Cheap digital gadgets, of the kind generally discovered on websites like AliExpress, could be loads of enjoyable to play with. However the hacking potential of their {hardware} typically outweighs the advantages of any supposed use instances. Let’s be trustworthy — loads of corners are minimize by the gadget producers to maintain prices down. And people cuts are more likely to be in areas like supporting software program, which makes sure gadgets clunky to make use of, and even artificially limits what could be accomplished with them.
{Hardware} hacker Wesley Ellis has been taking part in with the COLMI R02 Sensible Ring, which has garnered loads of consideration these days as a consequence of its low price ticket and quite a lot of reverse engineering efforts focused on the gadget. To make the good ring extra helpful, and far simpler to combine into different initiatives, Ellis has developed an open supply Python consumer that may learn information produced by the COLMI R02’s onboard sensors.
The good rings could be bought for underneath $20, and are available outfitted with an accelerometer in addition to coronary heart fee and blood oxygen sensors in a compact and engaging bundle. The ring additionally has a Bluetooth transceiver, and through the use of Ellis’ Python utility, one can simply retrieve measurements from these sensors wirelessly in real-time by working a command line utility.
This mission continues to be a piece in progress. Many varieties of measurements could be retrieved with it, and the habits of the ring may even be modified in refined methods. However there are nonetheless future plans to retrieve further information, like sleep monitoring logs and blood oxygen measurements from the gadget, which isn’t but out there.
If you need to assist take this open supply mission to the following degree, Ellis has shared some particulars concerning the ring’s communication protocol and the construction of knowledge packets. Between that and the earlier work that has gone into reverse engineering this good ring, some attention-grabbing hacks are actually attainable. And when you do construct one thing new, you’ll want to submit the mission to Hackster in order that we will all drool over it!