Day: July 24, 2025

Teufel Introduces An Open Source Bluetooth Speaker

July 24, 2025 by 33 Comments

There are a ton of Bluetooth speakers on the market. Just about none of them have any user-serviceable components or replacement parts available. When they break, they’re dead and gone, and you buy a new one. [Jonathan Mueller-Boruttau] wrote in to tell us about the latest speaker from Teufel Audio, which aims to break this cycle. It’s a commercial product, but the design files have also been open sourced — giving the community the tools to work with and maintain the hardware themselves.

The project is explained by [Jonathan] and [Erik] of Teufel, who were part of the team behind the development of the MYND speaker. The basic idea was to enable end-user maintenance, because the longer something is functioning and usable, the lower its effective environmental footprint is. “That was why it was very important for us that the MYND be very easy to repair,” Erik explains. “Even users without specialist knowledge can replace the battery no problem.” Thus, when a battery dies, the speaker can live on—versus a regular speaker, where the case, speakers, and electronics would all be thrown in the garbage because of a single dead battery. The case was designed to be easy to open with minimal use of adhesives, while electronic components used inside are all readily available commercial parts.

Indeed, you can even make your own MYND if you’re so inclined. Firmware and hardware design files are available on GitHub under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license for those looking to repair their speakers, or replicate them from the ground up. The company developed its own speaker drivers, but there’s nothing stopping you from using off-the-shelf replacements if so desired.

It’s a strategy we expect few other manufacturers to emulate. Overall, as hackers, it’s easy to appreciate a company making a device that’s easy to repair, rather than one that’s designed to frustrate all attempts made. As our own Jenny List proclaimed in 2021—”You own it, you should be able to fix it!” Sage words, then as now!

A photo of the circuitry along with an oscilloscope

Eight Artificial Neurons Control Fully Autonomous Toy Truck

July 24, 2025 by 11 Comments

Recently the [Global Science Network] released a video of using an artificial brain to control an RC truck.

The video shows a neural network comprised of eight artificial neurons assembled on breadboards used to control a fully autonomous toy truck. The truck is equipped with four proximity sensors, one front, one front left, one front right, and one rear. The sensor readings from the truck are transmitted to the artificial brain which determines which way to turn and whether to go forward or backward. The inputs to each neuron, the “synapses”, can be excitatory to increase the firing rate or inhibitory to decrease the firing rate. The output commands are then returned wirelessly to the truck via a hacked remote control.

This particular type of neural network is called a Spiking Neural Network (SNN) which uses discrete events, called “spikes”, instead of continuous real-valued activations. In these types of networks when a neuron fires matters as well as the strength of the signal. There are other videos on this channel which go into more depth on these topics.

The name of this experimental vehicle is the GSN SNN 4-8-24-2 Autonomous Vehicle, which is short for: Global Science Network Spiking Neural Network 4 Inputs 8 Neurons 24 Synapses 2 Degrees of Freedom Output. The circuitry on both the vehicle and the breadboards is littered with LEDs which give some insight into how it all functions.

If you’re interested in how neural networks can control behavior you might like to see a digital squid’s behavior shaped by a neural network.

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