New eCompass Hardware for Wireless Control | 2 Days Left!

Thanks to everyone's support, we've hit all our stretch goals (2 days left on the campaign)! This means every PolyCast5 multi-tool remote will now have a built-in eCompass (accelerometer + magnetometer) to allow for even more awesome control capabilities. We already explored the accelerometer in the last update, so let's check out the magnetometer!

But what is it? A magnetometer is basically a digital compass; it can read weak magnetic fields such as that of the Earth (N-E-S-W).

By being able to read this, we can determine PolyCast5's orientation and use it as an additional control surface!

*The jitter is due to the motor, not the data.

This means in addition to tilt control, you can spin PolyCast5 to stream its orientation to anything like magic. Some example applications might include:

• Digital potentiometer (rotate PolyCast5 to control the throttle of something).
• Gesture control via PolyCast5 as a wearable (pairs great with tilt)!
• Magnet/wire detector
• Compass for hiking, etc.
• Position tracking
• Anything else orientation tracking can be useful for!

Let's check out the new hardware this invokes.

Of course, adding this requires a new PCB design so let's check it out!

You may be thinking to yourself that this is a weird place to add a new IC. It's way out in the corner!

You would be correct, but this is intentional. Earth's magnetic field (which we measure for orientation) is around 50 µT. A single wire that carries 50mA at 1cm away is around 1 µT. This PCB has a LOT of wires (traces). This is why it's important that the sensor is as far away as possible, to reduce the interference.

But of course, there is still going to be some interference. This is why there was an automatic calibration system added so you can recalibrate depending on your environment. For example, even bringing my phone within 10cm of the sensor creates enough interference to change the measured orientation. But you can recalibrate to offset the difference. Pretty cool!

In some other exciting news, four new games were added as well as an additional "Gaming" category for some additional fun and capability! They will all be shown off in a separate update, but a quick sneak peek of the game DOOM is below. The quality is surprisingly amazing for running on an ESP32!

If you haven't yet backed for a PolyCast5 multi-tool remote but are interested, there are still two days left on the campaign, so check out the homepage and Kickstarter here.

Thanks so much to everyone for supporting PolyCast5. Many new updates and capabilities will always be rolling out, so stay tuned!

Happy casting!