3 ms·

There's not a lot of help out there for people who are willing to put the time and effort into protocol reversing but don't know where to start! EA put out a f

There's not a lot of help out there for people who are willing to put the time and effort into protocol reversing but don't know where to start! EA put out a fitness video game with a wireless heart rate monitor that showed up as a normal HID device via its USB dongle. On sale it was like $40, making it a very inexpensive way to log heart rate wirelessly. But no-one had reversed the protocol, and I couldn't find any online resources to teach me how to do it myself. I'm pretty sure I threw it out, and the product is discontinued now, but I would encourage you to at least put training materials together, if not a full workshop.

qdot76367 14y ago
Yeah, I will admit that information does end up being the main problem. I've been doing this long enough that it's pretty much second nature these days, and I just find myself going "but what is there to teach?". I've taught workshops on other subjects before, and usually once I get going to writing cirriculum that question answers itself in spades, though. Just need the motivation. I'm finishing up another personal project right now, then I may start on this. I suppose I don't really have much room to complain when I've already set out a solution that just needs to be done. :)
- vitovito 14y ago
  I ran fifteen design workshops in 2010, so feel free to ping me off HN if you have questions or need support. The HID protocol used by the USB version of the Neurosky Mindwave EEG headset is also undocumented AFAIK, and I could test drive your training using that. You might also consider trying out Zed Shaw's "Learn X the Hard Way" format as a framework, which he recently formally published: https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard-way/blobs/master/README https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard-...
  - qdot76367 14y ago
    Huh. I used to maintain bindings for the old bluetooth neurosky mindset for PureData/MaxMSP, never thought about the issues with their new headset with proprietary radio not having drivers. They were usually pretty good about open sourcing stuff too. Last workshop I taught was http://artandcode.com/3d/workshops/2b-teledildonics-with-the-kinect-and-arduino http://artandcode.com/3d/workshops/2b-teledildonics-with-the..., which I had to compress into 3 hours so it was more an overview sort of thing. I think this workshop will require a nice device to start reversing from scratch, which is something else I'm going to have to figure out. Fitbit would suck since you'd have to learn USB, then ANT. Would like to get one HID device, one non-HID, just to cover most of the bases.

qdot76367 14y ago

Yeah, I will admit that information does end up being the main problem. I've been doing this long enough that it's pretty much second nature these days, and I just find myself going "but what is there to teach?". I've taught workshops on other subjects before, and usually once I get going to writing cirriculum that question answers itself in spades, though. Just need the motivation. I'm finishing up another personal project right now, then I may start on this. I suppose I don't really have much room to complain when I've already set out a solution that just needs to be done. :)

vitovito 14y ago
I ran fifteen design workshops in 2010, so feel free to ping me off HN if you have questions or need support. The HID protocol used by the USB version of the Neurosky Mindwave EEG headset is also undocumented AFAIK, and I could test drive your training using that. You might also consider trying out Zed Shaw's "Learn X the Hard Way" format as a framework, which he recently formally published: https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard-way/blobs/master/README https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard-...
- qdot76367 14y ago
  Huh. I used to maintain bindings for the old bluetooth neurosky mindset for PureData/MaxMSP, never thought about the issues with their new headset with proprietary radio not having drivers. They were usually pretty good about open sourcing stuff too. Last workshop I taught was http://artandcode.com/3d/workshops/2b-teledildonics-with-the-kinect-and-arduino http://artandcode.com/3d/workshops/2b-teledildonics-with-the..., which I had to compress into 3 hours so it was more an overview sort of thing. I think this workshop will require a nice device to start reversing from scratch, which is something else I'm going to have to figure out. Fitbit would suck since you'd have to learn USB, then ANT. Would like to get one HID device, one non-HID, just to cover most of the bases.