Electronic Earrings React to Music for a Party on Your Lobes
The open source HALO-90 earrings feature 90 controllable LEDs and three different operating modes, including responsive, sparkle, and halo.
While there are a ton of wearable electronic devices on the market that range from health trackers to fitness monitors, most are sorely lacking in the LED fashion department. Sure, there are numerous jewelry styles with LEDs, but none that light up and respond to audio in real-time, like Kolibri’s HALO-90 earrings.
“The HALO product series, in which these earrings (HALO-90) are the first item, is a fully open-source electronic jewelry line,” Kolibri explains. “It is designed with elegance and wearability in mind. 90 refers to the ninety individually controllable LEDs on the earring face. The built-in compute power is also suitable for creating complex light shows.”
The LEDs are driven by an STM8L151G4 microcontroller, which runs on a low-power CR2032 coin cell battery, and has more than enough speed to drive the (0402 red diodes) LEDs. It also powers an SPW2430HR5H-B amplified MEMS-based microphone and an LSM6DSM 6-DOF IMU that handles the earring’s reaction mode using external sounds, such as music.
The earring PCB is outfitted with a KXT3 tactile button as well, allowing wearers to switch between the three lighting modes mentioned earlier. Kolibri also designed an FDM 3D-printed case to hold the earrings and coin cell battery, which comes equipped with a magnetic (neodymium) lid for easy storage that won’t damage the PCBs.
Kolibri has uploaded a detailed walkthrough of the HALO-90 earrings on its GitHub page, complete with schematics and the necessary files for those who would like to create their own earrings. They are also available on Tindie, priced at $130, for those who would rather buy them and come with the 3D-printed case.