medallion shielding the antenna though…

    Reply Report comment
  • Necromant says:
    July 25, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    I thought about that, and I even tried. But mifare antenna just didn’t work (I think I even know where the bug was) and soldering aluminium (I salvage mifare ultralight chips from metro tickets) is kind of tiresome.
    Maybe some time later. So let it be eeprom this time.

    Reply Report comment
  • Microguy says:
    July 26, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @Dacap,
    I re-use surface mount stuff all the time. You just have to be careful when removing it.

    In fact, I can’t think of anything I re-used, that didn’t work, because I was too rough when removing it. Electronics parts are not the fragile little beasties lots of people think they are. Most are pretty sturdy.

    Reply Report comment
  • NATO says:
    July 26, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    Considering that you can’t protect this EEPROM, using it for any type of security would be, well, not secure at all.

    Also, this SOIC package is way too big – Why not use something smaller?

    Reply Report comment
  • Eirinn says:
    July 27, 2011 at 12:56 am

    Locket looks steampunk, the insides does not.

    Neat projekt :)

    Reply Report comment
  • Necromant says:
    July 27, 2011 at 3:43 am

    @NATO: Well. The only reason I used it – I had it around. I’ll be experimenting more with mifare later, may be RFID will eventually work out.

    Reply Report comment
  • NATO says:
    August 5, 2011 at 6:11 am

    @Necromant

    Neither is secure. Look around, maybe something MCU based…. There are secure (relatively speaking) solutions out there.

    Reply Report comment

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