Christine Farion's Circuit-Sculpture Smart Bracelet Can Keep You "Fashionably on Task"
Brass circuit sculpture isn't just for the desktop: here, Farion and husband use it to create a smart bracelet fusing tech and art.
Maker, designer, computer scientist, and self-described "PhDork" Christine Farion, working with her husband, has designed a wearable circuit sculpture to assist with forgetfulness — a technological version of the old trick of writing things on your hand with a pen.
"Inspired by the incredible freeform circuit sculptures, we're ditching traditional circuits. Instead, we are using raw brass bars and enameled wire to create a beautiful, exposed structural frame that doubles as our ground plane," Farion describes of the device, which aims to keep the wearer "fashionably on task" with an always-on display. "This is the first collaboration I've put on Instructables working with my husband. He has the CAD skills, the ability to create more intricate designs with the soldering, and the patience for it! Using both our skill sets has created this artwork jewellery piece."
The bracelet is driven by a compact Espressif ESP32-C3 microcontroller board, linked to a 2.9" three-color electrophoretic ePaper display. Unlike liquid-crystal displays, ePaper displays are easily viewable even in direct sunlight — and they draw significantly less power, as they only require energy when changing states. Pull the power, and whatever was last on the screen will remain in place. There's a battery and charging module, a small on/off switch, but beyond the modules themselves no circuit board: instead, a combination of brass bar and enameled magnet wire is used for both electrical connectivity and to build the structure of the bracelet.
Rather than building the bracelet freehand, Farion's husband designed it in Autodesk Fusion 360 and milled a wooden jig to ensure that the wires were angled correctly for a comfortable fit. The firmware fires up the ESP32-C3's Wi-Fi radio, either as a client on an existing network or as a hotspot, and connects to the user's smartphone to be programmed with today's to-do list — displayed on-screen even when the entire device is switched off.
The full tutorial, including a bill of materials and source code, is available on Instructables.