Calling Kris Kringle with 5G and AI
Hack the holidays with Nick Lambourne’s 5G Santa phone! It uses a Particle Tachyon and ElevenLabs AI to let you call the North Pole.
We have officially entered the post-Christmas hangover period where the only way to track the passage of time is by which movie is currently playing on TV. But not everyone is lounging around in their pajamas all day. Oh no, true Christmas super-fans are simply transitioning from a 'Christmas' to a 'pre-Christmas' mindset. And for hardware hackers in this category, that means it is time for next year’s preparations to get underway!
If that sounds like you, then you will want to check out Particle CTO Nick Lambourne’s latest hack: a telephone with a direct connection to the jolly old elf at the North Pole. The idea is to install the device outside of your home, or in another public space, and let passersby give Santa a ring.
But as we all know, Santa is a very busy elf. If he took everyone’s call, there’d be no time to make a sleighful of gifts by next Christmas Eve. So, Lambourne got a little help from technology. The old-school, wired analog phone is installed in a small British phone box, because why not? This phone is wired to an analog telephone adapter, which interfaces it with a Particle Tachyon single-board computer.
When a holly jolly caller lifts the handset, the Tachyon uses its native 5G cellular capabilities to connect with an Elevenlabs voice agent that has been trained on authentic (probably) audio clips of Santa’s voice. The caller’s voice is sent to the voice agent so that a real-time conversation can take place.
The hardware is installed in a ruggedized, weather-resistant case to take on the fiercest of winter weather, and the onboard battery will keep it powered up for about two days. If you need more run time than that, you could install a solar panel to keep the good times rolling without any maintenance.
Lambourne noted that the build took about five minutes to complete, which means some special Christmas magic was clearly involved in the build process. But if you want to reproduce the work for yourself, setting aside a weekend is a bit more reasonable. What are you waiting for? Next Christmas is right around the corner!