Fihuo pedometer
The pedometer can track your daily steps. The pedometer is based on ADXL345 3-axis digital accelerometer. It can filter irregular activities and save last 7 days data. You can use the smart phone application to read the steps and corresponding time.
The functional prototype
Hardware devices consist of mechanics, electronics and firmware. The 3D printed prototype has taken one engineer and one industrial designer over two months to finalize. The electronics and firmware has taken even longer to develop.
Designs
PCB and prototypes
Fihuo pedometer comes in different colors
Technical specifications
- ADXL345 3-axis digital accelerometer, resolution increases with g range, up to 13-bit resolution at ±16 g (maintaining 4 mg/LSB scale factor in all g ranges)
- Wide temperature range (-40°C to +85°C)
- Bluetooth 2.0 wireless connectivity for Android devices
- 0.91" OLED display with 128*32 pixels
- Built-in 70 mA lithium battery with 7 days standby time
- Micro-USB port for charging and connecting to computer
- 58x25x9 millimeters small
The option of Bluetooth 4.0 for iPhone devices will be available soon. The Bluetooth 4.0 will always be active in this case while the Bluetooth 2.0 for Android devices is off usually and will be turned on manually before connection.
How to use
At first, you need turn on the switch. The screen will display the current time, steps and battery indicator.
- When you push the button once, the OLED screen will be on for several seconds and then it will turn itself off to save power. The battery can last for a week, so you need recharge it in time. You can review the steps on the OLED screen even in low-light environments.
- When you push the button once again while the screen is on, it will display the current date, distance and calories respectively.
- When you push the button twice quickly while the screen is on, it will turn on the bluetooth to accept new connection. The Bluetooth of pedometer is in slave mode. So your application needs to connect to the pedometer in advance. The pedometer time can't be retaining after it's turned off. So you need to send a time string to synchronize its time, such as "T1325419200", T with the seconds since Jan 1 1970. When you send 'R' to the pedometer, it will return all 7 days data in JSON format with prefix "datastart" and suffix "dataend".
For example:
datastart
{
"TOTAL":4513,
"LIST":
[
{"TIME":1349085981,"STEPS":381},
{"TIME":1349222341,"STEPS":27},
{"TIME":1349308740,"STEPS":686},
{"TIME":1349395141,"STEPS":3419}
]
}
dataend
Apps
The Android trial app is available now. The iPhone trial app will be available soon. The apps for Android and iPhone can read data from Fihuo pedometer via Bluetooth.
Android App
Who we are
Fihuo is a mobile health program sponsored by Research Institute of Information Technology of Tsinghua University of P. R. China. We created a talented team to design and develop creative productions and services for personal health. Our research areas focus on mobile Internet and big data management.
Parts of the Fihuo team
Rewards
You will receive a survey at the end of the campaign and you may then choose what Bluetooth version and color you prefer. As long as our products pass the standard quality test for a country or region, we are shipping to the entire world. Shipping is free.
Fully assembled and tested Fihuo Pedometer. You are ready to use the pedometer to track your steps.
Production schedule
We have a rough production schedule like this:
- March 2013 – Finalizing design and construction of the Fihuo pedometer
- April 2013 – Start tooling for plastic injection molding, do batches of electronics
- May 2013 – Product tests, certification and finding fulfillment partner
- June 2013 – Start production of final version
- July 2013 – Start shipping Fihuo pedometers to our earliest backers.
We need your support to make this happen! We are so close but we need you to help us be able to start manufacturing. Each stage of production will be done by local businesses. The printed circuit boards (PCBs) will be made in Shenzhen, China. The injection molded cases will be made in Beijing and the PCB assembly for the pedometer will be done in Beijing.
Risks and challenges
The Fihuo Pedometer is working and nearly production ready. We are working with a local manufacturing company that has the resources and ability to scale to whatever volume we need. The main risk for this project is unforeseen delays. In every step of the production, our manufacturers need strict guidelines and tests to sort out the good units from the bad ones. The delivery dates for the rewards are based on the time needed for assembly and packaging of the complete Fihuo Pedometer and the time needed to pack and ship the kits overseas. Any delays will be communicated at every step along the way.