Space Buck's Double-Oh Battery Board Packs Power, Wi-Fi Control Into AA Battery-Size Form Factor

Offering power, charging, and controllable voltage output via a Wi-Fi interface, the Double-Oh Battery is a real powerhouse.

Pseudonymous engineer Space Buck has released a new power supply board in the same form factor of an AA battery, with integrated Wi-Fi support for remote control: the Double-Oh Battery.

"This is the spiritual successor to the SMOL, a tiny PCB that interrupts battery output to make fun patterns," Buck explains. "By designing around a 10mm-by-44mm LiPo cell, I've been able to add Wi-Fi connectivity, a USB connection for charging and programming, and a dangerous (but intriguing!) overvoltage mode."

"The star of the show is the ESP32-PICO-32, a 7mm-by-7mm powerhouse. It handles the wireless networking and various GPIOs. The original design used the ESP8285, which is like the ESP8266 but with 1MB memory built-in."

Buck has an intriguing use case for a small-yet-smart battery. The original SMOL was designed for use in sex toys, controlling a motor by interrupting the power in a particular pattern. The Double-Oh Battery, though, has considerably more potential beyond that niche thanks to Wi-Fi

"Two weeks ago I got the web interface working well enough to serve a webpage with guestbook," Buck writes in the project's latest update. "That was on PCB v2.4. Now, with PCB v2.5, we have voltage control! That's right, not only can you see the current level of the Li-ion battery, but you can control the output level of the double-oh itself!"

"By default, it outputs approximately 1.5 V, like a standard AA cell, but it can go as low as 1.1 V and as high as 2.6 V! I am positively giddy that so much of the project is working as hoped. Up next: OSHWA certification, maybe?"

Full details can be found on the Hackaday.io project page, while the design files are available on GitHub.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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