Bench Talk

On April 30, 2015, Elon Musk announced to the world the Tesla PowerWall. In its first week alone, Tesla brought in $800 million dollars for their new PowerWall. Powerwall is a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery pack that will store energy for when you need it, or to use as a backup power supply during an outage. Unlike a generator, it doesn’t require fuel and creates no noise. What’s interesting is that the backlog of customer orders is already winding itself well into the second half of 2016. This is a sign that demonstrates there is a market demand for rethinking how we power our homes both from the perspective of lead-shifting and backup power. With a little speculation, it is also a product that just might serve as a backdoor to the mass adoption of smarter, more automated homes.

Current household robots are largely one trick ponies. Sure it’s nice to have a dog bowl on wheels quietly move around the room, sucking up whatever the kids brought in on their shoes, but what else can it do? The market is flooded with robots that can vacuum the carpet, mow the lawn or remember to water your plants. Recently, I came across a robot to change your cat litter which would be useless… unless you made the mistake of owning a cat in the first place. Relax… I’m kidding! But I know what you’re thinking, “How long until I get to turn on a humanoid protocol droid that can handle complex tasks, speak my language, and help out around the ole’ moisture farm?” The good news is, sooner than you thought.

Home automation has come a long way since The Clapper was first introduced back in 1986. Today you can find a plethora of home automation products to augment all of the creature comforts already found in most American homes.

When I was a kid, I used to watch a cartoon called “The Jetsons”, which was set in a future where flying cars fold up into suitcases, a dinner table automatically clears away the dishes (by smashing them and sweeping them up), and sassy robotic maids do all the housework. Although I’m still waiting for my flying car, some of today’s automation technologies are a lot closer to the future world of The Jetsons than you might think.

Since the beginning of time, man has looked up to the stars and wondered…how can we get there? We did get there, in the summer of 1969 when astronaut Neil Armstrong made one giant leap for mankind. NONE of this would have been possible without the development of both fast and small electronic components that now form the backbone of information and processing technology.

There is no shortage of stories about bizarre Department of Defense programs, but this one is surely in the top tier. Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) signal propagation (we’re talking 3 to 30Hz) allows signals to pass through the earth and throughout the oceans to depths of several hundred feet, allowing a system at a single location to communicate nearly anywhere on the planet. This made it rather appealing for communicating with submerged submarines and might be able to function in the event of a nuclear strike. The idea was championed not just by the U.S., but by the Soviet Union and India as well. Signals degrade rapidly in the ocean, so when a submarine is submerged, it is less likely to receive communication. The purpose of Elf was to reach deeply submerged subs sufficiently to let them know to surface to receive communications through normal (and better) radio communications.

People seem to just want to keep toying with my hoverboard-yearning heart. After Funny or Die's almost convincing, but ultimate hoax, and Hendo Hover's exorbitantly priced Kickstarter campaign, Lexus is now in on the hover-game. Earlier today, the luxury car manufacturer released a teaser video, claiming to have created a "real, rideable hoverboard."

Electronics is an amazing profession and hobby. The notion that one can harness the forces of nature and bend them to one’s whim is immensely satisfying. With the resurgence of the DIY spirit and the evolution of the Maker Movement, getting started in electronics has never been easier. Embedded open source platforms such as Arduino and BeagleBone provide a fantastic jumping in point for learning electronics and software. I could only have dreamt of the resources we have today when I was first starting out. With that in mind, here are my five tips for getting started in electronics based on what I’ve learned over the last 20 years.

The big buzzphrase today is The Internet of Things (IoT). Things that connect to the internet. Connected stuff. Lots of stuff. And the products that connect to the internet are rolling out at ever increasing rates. Connected cars, connected homes, connected things in homes, connected houses, connected wearables, connected stores for shopping, connected restaurants for dining, connected roads and bridges, and on and on. Hotel robots. Smart stuff. What stuff will be connected? The better question is what will not be connected. Rocks, for example. Wait, someone will market a rock monitor, connected to the internet by forest wifi. When a rock rolls in a forest, does it make a sound?

Today, we are a long way from the initial offerings of contact lens technology. Research has taken the industry from small, hard plastic lenses that required a constant flow of lubricating drops (and could pop out when a person blinks), to soft lenses that make it easier for the eye to breathe while being worn.