in , , ,

Voice-controlled magnification glasses

- Werbung -
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Go hands-free in the laboratory or makerspace with Mauro Pichiliani’s voice-controlled magnification glasses.

Voice Controlled Glasses With Magnifying Lens

This video presents the project MoveLens: a voice controlled glasses with magnifying lens. It was the my entry for the Voice Activated context on unstructables. Check the step by step guide at Voice Controlled Glasses With Magnifying Lens. Source code: https://github.com/pichiliani/MoveLens Step by Step guide: https://www.instructables.com/id/Voice-Controlled-Glasses-With-Magnifying-Lens/

- Werbung -
- Werbung -

It’s a kind of magnification

We’ve all been there – that moment when you need another pair of hands to complete a task. And while these glasses may not hold all the answers, they’re a perfect addition to any hobbyist’s arsenal.

Introducing Mauro Pichilliani’s voice-activated glasses: a pair of frames with magnification lenses that can flip up and down in response to a voice command, depending on the task at hand. No more needing to put down your tools in order to put magnifying glasses on. No more trying to re-position a magnifying glass with the back of your left wrist, or getting grease all over your lenses.

As Mauro explains in his tutorial for the glasses:

Many professionals work for many hours looking at very small areas, such as surgeons, watchmakers, jewellery designers and so on. Most of the time these professionals use some kind of magnification glasses that helps them to see better the area they are working with and other tiny items used on the job. The devices that had magnifications lens on a form factor of a glass usually allow the professional to move the lens out of their eye sight, i.e. put aside the lens. However, in some scenarios touching the lens or the glass rim to move away the lens can contaminate the fingers. Also, it is cumbersome and can break the concentration of the professional.

Voice-controlled magnification glasses

Using a Raspberry Pi Zero W, a servo motor, a microphone, and the IBM Watson speech-to-text service, Mauro built a pair of glasses that lets users control the position of the magnification lenses with voice commands.

- Werbung -
Magnification glasses, before modification and addition of Raspberry Pi

The glasses Mauro modified, before he started work on them; you have to move the lenses with your hands, like it’s October 2015

Mauro started by dismantling a pair of standard magnification glasses in order to modify the lens supports to allow them to move freely. He drilled a hole in one of the lens supports to provide a place to attach the servo, and used lollipop sticks and hot glue to fix the lenses relative to one another, so they would both move together under the control of the servo. Then, he set up a Raspberry Pi Zero, installing Raspbian and software to use a USB microphone; after connecting the servo to the Pi Zero’s GPIO pins, he set up the Watson speech-to-text service.

Finally, he wrote the code to bring the project together. Two Python scripts direct the servo to raise and lower the lenses, and a Node.js script captures audio from the microphone, passes it on to Watson, checks for an “up” or “down” command, and calls the appropriate Python script as required.

Your turn

You can follow the tutorial on the Instructables website, where Mauro entered the glasses into the Instructables Voice Activated Challenge. And if you’d like to take your first steps into digital making using the Raspberry Pi, take a look at our free online projects.

Website: LINK

- Werbung -

Report

- Werbung -

What do you think?

Written by Maria Richter

Schreibe einen Kommentar