Tree Bien

So since I began soldering again, we have had an electronic Christmas tree that was one of my first renewed soldering projects and it was similar to this kit.  Earlier this year I saw this kickstarter and decided to go for it.  The neat thing is that it is programmable, it has a Digispark that is programmable with the arduino IDE. There is a bit of soldering but it works perfectly.

They use RGB LEDs so a host of colors are available and they also provide some script generation for standard setups.  The digispark also is a cheap but lowered powered alternative to the arduino and I will be using it more frequently. Highly recommended.   More soon, including a rant on the popular meme that machine learning = AI.  Later!

Thunderboard Sense can Sense Thunder

After a fairly long wait I received The Thunderboard Sense board from Silicon Labs.  It is pretty impressive and could even be more impressive with a few more sensors.

The board is powered either off a micro usb plug or a CR2032 battery.  It connects to a smart phone app (android and iOS) by Bluetooth Low Energy.

I am most interested in the environmental sensors and they include:

• relative humidity and temperature 
• barometric pressure
• indoor air quality and gas sensor, CCS811
• ethanol, CO, "a wide range" of volatile organic compounds
• UV and ambient light
• MEMS microphone

The sensors communicate over I2Cand the board retails for $36 although they are still scarce and I paid close to $50 for mine. It offers  quite a lot for a small package.  Next step is to look at their app code and begin setting up our own system.  And in reference to the title, the microphone seems fairly responsive and it could indeed sense thunder

Definitely something that would be nice in a Christmas stocking.  More posts over the break.  Later!