Tindie

I’m not amazing at looking after plants. They need to be a pretty rugged species to survive my sporadic and forgetful approach to plant care! Perhaps this Smart Plant monitoring system could improve my game.

The base model Smart Plant is an IoT-enabled health monitor for your plant with no screen or onboard power supply. It can monitor a host of different plant vitals, from soil moisture and light levels to ambient temperatures and humidity. The onboard ESP32-S module means you can upload the ESP Home firmware and connect this device to your home assistant for even more automated plant care, or alternatively, you could use the IoT functions to datalog your plants’ environment.

Whilst you’re buying the basic IoT version you might consider some of the add on’s that are available for the board. Adding a crisp E-Ink display gives you a heap of easily readable information “onsite” and you can customise the display to your precise needs. Other options include a 1000mAh battery and you could treat your Smart Plant device to a 3D-printed case.

The Smart Plant is open source so you can tinker with the design and the firmware; the creator has also released the STL files for the enclosure should you wish to print your own.

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Tracing back to medieval times humans have created funerary art that deals with themes around death. Many galleries and exhibitions around the globe are stuffed with “memento mori”, a term referring to art that reminds us that one day, we won’t be soldering and tinkering anymore!

So it grabbed my attention to see this interesting, and very fittingly Tindie, take on this area of art, the “Shortlife“.  The Shortlife is a small electronic clock that essentially shows an estimated percentage of life remaining to the owner. On ordering a Shortlife device the developer, Dries, will be in touch and will enquire as to your date of birth and gender. This information is combined with the World Health Organisations’ life expectancy estimate for your country of residence. This combines to give you a bespoke Shortlife clock tailored to you, and it is further personalised with your name on the back of the unit.

The listing is clear of any technical detail (life is too short after all) but the unit is powered via USB (supplied) and the user only has to input the current time and date. Two brightness levels can be selected for the crisp display and, judging from the product images, this looks like a very well-manufactured device, fit for a hopefully long life of use!

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This Pico-based scope jumped out at us for a couple of reasons. First, the price is incredible! Second, with a Pico W you can wirelessly connect it to an Android device running the analysis software. And third, even if you connect it via USB-OTG to your phone, the entire device is isolated from the circuit you’re probing (assuming you’re not simultaneously charging your phone from a wall wart).

True, it only has 150kHz of analog bandwidth, but for the price and quality of the software involved, it can still be useful for working on all sorts of projects. The logic analyzer portion can run at up to 25MS/s, so many serial protocols can be successfully probed (SPI, I2C, etc). The software looks incredibly well done, with all sorts of features usually found only on benchtop scopes, including FFT and X-Y modes. It even has a basic function generator built-in! And perhaps down the line we’ll see some trickery used to increase the analog bandwidth (time-interleaved ADC sampling?) which would be very cool.

In the meantime, this would be a great scope for a beginner, especially younger hackers who might accidentally probe something that makes the board go “poof!” and release the magic smoke. At this price point, and with fully open schematics, repair and/or replacement isn’t the end of the world!

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Many moons ago I built a MIDI to Relay kit that allowed me to control all kinds of small motors and solenoids via MIDI from a keyboard or sequencer. Ever since then, I’ve had a soft spot for kits that add relays to microcontrollers. The PicoRelay8 board is supplied fully assembled and allows you to nearly instantly add 8 relays to a Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico W.

The 8 relays on board are rated to switch devices drawing up to 10A at 28V DC. While that means it isn’t mains power rated it still is enough power to run some pretty large devices. The relays are each connected to a GPIO pin on the Pico and pulling the relevant pin high results in the relay contacts closing allowing power to flow. Returning the GPIO pin to a low state opens the relay turning off the attached circuit. The relays look like quality components; they were in part selected as they have Silver Tin Oxide contacts for better switching of high inrush currents which we’ve certainly seen using relays with DC motors.

There’s a note on the product listing that’s worth repeating: if all 8 of the relays are energised at the same time, then the Pico power supply must be able to deliver over 500mA. With Bluetooth support hopefully coming soon to the Pico W we can imagine all kinds of fun controlling these relays via our phone!

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About a year ago, we posted about the CircuitMess Chatter. It’s an awesome, easy-to-build kit that has an excellent assembly guide. Using encrypted messaging over LoRa, the devices are able to send messages back and forth completely privately. No connection to the internet or cellular networks is required — just be in range of any paired devices and you’ve got secure text communication!

If this has piqued your interest — great! Starting today (February 14th) the Chatter will be on sale for 30% off the regular price! That’s $105 for the pair of devices, down from $149.99. This deal will only last until the 20th, so if you’ve ever eyed this device before, now’s the time to grab one. The instructions even include a section on coding and programming your own apps into the Chatter, meaning you can add custom functionality unique to your particular use case! The Chatter also uses USB-C, which is excellent — the more devices that start using USB-C, the sooner I can get rid of all my micro B cables.

The fact you get two in the kit is really nice — having another device to immediately pair and communicate with is a great way to, for example, teach your kids about message privacy and encryption in a hands-on way. And that’s one of the main goals of this project — to get people talking and thinking about privacy, encryption, and the ongoing mass surveillance of most of the world’s digital devices. Take the opportunity to reflect on privacy, and what it means to control your own communication!

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There are a lot of microcontroller dev boards on Tindie, but every now and then one stands out to me. The AVR Coding Kit (or ACK) is a cute little board that features an ATtiny1616 and a 6×7 Charlieplexed LED matrix! I am particularly fond of the tinyAVR 1-Series; for such a tiny package, they’ve managed to fit in a huge number of peripherals, including things not commonly seen in smaller micros like DACs, small logic blocks, multiple 16-bit timers and an RTC, and even capacitive touch detection hardware.

The ACK takes the ATtiny1616 and turns it into not only a great little development board for learning about AVR (it even has an entire simple program printed on the back silkscreen!) but it’s also inexpensive and small enough to be embedded in many applications. With the built-in CR2032 battery holder tasks like data logging, low-power control systems (think weather balloons, remote monitoring stations), and wearables are all perfect matches for a board of this size.

But to top it all off Bradanlane Studio, the developers, have created a free, 100% open-source AVR programming course that teaches how to utilize the ATtiny using the C programming language. It’s a perfect fit for those already somewhat familiar with C/C++ but who are wanting to get into the embedded development world. It’s designed with the ACK in mind, but the information applies to most AVRs and the course can be adapted freely, as it’s MIT licensed. If you know someone wanting to get into embedded development, this might be the perfect match for them!

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At first glance, we didn’t quite realise what we were seeing in this listing! The original listing is in German and the first picture we saw just looked like a model of a sign displaying car fuel prices. However, closer inspection revealed that this is a smart sign in the popular HO scale of railway modelling that not only can display forecourt prices but can automatically live update with real-world prices via WiFi.

Not only that, this immaculately modelled signage has numerous themes available that emulate common fuel station brands so you should be able to integrate it into your layout perfectly.

Powered by USB-C, this smart sign can not only be configured for live updates, but you can also interact with it by manually entering prices and switching themes. You can update the software over the air and it’s configurable via a browser on any device.

We’d love to see a bit more documentation and under the hood on this device, but we can see from the product images that it’s based around the popular Wemos S2 board and we think it could look perfect in any HO fuel station build.  We’d love to see what any Tindarian railway modellers do with these in their layouts!

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The folks at Cosmic Accents have done it again — another awesome piece of jewelry, this time just in time for Valentine’s Day! These sound-reactive heart-shaped earrings are gorgeous, and with 17 tiny LEDs, they’re sure to catch the eye of your secret admirer.

Each earring uses a CR2032 battery and can last for up to four hours. A button on each earring moves through the available patterns. With multiple sound-reactive patterns and a static pattern too, these earrings are a great accessory for any hacker out for a night on the town. Or pick up a set for your hacker bestie or partner!

A hard on-off switch is included to completely cut power to conserve battery life. The set includes batteries, and CR2032 batteries are easy to come by, so you can store a few with the earrings for whenever you want to break them out!

This Valentine’s Day, make a fashion statement and support an amazing Tindie creator; be sure to check out their store for some more beautiful jewelry!

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When you look for a part, and it doesn’t exist, what do you do? Well, if you’re a hacker, you make it! The Rotary Encoder Display or RoEnDi for short was created by Tindie seller MuTko because they wanted an encoder with a graphical display, and no open-source project existed. The encoder features a circular 1.28″ TFT display in the center, with a 15 pulse per revolution decoder behind it. It also has a 128Mbit NOR flash, which is perfect for a graphical application like this. An STM32L433 microcontroller rounds out the specs: an ultra-low power ARM Cortex-M4 with FPU (again, a great choice for an application like this!) with USB, multiple timers, capacitive touch inputs, and 256k of flash for program storage.

With such a flexible MCU driving the device, it can be used in just about any application. Built-in ADCs and DACs allow usage for both sensors and control applications, and multiple supported serial protocols allow connection to just about any peripheral needed. To top it all off, the CAD drawings and all software are open-source, so you’ve got just about everything you need to start your project.

I can see all sorts of neat applications for this. Obvious ones include a smart thermostat: you can show all the temperature data in the centre, and then change the set temperature with the rotary encoder. Off-grid energy management would also be a great application. The display can show the incoming power from solar, and how much the house is consuming. Then the encoder can be used to set charge states or minimum battery reserve.

If you’ve got an awesome idea for this product, make sure to check out the store listing and the documentation on Hackaday.io!

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There are lots of RGB options available, but this compact & well-designed 10-watt RGB module caught my eye. An integrated, stylish heatsink has the LED mounted directly to it, dissipating all the heat generated without making the module too bulky. With integrated drive and control electronics, it’s an all-in-one package that’s easy to interface with TTL serial. Built-in overheating protection allows an optional fan to kick in to keep the unit cool.

I noticed in the listing that there’s another control method called ByWire. I hadn’t heard of this protocol (and having taught a class on serial protocols, I like to think I know my protocols!), so I contacted RagingBits to ask about it. Turns out it’s a protocol they’re developing for simple control of devices like this over the same lines that power the device. By switching the polarity of the voltage supplied to the device, messages can be sent in one direction. The control side uses an H-bridge, and their store will have an example controller listed soon, so keep an eye out!

On the receiving side, all that’s needed is a rectifying bridge and a way to detect which polarity is being sent at any given time — not difficult to do with modern microcontrollers. Of course, because this device can also be controlled over serial, you can easily connect it to an ESP32 and control it with MQTT for home automation. I also pictured having a simple control panel with R, G and B rotary encoders and a global brightness slider. This could then be used for photography or art installations! 10W of LED power is quite a lot, and that can easily be used to light up a large area.

In any case, if you need a bright RGB LED with all the bells and whistles, then make sure to check out the listing!

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