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I built a light that reacts to radio waves [video]
https://rootkid.me/works/spectrum-slit https://rootkid.me/works/spectrum-slit
- nerdsniper 8mo agoI often would love a camera similar to acoustic cameras / night vision cameras, but for RF. Like portable synthetic aperture radar.
- ebhn 8mo agoVery cool!
- segalord 8mo agoI love your poetry on a phone project so muchhhh
- milleramp 8mo agoVery cool, was there a conversion or look up table to convert db to gamma for more accurate human visualization?
- tzvc 8mo agoI'm not sure what you mean
- milleramp 8mo agoThe db scale is logarithmic but doesn't match how our eyes sense light. So small changes in db may result in large visible light changes, or vise versa. Have you ever looked at a raw image, it doesn't look correct untill a gamma is applied, even though roughly the same information exists in both raw and gamma images. This is a similar concept. To do do this: db > linear > gamma This can be precomputed into a lookup table with the number of entries being the number of current steps, 8-bit 256 entries.
- mock-possum 8mo agoIncredibly cool. I was really hoping to see the more ‘edge’ cases - take the light out to the middle of nowhere, walk towards it and away from it with just your phone or a Bluetooth speaker, see it react to your approach. The bit at the end about it shifting over the course of the day is cool, but I wish the effect was more visually apparent - it mostly just looked like random noise the whole time to me.
- tzvc 8mo agoI wanted to take it war driving around paris and the countryside, maybe i'll make a separate short video for that
- dyauspitr 8mo agoThis is fantastic. But the idea where you use a camera that can only see the wifi signals in the room like visible light is even more stunning. It would be even better if you could block out all light from the visible spectrum and only see the GHz band.
- shawn10067 8mo agoThis is such a neat project. The idea of translating invisible radio waves into visible light is mesmerizing — it feels like giving your surroundings a new sensory dimension.
- mrtksn 8mo agoIt’s beautiful. I think I’ve seen something similar in a Ukraine war video where they use a device that lights up on specific frequencies that drones use.
- lucid-dev 8mo agoFANTASTIC!! I was just thinking about this the other day, and wondering about directionality... For example, if you had a camera facing a space, and the receiving antenna was within that space... and you were able to (somehow?) from the antennas perspective, see the "direction" the frequency was coming from.. And then map the different specific frequencies within the desired bandwidth to colors... and of course intensity map like you have in the slit device.. And then "look through the camera"... you would see a live three dimensional overlay of all signals within range (colored!) "interacting" with the antenna... but kind of more the "looking through the camera" sort of view, like you could "see" how those waves were interacting.. And then wouldn't it be interesting to put a tin-foil hat to one side of the attennas.. and see how the waves change in real time... etc.!!! (I guess it takes three antennas, to triangulate the field? Maybe all three can still be mounted on a single device in close proximity?)
- mzhaase 8mo agoYes it has been done: https://youtu.be/sXwDrcd1t-E?si=V75bEPMT8qGbo1wG https://youtu.be/sXwDrcd1t-E?si=V75bEPMT8qGbo1wG
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- diimdeep 8mo agoThe title is: This ESP32 Antenna Array Can See WiFi And every time I see something like this I like to remind to myself and imagine what spherical grid of Starlink satellites linked by laser is really capable of instead of mere internet as it is advertised.
- phrotoma 8mo agoSee also: https://youtu.be/o6WHhqDHSQ4 https://youtu.be/o6WHhqDHSQ4
- janez2 8mo agoyour link has the "si=" tracking parameter in it
- mw67 8mo agoSomeone makes a kickstarter out of it please
- ggm 8mo agoI cannot find the YT video but an artist in residence did a short film with scratch-over of footage in an RF lab which tries to give a visual impression of the waves emitted by things present. We're bathed in EMF. It's what light is, but aside from that we use electricity so much now, we're in a sea of radiation in other frequencies too.
- cush 8mo agoThe sounds were so cool -straight out of sci-fi movie.
- nickcw 8mo agoTraditional fix for coil hum is a blob of glue from a hot glue gun. It is fun making it part of the show though.
- cush 8mo agoHis other projects are so interesting. I love this one https://rootkid.me/works/exhibit-a https://rootkid.me/works/exhibit-a
- CrzyLngPwd 8mo agoOh, that is fantastic. What would really finish it for me, though, is if, when the button is released, the device shows a website, with URL visible, with a photo of the criminal, with added facial recognition and lookup of social media to find their identity. What fun!
- simgt 8mo agoThe narration is very nice. Any idea of what the data could be? He mentions that it's legal for him to store but illegal to sell abroad and ranges from "bad to very bad".
- abrookewood 8mo agoIt's in teh description: "launching a fully functional darknet marketplace (http://spectretjag3wni6fzt445qwgokqlxnfz7fxkicj5efxjywlinibmkid.onion http://spectretjag3wni6fzt445qwgokqlxnfz7fxkicj5efxjywlinibm...) that offers a trove of illegal data for sale across borders"
- simgt 8mo ago> offers a trove of illegal data for sale I'm precisely asking for speculation on what this data could be, which is the goal of the artist as stated in his video
- pixl97 8mo agoStolen PII/identities/passwords are one of the most common you'll find.
- abrookewood 8mo agoAh sorry, misunderstood. Probably credit cards etc
- louwrentius 8mo agoLet's call this what it really is: it's an art project. It's not 'just' a cool technical work. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46729428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46729428
- amelius 8mo agoAll those inductors... Isn't there a cheaper way to drive those lights, e.g. using DC voltage+pwm?
- seszett 8mo agoThose inductors are cheaper than what PCBWay charged for making that wooden box, I don't think their cost matters much here.
- tzvc 8mo agoYes each LED channel has an inductor. I needed this because I wanted the LED to be constant current driven, to reduce flicker and improve their longevity (and they cost like 5ct each)
- 01100011 8mo agoA much simpler and less cool project would be to convert a slice of the RF spectrum into an RGB value with lowest frequencies mapped to red, highest to blue, and the resulting color being how we would perceive the mix.
- saaaaaam 8mo agoThat would still be cool - but what I really like about this is that it says something quite interesting about human existence, how we live, and in particular how we live in cities when we are in proximity to each other.
- Surac 8mo agoI once had a antenna with a lamp on it. It was used to detect best place for the radio. It just rectified the energy it received and used a very tiny light bulb
- smellington 8mo agoVery appropriate soundtrack too: https://youtu.be/B_gLxVZuk60 https://youtu.be/B_gLxVZuk60 Uranium by Radioactiveman
- tzvc 8mo agoI had to dig deeep in my soundcloud to find it!
- TrackerFF 8mo agoCool project. I was going to say, the end resulting light should be a pretty saturated spectrum, given that many RF sources just keep pumping out waves, and the those waves propagating and bouncing around. I think one fun application would be a light which represents your wi-fi strength around the house. Obviously in a smaller apartment that's really not a problem, but in larger houses it would be fun to see. Another application would be to find hidden RF sources / leaks. I have a home recording studio, and for the life I could not find some RF source that kept adding noise / interference. I could roughly detect the frequency of the noise, but not its origin. I guess if I had a couple of RF sensors I could try to triangulate my way to it.
- tzvc 8mo agoYes, in the parisian apt. where I filmed the RF landscape is wild But tuning in to the specific wifi channel you router use you could even use this piece as a signal strenght plotter!
- ricardonunez 8mo agoThat’s what I was thinking, the project should yield a few different useful tools. That was a great video.
- pixl97 8mo ago>use this piece as a signal strenght plotter Seems like it wouldn't be hard to filter this for something like the 2.4 or 5GHz range then put a different color filament at the demarcation point for each of the channels.
- fnands 8mo agoVery cool! I was having a conversation with my colleagues yesterday about building something to detect when you get scanned by a SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite (we're in earth observation), but you'd have to get a directional antenna to not be drowned out by terrestrial radio signals.
- alansaber 8mo agoI'm glad we can all agree this is really cool
- consumer451 8mo agoYeah, same here. Also, I can't recall a time since back when I used to make music that I got actually jealous of someone else's abilities, but here I am. :)
- pKropotkin 8mo agoWhy do you need another source of irritation in your room?
- saaaaaam 8mo agoI don't think anyone is arguing that you NEED this. But it's the intersection of technology and art, and says something about the way we live. You can view it as nothing more than an irritation, but I think that's a shame.
- bethekidyouwant 8mo agoAre you asking why he needs another light? His project doesn’t make radio waves.
- tzvc 8mo agoCreator here, thanks for posting. And feel free to ask me anything!
- xtoilette 8mo agoI love your works, what kind of background do you have?
- tzvc 8mo agoCS background, but I've always been a "bricoleur" on the side
- flexagoon 8mo agoLove your channel! Do you have any plans to eventually open source your projects? (Both in terms of hardware and software)
- mechazawa 8mo agoI'm personally especially interested in 'Latent Reflection'. I've tried to make something similar never got to a point where I was happy with the output the AI model gave me.
- tzvc 8mo agoLots of tuning to get the model to not immediatly spiral into nonsense. But small models are getting better by the minute, maybe i'll revisit it with a better model and share all the code
- mechazawa 8mo agoThat'd be really appreciated. For me it just kept repeating the same phrase or just started reflecting on the prompt itself for a sentence or two after which it started spouting random nonsense like a pasta recipe.
- deleted 8mo ago
- steeve 8mo agovery very cool !
- sergioisidoro 8mo agoI just watched all the other videos of their pieces, and all of them are absolutely amazing conceptual explorations of our relationship with technology. Really amazing stuff
- SiempreViernes 8mo agoThe bit in the phone project where he cuts out the poem authors intro seems a bit scummy though, all that work he's making uncredited... then he finishes the video by showing him signing the piece. I guess it's a good commentary on how tech people value other peoples work.
- fanatic2pope 8mo agoIndeed, and the final result isn't particularly good as an art piece.
- curiousgal 8mo agoI wasn't surprised by that, I studied in one of the best schools in France and that attitude was prevalent amongst students.
- sush1612 8mo agoyou have everything right in front of your eyes, next if you add a transformer which convers these light signals into what they actually are then Voilà, you can see what's travelling in the air (Photos, conversations, music)
- asgerhb 8mo agoSawing the first shot, I thought the LED candle on the coffee table was the device. That would have also been cool, having flickering affected not by wind, as with real candles, but by radio waves.
- kh_hk 8mo agoCool project. Here's some OT: where do people learn to make these videos? Fast paced but calm narration with chill music and sped up action mixed with regular speed. It's a matter of consuming a lot of this content until the form clicks, or you need to go to influ-school?
- xtiansimon 8mo agoYo. You have to make videos. Then, seeing videos that you like, you secretly try to “steal” those ideas you articulated. Just don’t tell anybody you’re a copy-cat.
- wpietri 8mo ago"Good artists borrow. Great artists steal." -- me
- tzvc 8mo agoNo influencer school, no video experience whatsoever actually I watched TONs of youtube videos growing up and I guess I took inspiration from what I liked in each: fast pace, always shows what you are talking about on screen (no talking head), include tiny projects in the main one, explain the science, use an intro to captivate and an outro to nail the point, use music to drive rythme I film and record audio with just my phone
- kh_hk 8mo agoThanks! That kind of makes sense. It's always interesting to me when I see patterns that make videos work well, and I usually have a lot of questions about the production. Another question that I hope is not disrespectful: does PCBWay and JLCPCB pay for brand placement during the video or was it just a tribute from your side?
- dangoodmanUT 8mo agoMan iphones have come a long way
- relaxing 8mo agoRemember the days when you could just make art, without having to be a Content Creator? Respect to the artist, I know I couldn’t do it.
- pixl97 8mo agoYou can still make art without being a content creator. I would assume with the accessibility to both knowledge and products more people than ever are. With this said, if they are not content creators, you'll never know about them. That's not any different than the past were art was typically only known to those with in viewing range of said art.
- Mouvelie 8mo agoWhat an excellent video. Depsite visiting Hackernews multiple times a day, I am not a tech person. Seeing people creating such thing in a way I can undestand (which is maybe...10-15 % of the posts here ?) is so refreshing ! The editing is sharp, the setup looks so cool and the channel ! Thank you for making this !
- halfmatthalfcat 8mo agoLooks like Circuit Python is used?
- dwa3592 8mo agovery very impressive.
- pringularity 8mo agoThe lights sort of did this already on accident, but making a more robust audio-output version of this would be fascinating as well.
- m3kw9 8mo agowould look good if he put a heavily frosted material infront. Right now is gonna cause more headaches than a 5g transmitter in your room
- SilentM68 8mo agoThat's a great design and idea. Have you considered designing a light-based Morse code device? The light would be invisible to the naked eye, requiring special glasses/detector to translate either mechanically or digitally. The source light (e.g. neon, lamps, something new) would be encoded with encrypted messages, so it doesn’t look like obvious Morse code by using aspects of steganography where encrypted data would be hidden in pseudo-random light intensity/pulse patterns mimicking candle flicker, noise, etc.). It would require a custom protocol, error correction, obfuscation. All made on the cheap.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- LoveMortuus 8mo agoAaa, I misread the title and thought that it was powered by the radio waves, regardless still very cool!