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Build History and Inspiration

A project log for earWorm: Socially Responsible AR

A bluetooth headset designed to maintain your connectivity and humanity when interacting with those around you.

bothwellBothwell 08/20/2014 at 17:320 Comments

I started this project 2 years ago by wrapping some polymorph around a small transducer and hooking it up to a desk mixer. It didnt work great but it was compelling enough for me to keep interested in it and come back to it when i have a eureka moment. Version 1 was not amplified, hence the external mixer, and had no microphone input, and i wanted to use it for music while riding my bike, since the bone conduction still allows for full left-right sound staging. 

Version 2 used a thingiverse earclip that i printed and augmented to have a clip that fit the transducer, I padded it out with some rubber padding and it worked reasonably well if i used a headphone amplifier.

Version 2.5 used the same basic concept, i used a different clip as a base (i shall track down and attribute all you fine thingiversers!) and printed a cuff from ninjaflex in an attempt to make it extra comfy, however it still suffered the volume loss issues

Time to roll back...

Version 3 is the current build, as with many of my projects, i started by diving in with a final form factor in mind and it resulted in frustration. So i got a strip of some nice breathable strap (inspired by the opendive kit strap, its so nice) and printed some pressure rings. Adafruit has been promoting the small transducers as bone conducting headphones since they started up the learning system, and they had put out instructions for creating a small box with the tranciever in it to use on flat surfaces or skulls or whatever. I grabbed their file, since they had created an elegant clip for the transducer, and modified it into a much shorter, slantier version with strap holes. Taking their amp suggestion i used the TS2012 24db gain amp breakout board, and i have a successfully operating boneconducting headphone, albiet a little ungainly.

The future: Implantable version mounted on a dermal implant...

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