Finding ESP8266 Inside Big-Box Store IoT Plugs

September 23, 2016 by 44 Comments

When we buy new shiny toys, we usually open them up to at least have a look. [Scott Gibson] does the same, apparently. He found an ESP8266 module inside the EcoPlug brand WiFi-controlled wall switches.

The original device was intended to be controlled by a (crappy) app. He sniffed the UDP packets enough to send the on-off signals to an unmodified device, but where’s the fun in that? [Scott] gave it an upgrade by replacing the ESP8266’s firmware with his own and now he’s got a much more capable remote switch, one that speaks MQTT like the rest of his home automation system.

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Web Bluetooth: The New Hotness And Its Dangers

September 23, 2016 by 29 Comments

Google’s most recent Chrome browser, version 53, includes trial support for Web Bluetooth, and it’s like the Wild West! JavaScript code, served to your browser, can now connect directly to your Bluetooth LE (BTLE) devices, with a whole bunch of caveats that we’ll make clear below.

On the one hand, this is awesome functionality. The browser is the most ubiquitous cross-platform operating system that the world has ever seen. You can serve a website to users running Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, or MacOS and run code on their machines without having to know if it’s a cellphone, a desktop, or a virtual machine in the Matrix. Combining this ubiquity with the ability to control Bluetooth devices is going to be fun. It’s a missing piece of the IoT puzzle.

On the other hand, it’s a security nightmare. It’s bad enough when malicious websites can extract information from files that reside on your computer, but when they connect directly to your lightbulbs, your FitBits, or your BTLE-enhanced pacemaker, it opens up new possibilities for mischief. The good news is that the developers of Web Bluetooth seem to be aware of the risks and are intent on minimizing them, but there are still real concerns. How does security come out in the balance? Read on.

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Building Pneumatic Actuators With 3D Printed Molds

September 23, 2016 by 11 Comments

Pneumatic actuators offer interesting perspectives in applications like soft robotics and interaction design. [Aidan Leitch] makes his own pneumatic actuators from silicone rubber. His actuators contain embedded air channels that can be filled with pressurized air and completely collapse to a flat sheet when no pressure is applied. Continue reading “Building Pneumatic Actuators With 3D Printed Molds” →

HAL 9000 useless machine

World’s Biggest, Most Useless AI Machine

September 23, 2016 by 11 Comments

In a time when we’re inundated with talk of an impending AI apocalypse it’s nice to see an AI that’s intentionally useless. That AI is HAL 9000. No, not the conflicted HAL from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey but the World’s Biggest AI Useless Machine HAL built by [Rafael], [Mickey] and [Eyal] for GeekCon 2016 in Israel.

Standing tall, shiny and black, the box it’s housed in reminds us a bit of the monolith from the movie. But, in a watchful position near the top is HAL’s red eye. As we approach, HAL’s voice from the movie speaks to us asking “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?” as the eye changes diameter in keeping with the speech’s amplitude. And at the bottom is a bright, yellow lever marked ON, which of course we just have to turn off. When we do, a panel opens up below it and a rod extends upward to turn the lever back to the ON position.

Behind the scenes are two Arduinos. One Arduino manages servos for the panel and rod as well as playing random clips of HAL from the movie. The other Arduino uses the Arduino TVout library to output to a projector that sits behind the red diffuser that is the eye. That Arduino also takes input from a microphone and based on the amplitude, has the projector project a white circle of corresponding diameter, making the eye’s appearance change. You can see all this in action in the video after the break.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Dodo 6502 Game System

September 22, 2016 by 13 Comments

If you are a gamer of A Certain Age, it’s probable that you retain a soft spot for 8-bit computers and consoles of your youth. For a time when addictive gameplay came through the most minimal of graphics, and when gaming audio was the harshest of square waves rather than immersive soundscapes.

Does the previous paragraph sound familiar? Then we may just have the device for you. The Dodo is a handheld console that harks back to that era with a 6502 processor and a 128×64 pixel OLED screen. Games are loaded from plug-in EEPROM cartridges, and sounds are suitably period-digital square wave tones. It’s the brainchild of [Peter Noyes], and he says he will consider it complete when it sports a game fun enough to entertain his 4-year-old.

The prototype Dodo is a handheld form-factor made from two stacked PCBs. The upper one has the display and buttons while the lower has the classic 6502 and associated chipset in through-hole DIP format. A Game Boy Micro it ain’t, but miniaturization is not the name of the game with these consoles. Best of all though, all the console’s resources are available in a GitHub repository, so you can all have a play too.

The 6502 has featured in a huge number of projects here on Hackaday over the years. Now it’s turned up in the Hackaday Prize.

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Electric Train Demonstrator

September 22, 2016 by 26 Comments

If you ever want to pique a kid’s interest in technology, it is best to bring out something simple, yet cool. There was a time that showing a kid how a crystal radio could pull in a radio station from all the way across town fit the bill. Now, that’s a yawner as the kid probably carries a high-tech cell phone with a formidable radio already. Your latest FPGA project is probably too complicated to grasp, and your Arduino capacitance meter is–no offense–too boring to meet the cool factor criterion.

There’s an old school project usually called an “electromagnetic train” that works well (Ohio State has a good write up about it as a PDF file). You coil some bare copper wire around a tubular form to make a tunnel. Then a AAA battery with some magnets make the train. When you put the train in the tunnel, the magnetic forces propel the train through the tunnel. Well, either that or it shoots it out. If that happens, turn the train around and try again. There’s a few of these in Internet videos and you can see one of them (from [BeardedScienceGuy]) below.

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Scratch-Built EV From Hoverboards

September 22, 2016 by 14 Comments

Electric vehicles are everywhere now. Even though battery technology hasn’t had the breakthrough that we need to get everyone out driving an electric car, the price for batteries has dropped enough that almost anything else is possible. The hoverboard was proof of this: an inexpensive electric vehicle of sorts that anyone who was anyone in 2015 had. Taking his cue from there, [Harris] used off-the-shelf parts normally used for hoverboards to build his own battery-powered trike.

The trike is homemade from the ground up, too. The H-frame was bolted together using steel and lots and lots of bolts. Propulsion comes from a set of hub motors that are integrated into the wheels like a hoverboard or electric bicycle would have. Commonly available plug-and-play lithium batteries make up the power unit and are notably small. In fact, the entire build looks like little more than a frame and a seat, thanks to the inconspicuous batteries and hub motors.

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