Materials:

Intel Tile Mate

Red LED

Ping Pong ball

Watchband (optional- this device could also work as a backpack pin, or necklace)

Tools:

Hot Glue

Soldering Iron

Dremel

Overview:

For this project, we wanted to make a bracelet that could light up when a special someone anywhere in the world is thinking of you. To do this we hacked a Tile Mate and replaced the internal speaker with a red LED, then nested it under a heart cut out of a ping pong ball. (Ping pong balls make for an excellent diffusion material when working with LEDs, and they are fairly easy to cut/manipulate).

We assumed that the tricky part of this project was going to be the communication aspect, especially since our ambition was for it to work from anywhere in the world (which would likely require Bluetooth).

The breakthrough came when we had the idea to try to hack a Tile Mate and use their app to handle the communication aspect.

This turned out to be a remarkably easy solution- all we did was setup a single Tile and then share our Tile via email. We also had both parties on the same account, though this may not be necessary. Within an hour we had a prototype up and running!

My project partner was able to press the "Find my Keys" button on his phone and within 5 seconds my bracelet lit up with the beating heart effect from 300 miles away. Total cost of the project came out to about 20 bucks. This was basically just the price of the Tile. I used a old broken watch's band for the bracelet, and the LED is less than a dollar if you don't already have one laying around.