Finding your tent at a music festival is a tricky endeavor – not only are there miles and miles of tents exactly like yours, you most likely have a few beers or other substances in you that affect your sense of space and/or time. [James] came up with a great solution to finding your tent by illuminating it with Christmas lights and a cell phone.
The basic idea of [James]’ build is having Christmas light flicker whenever he calls a phone. One feature in nearly every phone that can be exploited to accomplish this task is the backlight turning on when a call is received. Add a phototransistor, a little bit of circuitry, and some Christmas lights, and you have a fully functioning tent finder.
[James]’ circuit is a simple relay driving the Christmas lights, triggered by a phone right on top of the phototransistor. It’s a simple circuit that can be built on a piece of veroboard, and with a few pieces of plastic forming the enclosure, provides a reasonably bulletproof device that will survive the rigors of a music festival. As a bonus, there’s no need to modify the phone to trigger a remote circuit. Video of the device in action below.
10 years earlier…
http://www.zdnet.com/orange-sms-glow-tent-wows-glastonbury-goers-3040145784/
15 years ago we used to fly a huge English flag in our ‘camp’ at Glastonbury. You can spot it on the aerial photos.
Either the circuit lights up the tent or the circuit lights up the tent. I prefer the first possibility.
And this is why english sucks, in polish you’d say: “Albo namiot będzie się świecił jak psu jajca albo zjara się w pizdu.”
Eh, explanation for a fellow hacker?
Google translate says it means something about dog balls. *shrugs*
“Either the tent will shine like dogs balls or it will burn into f$%k all”
“Or tent will glow like a dog the balls or stoned in is fucking.”
Also would love an explanation of what this means ;-) There’s a hell of a lot of colloquial stuff in there
Just guessing, but I think that he is saying that the original phrase could be interpreted in two different ways:
Circuit visibly lights up tent
or
Circuit lights tent on fire
Just guessing… :D
Pfft. People have been using GPS to find their camps at BurningMan for nearly a decade now, and that’s only because strobes held aloft by helium weather balloons don’t cut it any more.
Yeah, if you’ve got a phone you’ve got GPS.
(Gramps & his old Nokia are unlikely to be a the festival anyway)
Hmmmm! I have 6 grandchildren and an I-phone. And I have been known to go to festivals, concerts, medieval fairs,hot air ballon gatherings and even a burning man in Arizona.
+1… Great idea!!!
Can also use it to modify your running Daylight Headlights to switch off or run 6000K LEDS for Daylight Running Lights too!
It would be easier and possibly cheaper to do with a 2-way radio.
OF CURSE BUT THAT WOULDNT BE AS COOL.
Booooooooooooorrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnngggg. :P
Practical… cells get super-congested at these kind of events, so actually being independent of the network would be a bonus.
Plus, you can’t trust the system. Man.
In my experience, getting cell phone coverage at festivals is harder than finding my tent… usually the local cellular tower is overloaded with the crowds…
Am I the only one here, who thought that this is perfect for a bomb?
Even the word “trigger” gets used over and over in the article…
just sayan
everyone that read this article is now on some three-letter-agency’s watch list.
3 letter agency??? like ABC, NEA, CBS, NBC, DEA, NRA, CIA, FBI,and WTF
Isn’t anything purposely made perfect for a bomb? It just happens that cellphones are stereotyped for the purpose.
Yes, this could be used for that purpose but that’s not the original intent of this project.
“Dude, I lost my phone, can you call my tent?”
Never have mobile reception at festivals I’ve been too. A big flag on a gigantic pole is always enough
How about a “find my car” app on the phone? I actually use this quite often, not just for locating my car.
“google now” already has a feature to find where you parked. using the gps i assume, you could make a similar app to find your tent and/or track your route from tent to other places. or use a gps.
You could carrying around with you a few pounds of uranium so it would have a nice glow that you could see from anywhere nearby.
Um, except that uranium doesn’t glow.
Or, how to make an IED….
I Agree, you realize that these people are publishing plans for a mobile phone triggered detonator.
The standard nokia comes direct from the manufacture already equipped with timer, Emergency override, manual detonation, GPS location etc.
Can we start some kind of petition for Hackaday to stop covering hacks that make something more difficult than it was before? If you have a smartphone, you have a GPS receiver. If you don’t, you can pick up an old handheld GPS unit for ten dollars on ebay, which is a hell of a lot cheaper and less hassle than getting an old phone, getting service for it, and building this contraption, to say nothing of the likelihood of you not getting any kind of cell reception/service at the festival location.
Yes, you COULD set up a kinect mounted to a set of peepholes in your front door so only someone who knows the secret dance can get in, but you shouldn’t, because it’s fucking stupid.
But I like the secret dance idea! Despite it being (or because it is) fucking stupid. Oh wait – you’d have to teach geeks to dance…
except your phone dies at the festivals.. and do you have to leave your phone in your tent?? that sounds silly. :)