The “smartification” of client merchandise is getting uncontrolled, y’all. It looks like it was solely yesterday that we had been all making enjoyable of sensible, internet-connected toasters and fridges. However these are virtually antiques in comparison with the Evowera Planck Mini sensible toothbrush. This toothbrush has a strong microcontroller, WiFi and Bluetooth adapters, sensors, and even a coloration show to assist folks scrub their tooth extra successfully. Aaron Christophel developed a way for hacking Planck Mini toothbrushes to load customized firmware. And it seems that, sure: even toothbrushes run Doom lately.
Inside a Planck Min is a full-on ESP32-C3 microcontroller. It screens sensors, like an IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), to find out how nicely the person brushes their tooth. It may, for instance, inform the person in the event that they missed brushing a selected “zone” of their mouth. It reveals the outcomes on a 0.96” full-color TFT LCD display screen, which may additionally present different info just like the climate — as a result of IoT. It’s also able to connecting wirelessly to an app and customers can do ridiculous issues with that, similar to sending messages to mates’ toothbrushes. It’s all very foolish, however we are able to see it being helpful for folks that wish to be certain their youngsters brush correctly.
Our readers, nevertheless, know the place that is going. After some experimentation, Christophel discovered that he might ship over-the-air firmware updates to the Planck Mini’s ESP32 utilizing his personal ESP32 growth board. That gave him the flexibility to load no matter code he needed onto the toothbrush; he might show Rick Astley and skim the information coming from the toothbrush’s sensors.
Naturally, Christophel determined to load Doom onto the toothbrush. That wasn’t even onerous to do after he gained the entry described within the final paragraph. Different hackers have already created Doom ports that run on ESP32 microcontrollers, so Christophel was in a position to load a type of onto the toothbrush as a firmware replace.
That labored surprisingly nicely and the sport is clearly seen on the toothbrush’s TFT LCD. To regulate gameplay, Christophel related a Bluetooth mouse to the toothbrush’s ESP32. It appears a bit clunky, however forward-backward motion of the mouse maps to motion of Doom Man (versus wanting up and down). That permit Christophel play the sport with simply the mouse — no keyboard essential.
We’ve coated many, many Doom initiatives over time, however this one might take the cake. When you had instructed the builders at id software program again within the early ‘90s that somebody would run their sport on a toothbrush, they wouldn’t have even been in a position to comprehend the concept.