Notices by joey castillo (joeycastillo@mastodon.social)

Would you like to pair with our lord and savior Jesus Christ?

By way of explanation: I have shipped four variants of #SensorWatch over the years, and this is me testing the release candidate firmware on all of them. Because you can’t test a wearable on a workbench alone. You have to wear it.

Update: I have severely improved my predicament.

This is me now.

men will literally become nazis instead of going to therapy

we considered ourselves to be a powerful culture

“We didn’t design them to last 30 years or 40 years. We designed them not to fail.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/voyager-1-breaks-its-silence-with-nasa-via-a-radio-transmitter-not-used-since-1981-180985399/

Welp. One year late, I managed to get my @hackaday #supercon badge hack working, just by looking at it with fresh eyes for 15 minutes. The thing that kills me: I designed the hardware right, and I got it built in time, AND the software was essentially correct. If not for a one-bit configuration error, I could have presented this demo on stage.

AI, ladies and gentlemen!

“Your order includes a white friend device and a white case.” I mean, the jokes write themselves. https://www.friend.com/product.html

a (human) friend texted me this link with the question “is this real?” and maybe I’ve been in the mountains for too long but it can’t possibly be real, right? Like as a critique or a satire it’s both incisive and clever, but as an earnest attempt at a product it’s just… deeply unhinged?

“When will I receive my friend?”
“Pre-orders will start shipping Q1 2025.”
Questions frequently asked by the utterly deranged. https://www.friend.com/product.html

wow okay apparently it’s real, and they raised $2.5 million dollars, AND they spent $1.8 million of those dollars buying the domain name friend-dot-com, which is downright hilarious. I just spent $1.99 on the subway ride home buying the domain “enemy.lol”; anyone with web design chops wanna get in on this? I think “enemy” is a AI pendant that texts you to poke at your deepest insecurities. (with a premium plan it'll send your friends recordings of you talking about them behind their backs)

New battery test, day 625: 2.89 volts. Technically day 626, and probably closer to 2.885, but I intended on logging every 25 days, so there you have it. Ben reports from Paris that his watch (yellow line) died just a few days ago, which I think means I can estimate battery life between 1.7 and 2+ years, depending on how my watch does.

New battery test, day 873: it's over! Feels poetic that the battery died at #HOPE. (Also I was demo'ing it all afternoon at the @crowdsupply table.) I actually logged the battery yesterday at 2.19 volts — low enough that the LAP indicator was on, which meant the battery was on its last legs. Point is, the February 2022 firmware lasted 2.4 YEARS on a single 100 mAh coin cell, which is not bad! I'm now ready to claim 1.7 to 2.4 years of battery life — and that's backed by real-world testing :)

New battery test, en route to @crowdsupply #teardown at day 850: 2.52 volts. I missed the check-in at day 800 (2.72 V) but the trend line is clear: it’s going down. Probably 8% of charge left. I’m guessing I’ve got another 74 days on this coin cell, which puts it dying in early September. With some luck — and a lot more hard work — I might just have Sensor Watch Pro ready by then. 🤞🏽

New battery test, day 700: 2.84 volts, as I extend the X-axis another hundred days.

I now have enough data to posit that 2.85 volts is the 70% mark for battery exhaustion: old firmware hit it on day 300 and died on day 425; Ben's watch hit it at day 440 and died at day 622. By that math, I predict 292 days remain, for a death date around November 8th. Which means this little watch that could might just make it to its THIRD @hackaday Supercon on a single CR2016 coin cell.

New battery test, day 675: 2.85 volts. Number hold steady! Tho I admit I've been on and off with this watch the last few weeks; I've been splitting my time between Sensor Watch and a stock Casio W800H, just to get a feel for a larger watch on my wrist. Anyway, onward to 2024!

New battery test, day 650: 2.86 volts. Number go down! But even when number go down, watch can still function just fine, down to 1.62 volts (which realistically we won’t get to until the battery has but minutes left). If I had to guess, I’d guess I have 30% of my CR2016’s capacity remaining, which means we should easily make it to the two year mark, and I should be able to wear it all semester and well into the summer. If I’m being bold? I think it‘ll tick from February 2022 to September 2024. 🤞🏽

@derek I have one that I’m pretty happy with, but alas I’ve been so busy with teaching this semester that I haven’t had a chance to put it in the repo. I’ll try my best to make some time to uploaded it this weekend or next.

working on my week three lecture slides, on transducers and sensors, and once again I'm going hard. Just finished a photoshop job on a classic illustration; Thanks, Phototransistor Man!