In The Wild

By: Cameron Bachman When you first receive your RGB Shades in the mail, you can’t help but notice that the entire circuit board is exposed on the right arm. With plenty of extra pins for i/o devices, our RGB LED Glasses are ready to add all sorts of sensors and components.   In order to learn a little more hacking and show off the potential for hacking projects, I set off to find a component to work with.  We found a potentiometer available on Amazon that seemed to fit the pins on the shades and would send a simple voltage reading to...

Father’s day is always a tough nut to crack when it comes to getting the right gift. You have generic and uninspired staples (World’s Best Dad mugs, a tie, socks etc.), but you want to do something more unique and thoughtful. Dads are pretty good at getting themselves the stuff they want, so what do you get for the guy that has it all? How about a hacking project? This year for Father’s Day, Macetech is lowering the price on our Do-It-Yourself RGB LED Glasses to the lowest price ever: $99. We’re hoping this will be the perfect way to scratch...

The Centipede Shield is all about expanding the capabilities of microcontrollers like the Arduino Uno by adding 64 additional i/o pins (per shield). It’s always fun to see what cool projects hackers come up with when given the extra possibilities.  Check out this awesome LED Table project that Leon Nicklas completed as part of a year-long school project. He uses an Arduino Uno with two Centipede Shields as the brain of his project. Connected to the Arduino are 100 separate circuit boards containing infrared LEDs, infrared sensors, and a WS2812 RGB-LED board. Each board is placed in a separate plywood...

Not sure how to impress your Valentine in the midst of the pandemic? Macetech has some flashy ideas to spice up the evening with your beau. You can now head to our GitHub to download a custom package of code with animations inspired by the holiday. This includes scrolling messages, which can be easily switched out with your own romantic or cheesy text by reprogramming your RGB Shades using the Arduino IDE. The code is the same package that we are offering on our Valentine’s Edition RGB Shades on the store. If you need help knowing where to start flashing...

So you’ve ordered your RGB Shades kit, assembled the LED glasses and now you are rocking with the bright animations that come pre-programmed on the Shades. You have cycled through the different effects and designs and probably have a couple of favorites by now. It’s likely you are going to think of an even better animation that you’d like to try for your next get-together (or in the meantime, Zoom call). How do you get started programming new animations on your RGB Shades? After all, that’s a big part of why they are open source! This week, we’re reaching into...