So my Pebble Time has arrived …

After a not bad wait at all my new Pebble Time smartwatch has arrived. So now I’m experimenting with it to see what it can do and what I can get done with it. That’s going to take a little while I should think, but as I decided to go with the Pebble Time just before the Apple Watch was announced and took centre stage I want to see how much I can get done with the new Pebble.

So expect updates on this over the coming weeks …

A first go at weaving with Conductive Threads

I went to a workshop today on weaving with conductive thread. Not something I’ve done a lot of before, but something I’ve had a previous taste of when I did a workshop of making interactive clothes. However, I’ve never done anything with weaving at all, but it always seemed like a fun thing to try.

So the idea was to weave something small and introduce a couple of conductive thread elements in that could be attached to a microcontroller board like a TouchBoard. In fact, it was a TouchBoard in this instance and that was very straightforward to use as it is nice and easy to connect up.

Well the weaving was ok, in fact easier than I expected although I made a few mistakes. Introducing the conductive thread was simple enough, and as you can see I managed to create a little piece of stuff at the end of it. It worked too. I connected it up to the TouchBoard and it worked a treat. In fact, when I got home I connected it to my Ototo board and that was fine too.

So what’s next? I’m not sure actually. I don’t know quite how I’ll take this forward if at all. There are a few possible applications to it, a few ideas bubbling around, but I need to think about them a bit more first.

Let’s see what happens.

The SoundLab guide is now available

The new SoundLab site and guide is up now. It’s been a long time coming and it looks great. I hope that it will make a difference to organisations and groups and that it’ll be a useful resource. I can safely say that I had more fun from being a part of SoundLab than most other work I’ve been involved with.

And my Pebble Time is on its way

Hopefully I won’t have too long to wait until it arrives, although it does have a fair distance to travel. I’m really interested in seeing how it compares to the original Pebble smartwatch and what sort of functionality I can get out of it compared to the Apple Watch. Not that I have an Apple Watch, but it’ll be interesting nevertheless.

I also want to see how it works with both iOS and Android and work out what’s best and where the most interesting and useful interactions come from. So expect Pebble Time posts in the coming weeks.

Survivors Sound Design

I’ve been listening to Big Finish’s Survivors series one again and this time in a very quiet environment. One of the things that’s struck me is that the sound design on this audiobook is actually amazing. The attention to detail in it was something that I found amazing when I listened to it closely and without distraction, interruption or noise. From the reworking of the original soundtrack to the atmospheric incidental audio and music, to the sound effects and stereo field. It’s very impressive indeed.

Of course it does make me realise just how poor my normal listening environment is. It makes me realise just how much I’m missing from a lot of the audio I listen to, or rather, consume, as I think that it’s more like that than real listening, or deep listening.

Doctor Who: Suburban Hell

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Yet another excellent story in this series of fourth Doctor adventures. This is so reminiscent of the original TV series, and of course, beautifully written as ever, with lots of great lines and wit. I actually think that this has been one of the best 4th Doctor series that Big Finish has produced. I’m really impressed, and also sad that there aren’t so many left until the end.