Madox designed the BitBltBlade, a WiFi controlled POV lightsaber designed to display images in conjunction with long exposure photography. The BitBltBlade uses the hackable TP-Link TL-WR703N router and Kean’s USB Expander board to wirelessly control a strip of RGB LEDs. The concept of operation is that the user would use their smartphone which can upload photos […]
Category Archives: wireless
Open source Bluetooth module firmware
Paul Sokolovsky developed a proof-of-concept open source firmware for common Bluetooth modules based on the CSR BlueCore4 cheapset. “BlueCore4-Ext is a popular Bluetooth chip used in many Bluetooth modules, some priced below $10. The idea is to create Wireless Sensor/Control Network using these modules, as Bluetooth is really ubiquitous technology nowadays, so any smartphone can […]
RadioBlock adds RF comms to your embedded project
Here’s an interesting project we found on Kickstarter. Known as RadioBlock, this device promises to provide a simple “radio building block” for your embedded projects. The blocks have a four pin connector, two for 3-6 Vdd and ground, and two for TTL serial comms. The RF link consists of an IEEE802.15.4 Atmel RF231 module and […]
DeepSec 2011: intelligent Bluetooth fuzzing – why bother?
Security researchers Tommi Mäkilä and Jukka Taimisto of Codenomicon gave this presentation at the DeepSec 2011 conference discussing ways to sensibly test Bluetooth stacks. Their talk presents the number of ways in which Bluetooth attacks have been attempted with varying degrees of success. They also present a discussion on fuzzing techniques and creating intelligent fuzzers […]
GSM GPS shield for Arduino
Boris Landoni draws our attention to the GSM GPS shield for Arduino designed by Open Electronics. “The shield is designed and based on the module GSM/GPRS SIM900 or the GSM/GPRS & GPS module SIM908, to make calls, voice and data connections via GPRS. This new version has several new hardware features, that allow maximum customization […]
New Arduino library for NFC shield released
Javier Montaner has released a new Arduino library for the Seeedstudio NFC shield. The new PN532 library uses SPI HW implementation from official Arduino SPI.h library in contrast to the original PN532 library from seeed which uses a dedicated SPI SW implementation in the PN532.h library. You can download the Javier’s NFC library and supporting […]
How much current do small USB-WiFi routers draw?
Jbeale reviewed how much current small USB WiFi routers draw. His intent is to connect them to the Raspberry Pi which can only provide 140mA over the USB port. It turns out that from Internet connectivity the routers draw under 100mA, but if used in high speed LAN operations the current draw jumps over R-Pi’s […]
DeepSec 2011: hacking GSM packets using scapy
In this talk from the DeepSec 2011 security conference Laurent ‘Kabel’ Weber, co-founder of the Chaos Computer Club in Berlin, details the enhanced scapy software tool to attack GSM via packet manipulation. This presentation introduces a scapy-addon allowing users to create GSM layer 3 packets using simple Python syntax. His hardware setup includes a USRP1 […]
DEFCON 20: Hacking smart meters
At the recent DEFCON 20 conference in Las Vegas, Don C. Weber presented this talk on smart meter technology and security. The presentation deals with the optical port found on smart meters, and covers attacks from quick memory acquisition techniques to more complex hardware bus sniffing, as well as how authentication credentials are acquired. Finally, […]
panStamp wireless open source modules
panStamp is an open source project created for the enthusiasts interested in measuring and controlling things wirelessly. panStamps are small wireless boards specially designed to fit in low-power applications, simple to program and simple to work with. They allow for direct connection with your sensors to make then available wirelessly. panStamps are NOT WiFi modules. […]
Arduino WiFi shield
Arduino fans can now take their hacking projects to a new level with the release by the Arduino crew of their WiFi shield. The shield is designed around an Atmega 32UC3 32bit microcontroller which controls the WiFi stack and the HDG104 from H&D Wireless. The Arduino communicates over SPI with the Atmega32. They use an […]
Tutorial: wireless sensor applications using Dorji RF modules
Raj has posted this tutorial at Embedded-Lab on building wireless sensor applications using Dorji’s DRF4432S and DRF5150S RF modules. “The interesting part of these RF modules is they have an additional preprogrammed microcontroller on board that allows direct connection of selected analog and digital sensors to the modules.” Raj’s article describes these two modules briefly, […]
WiFi extending robotic tank
This video displays the work of eight computer and electrical engineers constructing a Wifi repeater-deploying tread robot as part of a senior design project at Northeastern University. The project was constructed at Artisan’s Asylum located in Somerville, MA. The beast above is a robotic system intended to be operated remotely in hazardous areas where network […]
Hacking and moding the TP-Link WR703N OpenWRT Wi-Fi router
TP-Link WR703N is a OpenWRT supported Wi-Fi router that comes with ‘only’ 4MB of flash and 32MB of RAM. If you are not satisfied with these, they are easily upgradable as described in the forum. RAM can be upgraded to 64MB if you are not afraid of hot air soldering. Just take out one chip […]
Levitating LED combines wireless power transfer + magnetic levitation
Chris Rieger is an Electrical Engineering student from the University of Queensland Australia, and has been experimenting with wireless power transfer and magnetic levitation. After studying the work of Jeff Lieberman, Eric Taylor, and others, Chris fine tuned his design to combine these two technologies to achieve the results depicted in this video. Visit Chris […]
Samsung’s NFC Tec Tiles
Samsung has debuted Tec Tiles. These NFC smart stickers (shown above at actual size) are designed to be preprogrammed with information of your choice and left to be read by other NFC equipped phones. In order to program a tag, you’ll need to have the Samsung Tec Tile app on your NFC equipped phone, then […]
BTSwitch project controls devices with Android smartphone
Luca Dentella writes, “Hello! I’ve just published my latest project, an Arduino-based bluetooth switch you can control via Android App.” The design uses an Android smartphone app which communicates via Bluetooth with a Bluegiga WT11 module, which in turn communicates with an Arduino controlling a relay switch. Luca’s plans and code are available on his […]
3G/GPRS shield for Arduino
Libelium has introduced their 3G/GPRS shield for Arduino (3G + GPS). It enables connectivity to high speed WCDMA and HSPA cellular networks, and includes GPS. “The GPS module also makes it possible to perform geolocation services even in indoors as it can work in A-GPS and S-GPS modes, so the location given by the GPS […]
Carambola controlled quadcopter
Saulius writes: “I have just tested in the air my latest quadcopter telemetry link using low-cost open-source wifi board. This link can be used not only to relay telemetry data but control SU(A)V from joystick and get video back to ground station.” The copter uses the Carambola low cost, open-source WiFi (21.5 dB / 2.4GHz) […]
Wireless dual DC motor control system
Chris from PyroElectro writes: Here’s an article that explains how to build a dual DC motor control system, combined with a wireless receiver and transmitter (XBee modules) which tell the motors at what speed they should move forward, or backward. Standard and widely available parts are used so that anyone can follow along. The system […]