Wandering.computer Update #1
Hi there! 👋
This is the first email from me (Joost) about the Wandering.computer project. You have subscribed in the past. (maybe a long time ago! Or maybe because of curiosity!)
Wandering.computer is a project to let you type/write while walking, dancing or any other activities which leaves your hand free! (without using a phone)
In the past couple of months I've resurrected this project and made quite some headway with a new prototype, which I want to share with you as interested audience!
New prototype
So without further ado and more walls of text. Here's the current prototype (of which I lost count, so I might change the numbering into a color (or verse) of my favourite poems.
I'm aware the right screen has had some persuasion problems resulting in leaking LED light. Re-using previous PCBs for the 4-key keyboard I could get the electronics working in a few days, inglueding (love this amalgamation 😂) an on/off switch. In the mean time I ordered the two sides to be printed by JLC3D, in transparent resin. Yielding a new beautiful prototype (which feels like a finished product!)
It also turns on automatically if you pull the two halves apart. (with a normally open limit switch!).
Lessons learned
When I was working on a custom PCB for this project I was biting into more than I could chew. The schematic always ended up in a broken state and I couldn't find the energy to route the PCB, let alone deal with the fact that I would have to wait a couple of weeks before JLCPCB delivers the next prototype... (with missing microcontrollers.. héhé). So my biggest lesson was to take it easy on myself, how about using an already available PCB & microcontroller with everything on board? I ended up with the Waveshare ESP32-S3-LCD-2.
Software
Once the hardware was sorted out I could point my focus (and AI's towards the software. I quickly discovered the wonders of bitwise operators to reduce payload size with ESP Now and learned a lot on smaller optimisation to decrease the latency as much as I possibly could.
The current status: A working typing machine, not storing anything yet. But all key lookups and chording works with the wonders of asetniop. This leaves me two extra buttons (and accelerometers!) to tinker with.
Website
The current website is also pretty basic (and just a form for this newsletter. I’ll update that soon as well!)
Note
If you're curious about this project or have wild ideas on what it could do? Feel free to shoot me an email back at: j@jplattel.nl. Thanks for subscribing and I hope it has been worth the wait!
Thanks,
Joost