A Smart Wand For All Us Muggles

Arthur C. Clarke said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Even though we know that something isn’t “magic”, it’s nice to see how close we can get. [Dofl] and his friends, big fans of the magic in Harry Potter, thought the same thing, and decided to create a magic wand that they could use themselves.

muggle-wand-internalsThe wand itself is 3D printed and has a microcontroller and WiFi board, a voice recognition board, a microphone, and a vibrating motor stuffed inside. The wand converts the voice into commands and since the wand is connected to WiFi, the commands can be used to communicate with your WiFi connected lights (or your WiFi connected anything, really.) Five voice commands are recognized to turn on and off music, the lights, and a “summon” command which is used in the video to request a hamburger from delivery.com. For feedback, the motor is vibrated when a command is recognized.

There’s not much technical information in the original article, but I’m sure our readers could figure out the boards used and could suggest some alternatives to get the wand’s form factor down a bit.  Over the years, other wands have appeared on our pages, using some different technologies.  It’s a fun way to interact with the environment around you, even if you know the “magic” involved is just boring old technology.

10 thoughts on “A Smart Wand For All Us Muggles

  1. Indeed, that looks rather fecal, is that true to the books/canon or just a shortcoming of this designer?
    I do like the idea, but if you forgo the form/shape, most people have a more capable version on their person. It is a smartphone and you can just ask it questions. I don’t use that feature and I find people that do a bit of a showoff. Perhaps harking back to a formfactor that requires talk for interaction makes it a bit less awkward? I’d prefer the startrek badge though (but not enough to pay top money for it).

  2. There is a minor failure in the quote [0] , it actually reads:

    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a MagicShifter!”
    – Arthur C. Clarke, proud owner

    Your wand is super nice!
    I once received a broken remote control magic wand thing [1] from the thinkgeek hackerspace giveaway they did some years ago.
    Because he electronics were broken i replaced the inner workings with an attiny, an accelerometer and a TV-B-gone firmware.
    Turning off TV with your magic wand feels totally right.
    Keep up the good work..

    [0] http://magicshifter.net
    [1] http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/cf9b/

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.