Collaborate Disseminate
A few years ago, low-cost pocket digital oscilloscopes aimed at the hacker and maker crowd started hitting the market and gained quite a following. While few would consider them to be a replacement for a proper bench scope, they’re cheap and convenient enough that it’s hard to complain. Manufacturers are …read more
Continue reading Teaching a Pocket Logic Analyzer (Many) New Tricks
[Aaron Christophel] writes in with yet another clever hack for his D6 Fitness Tracker. Using OpenOCD and Pygame, he shows how you can pull data right off the tracker’s screen and sent it to the computer.
This one appealed to us for its brevity. First [Aaron] launches the OpenOCD server …read more
Continue reading Pulling Display Data off of a Fitness Tracker
Over the last several months, [Aaron Christophel] has been working on creating a custom firmware for cheap fitness trackers. His current target is the “D6 Tracker” from a company called MPOW, which can be had for as little as $7 USD. The ultimate goal is to make it so anyone …read more
Continue reading OTA Flash Tool Makes Fitness Tracker Hacking More Accessible
Undoubtedly, the ESP8266’s biggest selling point is its WiFi capability for a ridiculously low price. Paranoid folks probably await the day its closed-source firmware bits will turn against humanity in a giant botnet, but until then, hobbyists and commercial vendors alike will proceed putting them in their IoT projects and devices. One of those devices is the Yeelight desk lamp that lets you set its color temperature and brightness via mobile app.
[fvollmer] acquired such a lamp, and while he appreciated its design and general concept, he wasn’t happy that it communicates with external servers. So he did the only …read more
Continue reading Dumb Down Your Xiaomi Smart Lamp With A Custom Firmware
Visualize some radio controlled airplane fanatic of yesteryear, with the requisite giant controller hanging from a strap, neck craned to see the buzzing dot silhouetted against the sky. It’s kind of a stereotype, isn’t it? Those big transmitters were heavy, expensive, and hard to modify, but that was just part of the challenge. Additionally, the form factor has to a degree remained rigid: the box with gimbals — or for the 3-channel controller, the pistol-grip with the big pot that looks like a cheesy race car wheel.
With so much changing in RC capabilities, and the rise of custom electronics …read more
Continue reading Can Commodity RC Controllers Stay Relevant?