Adafruit Wearables
Introduction
This article describes various components of the Adafruit's Wearables, i.e. e-textile components.
According to Wikipedia (Aug 2019), “Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells a number of electronics products, electronics components, tools and accessories. It also produces a number of learning resources, including live and recorded videos related to electronics, technology, and programming.”
“In addition to our FLORA and GEMMA sewable microcontrollers, Adafruit's wearables category includes conductive textiles, battery packs, sensors and LEDs, and all-in-one packs perfect for beginners and as gifts.” (Wearables, retrieved August 28, 2019)
Adafruit wearables are an alternative to the Lilypad
Components of the Adafruit system
See also:
Microcontroller boards
All these boards, are some kind of tiny programmable computer and can connect to various other components, e.g. sensors, switches and LEDs.
659 FLORA V3
FLORA was until recently, Adafruit's main wearable electronics platform. It's built around the Arduino Atmega32u4 chip and has built-in USB support.
- FLORA - Wearable electronic platform: Arduino-compatible - v3 (as of Aug 2019) is the main board. It it includes a processor, a LED and various connectors. ($ 15)
- 4.4 grams
- 4.5 cm diameter (1.75)
- 7mm thick (0.3")
- USB support (Micro B cable needed)
- Battery connector (several battery types are supported, i.e. 3.5v to 16v))
- 14 connectors / also used for sewing.
Circuit Playground
- A FLORA board that integrates LEDs, made for learning Arduino programming.
- See below for the Express pack version.
Circuit Playground Express ($25)
- This board can be programmed in several ways, including with MakeCode, associated JavaScript, Python and Arduino. In that respect this board is not a FLORA.
- Circuit Playground Express.
- See Adafruit Circuit Playground Express
GEMMA M0
- This board is very small and also can be programmed with MakeCode
- See Adafruit GEMMA
Input
- FLORA Accelerometer/Compass Sensor - LSM303 - v1.0
- Flora Wearable Ultimate GPS Module
- Flora Color Sensor with White Illumination LED - TCS34725
- Flora UV Index Sensor - Si1145 Light Sensor
- Flora Wearable Bluefruit LE Module. Bluetooth module, can act as controller. But also send data.
Ouptut
Packs
- FLORA GPS Starter Pack ($ 90)
- FLORA Budget Pack ($ 35)
- Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA Book Pack ($95). This includes probably everything that is needed for a simple project
Circuit Playground Express
Playground express are interesting for education since the board can be programmed with MakeCode, JavaScript or CircuitPython. In addition, it can communicate with other boards through the infrared sensor. In addition to the built-in LEDs and sensors, one also can attach external components.
See Adafruit Circuit Playground Express
Sewing / fixing
- Small Alligator Clip Test Lead (set of 12) for testing before connecting the threads
- Stainless Medium Conductive Thread - 3 ply - 18 meter/60 ft
- Magnetic Pin Back
Other
- 3 x AAA Battery Holder with On/Off Switch and 2-Pin JST. If you plan to use standard AAA batteries.
- Lithium Ion Polymer Battery - 3.7v 1200mAh plus a a LiIon/LiPoly constant-voltage/constant-current charger to recharge them
Links
- Flora Main product page
Bibliography
See also: e-textile
- Stern, B., & Cooper, T. (2015). Getting started with Adafruit FLORA: making wearables with an Arduino-compatible electronics platform. Maker Media, Inc.
- Rozenfeld, M. (2015). How DIY Electronics Startup Adafruit Industries Became a Multimillion-Dollar Company, IEEE, the institute, http://origin.www.theinstitute.ieee.org/career-and-education/startups/how-diy-electronics-startup-adafruit-industries-became-a-multimillion-dollar-company