blutack

WT32-ETH01 about $7 on Aliexpress if you want something ESP32 based. As easy or easier to get started with than the STM parts in my opinion. Comes with MQTT, HTTP clients & servers etc.

When I last used Cube-MX, it was a very unpleasant experience throughout. I'd use stm32-hal or libopencm3 out of preference if I was using the parts again. The tool itself and the code it spat out had all sorts of nasty bugs and edge cases that cost days of debugging. Maybe it's improved since.

https://github.com/egnor/wt32-eth01

Now that I think about it, it's pretty shocking if a trainer doesn't support FTMS - did you check if it does? Possibly they are programming the Microchip BLE gateway to implement the necessary FTMS characteristics and using the UART bit for talking to the app.

If you generated that UART log with an ESP32, then ignore me! Otherwise, it looks like you found the debug port for an ESP IDF project. In that case it's not likely to use the BLE to UART Microchip unfortunately. Therefore there's no guarantee that the UART matches anything to do with the bluetooth (the ESP32 is a separate processor which could be doing a whole bunch of smart stuff).

Also, those Microchip modules are an expensive way to add bluetooth to something (trading dev time for BOM) - I would be surprised to see them in any mass produced or cost optimised design.

Generally, best bet is probably to run jadx over the android app and go from there.

That said, it looks like the FitShow module supports FTMS (standard Bluetooth fitness profile). In that case, fantastic, you should be able to use any off the shelf FTMS bluetooth library to pull data from it. No UART required.

I've seen this sort of thing previously (and the UUIDs match up).

https://developerhelp.microchip.com/xwiki/bin/view/applicati...

It's what happens when a product developer already has a design for a previous gen and needs to add "smart" with minimum effort, so they throw a Microchip UART to BLE gateway chip in. The chip basically just does single byte UART over BLE over a pair of characteristics, which is very much an impedance mismatch with how BLE is designed to work. That's why some of the things seem to not align with the spec and why the protocol seems so stateful.

On the plus side, it means de-compiling the android app is very helpful as there will be a parser for the binary protocol. It's also easier to work with for RE in some senses as the actual bluetooth code required is minimal (set up a notification and read the RX characteristic, write another). If you are ok with opening things, you can also use a USB serial adapter to trace the UART traffic between the gateway chip & the control IC (there's an AT style protocol that's all well documented).

Fundamentally, it's probably either some basic hardcoded request/reply, or there's a "send me x datavalue every x seconds" command packet. Once you've got both sides of the UART, it will hopefully be fairly clear. Might even be plain ASCII...

There's various bits and pieces on github that might be helpful, and Microchip have some developer tooling.

Author of this has an interesting live/realtime(?) podcast called "Railnatter" about the railways, public transport and UK infrastructure politics.

Recently in the news as the UK government rail minister appeared to have directly requested he be sacked from the (private) company he worked at, after (pre-cleared with said company) comments he made to media about Euston station safety during peak times [0].

0: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-rail-minister-peter-hendy...

As I'm too late to edit - if you use it in a setting where it's always powered, you might want to consider removing the battery as a safety measure. It's a fairly simple hardware hack, various YouTube videos and blogs on the subject.

+1 for the hot garbage piezo, but as OP says the ESP32 has a lot of fun hacking potential and there's plenty of space in the case especially if you remove the battery.

Very simple if you flash it with awtrix, it has a neat JSON API.

I wouldn't swear to it but from mine it looks like there's a grid of light guides between the led PCB and the front screen to prevent any cross bleed. The front screen is translucent but not transparent (think heavy tinted window) acrylic which gives it the muted look.

It's pretty good hardware wise, it would be hard to knock up DIY for $50 even just in BOM.

Edit: teardown in German https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo @ 04:30

The ESP32S(1?) that's inside is fairly powerful as embedded mcus go but that said...

If you need grunt and you don't specifically want the aesthetic of an led matrix panel you'd probably be better off with an old phone or tablet based thing.

The TC001 afaik doesn't have any mics inside anyway.

The Ulanzi TC001 might fit the ticket, it's not open source but it's an ESP32 and a bunch of addressable LEDs you can flash through the USB port.

There's an ecosystem of open source firmware for it already.

If you're looking for something with an addressable LED matrix in a clock style form factor, the Ulanzi TC001 [0] for ~$50 is worth having a look at.

Doesn't quite have the same aesthetic but inside it's just an ESP32 (flashed via the USB-C port) and there's various mature open source firmware replacements. I use awtrix[1] on mine and it's very easy to tie in HomeAssistant for doorbell notifications and that sort of thing. I did also knock up a Pomodoro app for it.

0: https://www.ulanzi.com/products/ulanzi-pixel-smart-clock-288...

1: https://github.com/Blueforcer/awtrix3

From the GadgetBridge pull request[0] mentioned by dingensundso:

There's a nice site with a lot of the BLE API documented (including commands) at https://colmi.puxtril.com/

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41834048

Sorry I'm not mitxela, I just find pretty much all their projects old school hacker awesome.

Good suggestion but from their article it seems like there's some really odd silicon level interactions going on so who knows? Might be worth getting a CH32v003 and finding out!

There's also a short associated YouTube video showing it in action.

https://youtu.be/IHD3ji-F600

See also the CH32V003 [0] (more expensive variants also available), a neat, cheap and standalone RISC-V with plenty of modern & flexible peripherals, good package options, single wire debug and an open toolchain [1] for ~20c per.

Mitxela has a great article on them [2] and I totally agree they have a lot of the same joy & simplicity of the ATTiny - but with the added bonus of lots of interesting DMA controller misuse!

The peripherals have a very STM feel (in a good way) which perhaps isn't surprising given WCH's history.

0: https://www.wch-ic.com/products/CH32V003.html

1: https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003fun

2: https://mitxela.com/projects/badge

I don't read Portuguese but there's nothing specifically regarding beaches in their courtesy translation [1] beyond avoiding areas next to SAR helicopter bases (which is fair enough) and there's nothing on their UAS restrictions map [2] that would be unusual in any other EU country.

I have flown (below 120m obviously) in Portugal near the beach with a <250g drone after checking their UAS map so it would be good to know what I missed? Possibly you are referring to some additional local restrictions?

1: https://www.anac.pt/vPT/Generico/drones/operacoes_transfront...

2: https://uas.anac.pt/registry/explore

This is not true as a blanket statement unless you are talking about commercial flying, large drones or restricted airspace. I'm not sure what country you are referring to but I haven't personally come across one that requires a per flight permit outside of higher risk commercial operations. Most EU countries are pretty harmonised on drone rules at this point.

Sub 250g drones such as the DJI Mini series and the Autel Nano will give you the most flexibility in places you can fly legally.

Water bottle rockets that have to carry and land an egg without cracking it are fun, and the launcher except pump can be 3d printed. The kids can make the rest of the rockets out of cardboard/foam/plastic bag parachutes etc).

The Olimux ESP32-POE / wESP32 boards have a proper ethernet connection and PoE support. Means you don't need to worry about wifi coverage or power as long as you can get an ethernet cable to it - and those are cheap & easy to find in ludicrous lengths for outdoor use.

The Olimux ESP32-POE / wESP32 boards have a proper ethernet connection and PoE support. Means you don't need to worry about wifi coverage or power as long as you can get an ethernet cable to it - and those are cheap & easy to find in ludicrous lengths for outdoor use.

ESPHome also has deep sleep support - so for some use cases you can just wake up every x minutes/hours, connect to wifi, do thing, back to sleep for x minutes. In deep sleep a decent ESP32 board (firebeetle or tinypico) will last for months on a small lithium cell. For a quick sensor, the whole wake up/read sensor/update HA/sleep again takes a second or so depending on wifi configuration.

Useful for something on a schedule like sprinklers or slow sensors (soil humidity or whatever).

You can also wake based on interrupts, which is good for stuff where you are using a low power external sensor that does interrupts (wake ESP up if humidity gets to x) or a GPIO switch (magnetic entry/float switch/etc etc).

Firebeetles and tinypicos both have cell connectors and onboard charging directly for lithium pouch cells. You could also get a cheapo solar power bank, although you'll want to do some research to make sure the relatively light load of an ESP32 will keep it powered on.

Additionally, phone GPS chipsets are often built into the baseband modem and performance might be limited compared to state of the art (and just price, packaging limitations for antennas, assumption that a phone always uses A-GPS etc).

The dual frequency chipsets used in modern high-end fitness watches & drones have pretty spectacular performance even in incredibly built up areas with high tower blocks or under tree cover (they usually have a barometer as well to help with the altitude problem).

Interesting article, be helpful if there was a breakdown of why the author thinks people are dying. Seems from the article like there are three problems:

- SAR teams knowing where people are - SPOT/inReach, PLB, Recco (at a push)

- SAR teams knowing that someone is in trouble: SPOT/inReach, PLB, VHF, Satphone

- Members of a climbing team knowing where each other are: SPOT/inReach, VHF, Satphone, Meshtastic (or something of that style)

I imagine that SAR is really really hard on Everest even if you do know where the casualty is so knowing where other members of a climbing team are might be the most important one?

Price-wise a P1S will work out cheaper unless you get a really poor quality Trident kit (which I wouldn't do).

If you just want to print stuff (like if the printer is to support another hobby, or you have a business) get a P1S/X1C or a Prusa MK4. I wouldn't personally bother with an AMS until down the line when you're sure you need it.

VORONs are fantastic if you want a fun and very well documented robot building project, and at the end you get something pretty comparable to a Bambu. It can be a frustrating process at times but you'll learn a lot about a variety of interesting stuff. The printers are also massively hackable and moddable, and they have larger build plate options (although ~250mm^2 is realistically enough for most home users). Bambu is the exact opposite mentality, fully closed source, they work incredibly well but are effectively a black box. Think Linux vs Mac.

Another option would be to see if you have a local maker/hackerspace, they will usually have at least one decent printer.

In addition to the other poster's suggestions, "mouse ears" or other brim styles (slicer availability may vary) can be useful to help reduce warping.

The LDO kits are the top end of the price bracket.

A friend is building up one of these and is fairly happy with it: https://magicphoenix.xyz/product/voron-v2-4-customized-kit/

They also have Trident kits. I've also built a Siboor V0.2 kit and was happy with it for the money.

Steam Deck as a left of field option with the best supported gaming outside windows and very competent linux machine when docked (might want an alternative OS such as Bazzite[0]).

Fan noise audible if it's permanently loaded up but that's like many of the knockoff NUC or litre PCs.

0: https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/

The firebeetle claims 10uA and from memory is pretty close on a tinycurrent, or the Unexpected Maker boards [0].

You might be able to fix your existing boards if you look at the schematic and remove any unnecessary draws (voltage measurement dividers and always on LEDs are a good place to start). To get into the <20uA range the board needs to have an LDO with a low quiescent draw though, and designed so you can shut down power to the eink driver.

0: https://esp32s3.com/index.html#boards

I use QR codes for this, they work for both android and iOS.

This link explains how they are formatted: https://qifi.org

Hmm I was just going off the Firefox estimate, maybe there's some browser difference?