Want to build an amazing sensory substitution project using Buzz and an Arduino development board? Here’s everything you need to know about our Neosensory Arduino Bluefruit Software Development Kit (SDK).
With this SDK you can send any data stream from an Arduino to your Buzz. Use this to build a new sense. By continuously feeling the data from a sensor as vibrations on your wrist rather than simply looking at plots of the data, your brain can learn to automatically interpret the data. Check out the TED Talk by our CEO, David Eagleman, for more on how this works.
Build with Buzz and Arduino
This SDK allows you to develop your own projects on a Neosensory Buzz by sending data to the wristband from a compatible Arduino board via Bluetooth.
Our SDK is built on top of Adafruit’s Bluefruit nRF52 library, which means you can make your Buzz vibrate from any microcontroller that works with that library (see Adafruit’s list of nRF52 boards here).
We’ve had a lot of fun connecting different sensors to our Feather nRF52 board to create new senses here at Neosensory. The possibilities are endless and we can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Get started
Visit the SDK documentation and the GitHub repo. To get your project up and running just follow these 3 simple steps: 1) download our zip library for Arudino, 2) install the dependencies in the Arduino IDE, and 3) load our example onto your compatible microcontroller.
Example
Once you’ve installed the library to Arudino per the installation instructions in the SDK documentation, you’ll be able to open the example script that comes with the library. Find the example in File > Examples > NeosensoryBluefruit. This example will get you up and running (or, actually, vibrating) in a matter of minutes. Then, all you’ll have to do is connect your sensor of choice and decide how to represent that data on Buzz.
Read our Neosensory Arduino SDK example walkthrough for a detailed explanation of the example script.
Recommended materials
Not sure where to start? Try buying the Feather nRF52 BLE microcontroller from Adafruit. It has battery recharge circuitry built in, so you can pair it with a lipo battery (and optionally with a battery switch) for easy mobile projects. You can even throw it on a wristwatch strap to wear it alongside your Buzz. Then, hook it up to any sensor. Check out all the sensors Adafruit makes.
Demo Projects
Keep an eye out for our upcoming posts. We’ll share details on some of the demo projects we’ve created here at Neosensory.
As a teaser, check out this pair of bands that give us new senses: an invisible-light-detecting band that causes Buzz to vibrate when it detects ultraviolet or near-infrared wavelengths. Or a temperature sensing band (mid-range infrared) that lets us know the temperature of objects nearby. Check back on our blog soon for a full walkthrough of these projects.
Best wishes with the SDK, and keep us posted if you have any questions. If you’d like your project to be featured on our site in the future, email us at developers@neosensory.com or visit the Neosensory developer Slack.
By Mike Perrotta, Scientist