There are a lot of ways to measure energy usage in the home, but most of them involve handling mains voltage. Not only that, but sometimes they require handling mains voltage before it gets through a breaker panel or fuse box, meaning that if you make a mistake there are a lot of bad things that can happen. [Yonas] has been working on this problem, and has come up with a non-invasive, safer way to monitor electricity consumption without having to work directly on live wires.

Please note that you should still not be working on mains voltage without proper training, but if you have the required know-how then the installation should be pretty straightforward. The project is based on the Spark Core, and uses clamp-on current sensors to measure energy use. The sensors wrap around the mains cable, meaning you don’t have to disconnect anything to hook them up. The backend runs on a LAMP server which could be a Raspberry Pi if you have one. [Yonas] runs it on a hosted server as a matter of preference.

All of the source code for this is available, and assuming you can get your hands on the current sensors this could be a great way to get started monitoring your energy usage in the house. Be sure to check out the video below for a demonstration of the operation of this device. Of course, if you have a gas line you’ll need this energy monitoring setup too.

Filed under: home hacks

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When it comes to picking out high-end fixtures and appointments for your bathroom remodel, there are tons of choices out there these days. Sure, that double-slipper tub or  $2500 stainless steel toilet can make a statement, and even the local Big Box Home Store has some pretty unique stuff. But for a one of a kind sink, follow [The Samurai Carpenter]’s lead and carve a sink out of a boulder.

Starting with a stone he found off the porch of his house, [Samurai Carpenter] was able to rough out the shape of the basin with a diamond-bladed cutoff saw. A few plunge cuts within a hand-sketched outline gave him the room needed to hog out most of the material with a cold chisel and hammer. A diamond wheel on an angle grinder, along with a chisel bit on an impact drill, got him down to the final smooth finish. After the break there’s a video showing the final installation, including drilling out the drain hole and mounting the sink to the vanity, which is a beautiful rough-cut slab of what appears to be locally sourced wood. The whole installation looks fantastic and appears to function well; our only quibble is there’s no overflow in the basin, but it’s hard to see how he could have provided one without significantly complicating the project and potentially ruining the aesthetic.

Although they may not fit in with the natural vibe of his remodel, either this or this tricked out mirror could complete a high-end  bathroom remodel.

Filed under: home hacks

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There is a strange clock in the waiting room of Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. While this clock keeps accurate time overall, the ticks and tocks are out of sync, occasionally missing a tick altogether. The net effect is one of turning one’s brain into a sort of porridge.

Yes, a Vetinari Clock has made its way into The Hackaday Prize. This isn’t a clock that’s random yet accurate over long time spans; this is a complete replacement for run-of-the-mill clock movements you can find at any craft store.

In addition to the Vetinari Clock, [Nick Sayer]’s Crazy Clock can be programmed as a sidereal clock (3m 56s fast per day), a Martian clock (39m 36s slow per day), and a tidal clock (50m 28s slow per day), as well as some ‘novelty’ modes that still have 86400 ticks per day ranging from subtle to ‘clown car’ levels of craziness.

[Nick] is gunning for the ‘best product’ category for the Hackaday Prize, and for that he’s designing a board to be a direct replacement for the board in a Quartex Q80 clock movement. With this new board, [Nick] can replace the electronics in this movement in just a few minutes. Being built around an ATtiny45 means it’s infinitely hackable. A clock with this movement would be a great product, although judging from the video below, not one we would want to be around all day.

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

Filed under: The Hackaday Prize

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Welded steel safety cage? Check! Polycarbonate blast shield? Check! Vacuum cleaner motor wired to an inviting red button? Double check! Stack of CDs to dispose of as destructively as possible? [Firas Sirriyeh] has got you covered with his CD Terminator 1.0.

While [Firas’s] build log is a little short on descriptive text, there’s really no need for it. His pictures tell the tale. The combination media shredder and interactive performance art piece is a stoutly constructed affair, which you’d want anything capable of flinging razor-sharp plastic and Mylar shrapnel to be. [Firas] has displayed his CD execution chamber at the Jerusalem Mini Maker Fair 2015 (in Hebrew; English link) and the Musara Mix Festival where the must-see video after the break was shot (mildly NSFW language). Some CDs give up the ghost very quickly, but one held out for a remarkable long time before finally exploding; you can see it flexing and warping in a way that almost appears to be slow-motion.

For those who’d rather not fuss with all that bothersome safety, there’s always this automatic CD launcher to play with.

Filed under: misc hacks

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We usually see numbers, sales, and financial reports of big companies. Almost every quarter, we learn of figures released by tech giants in several earnings calls. Some companies choose to be quiet though but when it comes to the “Fake Android Market” we’re interested to know how the extent of how this is destroying the legit mobile market.

You see, we’ve been hearing dozens of stories of fake Samsung and Xiaomi phones–all coming from China. It’s very unfortunate that there are still people being duped for hundreds of dollars because the phones really look like the original models that it’s hard to tell sometimes. There was this man who bought a nicely crafted fake Galaxy S6 for less than $500 and another one who purchased off Craigslist in Canada. And who can forget that fake Xiaomi being tested by Bluebox Labs which resulted to a Xiaomi Mi 4 getting low scores?

Xiaomi started cracking down on fakes last April because they’ve been losing millions of sales. It’s not only Samsung and Xiaomi that are victims of the fake market. Even Huawei is losing money because of the fake phones.

Benchmarking app AnTuTu managed to track how many fake phones have been tested during the first six months of 2015. The data is based on smartphones that run AnTuTu and it was found out that Samsung and Xiaomi already account for about two-thirds (2/3) of the knock-off Android market. Huawei follows in third place but with only 3.97%.

The most popular clones are the Xiaomi MiNote, Xiaomi Redmi Note, Xiaomi Mi3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

VIA: gforgames

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There may be numerous keyboard apps available for Android but there’s not one that can be compared with any PC keyboards. Not that there’s a great need and demand for that but there are people who prefer such layout especially for tablets where they can type more on a bigger screen. Imagine a PC keyboard being used on your tablet screen but with modified hotkeys. I think this is the kind of experience the Clavis Keyboard can offer you.

The Clavis Keyboard features keys where you usually expect them to be. The layout is very familiar. Hotkeys commonly used like select all or copy-paste-cut are similar to how you use them on your computer. The new hotkeys come in handy because they make typing easier. You can insert text macro 0 to 9 by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Number, open new e-mail and paste selected text (Ctrl+M), search for selected text on Google (Ctrl+G), End (Ctrl+Right arrow), and Home (Ctrl+Left arrow) among others.

The Clavis Keyboard even features several themes according to your preference but the developer Theophrast said more will be added soon. Right now, different layouts are available: US, GB, IT, BE, HU, DE, FR (United States, Great Britain, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, France).

The updated Clavis Keyboard app also now allows you to change size of the keyboard, activate Caps Lock with a long press, insert a period with double-tap, and navigate the cursor with CTRL+Arrows. Keyboard app is free to download but there’s also the Clavis Keyboard Pro available for $2.99.

Download Clavis Keyboard from the google Play Store

VIA: XDA Developers

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The IFA is still a few months away but it’s never too early to start hyping up the products you’ll be releasing by then. And it’s not just smartphones, tablets, or smartwatches that will be taking center stage, but accessories and peripherals as well. Sennheiser has been quiet the past few months, but now they’ve announced that one of the things they’ll be launching is the Black Chrome version of the Momentum In-Ear earbuds, an updated version of the black red variant that they introduced last year.

The new Momentum In-Ear Headphones will be sleeker and better than the previous version (as all newer versions should be). The mirror chrome finish will look sleeker and will have both stainless steel and smaller details in a Black Chrome version. In terms of sound quality, it will have the tranduscer technology which is Sennheiser’s latest pride and will bring a high bass response and detailed vocals.

It will also have the three-button in line remote that all Momentum earbuds have. There will also be a built-in microphone so that you can use it to take and make calls, and listen to music as well. It will have an elliptical cable to keep it tangle-free, just like all the other products in the Momentum line. There will be two variations for the Momentum In-Ear Black Chrome earbuds: one optimized for iOS devices and the other one that is meant for Android and Windows devices.

There are still no pricing and availability details for the earbuds. But expect more details to emerge as the IFA comes nearer.

VIA: Sennheiser

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