A Genius and His Motley Cart of Pioneering Innovations

A Genius and His Motley Cart of Pioneering Innovations

KOCHI: It just took around two weeks of hard work and a paltry `4,800 for Arvind Sanjeev, the smart geek at tech domain, to make the prototype of Smart Cap, the wearable head mounted display device that catapulted him into the league of promising young entrepreneurs.

The device offers the same functionalities of a Google Glass on a lesser scale like: voice command-based control, first person video streaming and head mounted display.  “The project is not intended to be a clone of the Google Glass, instead an open source tutorial on how people can make their own wearable or head-mounted display based gadgets,” Arvind says. Smart Cap is fully an open DIY project entailing a wearable head mounted display. It runs on custom voice recognition software to support hands-free engagement. It can be tailored for use in helmets, first person video recording, and can mimic functionalities of a Google Glass but for under $80. It aims to intrigue people with the real wearable display technology and instructs them in detail about how they could build one of their own.  The complete system runs on a raspberry pi with other peripherals like a 2.5” LCD screen, webcam, microphone, etc.

At present, Arvind  has no plans to commercialise the product as it is an open source project and one of the projects on DIY Hacking.

RideSmart Car App

The next premium outing from the cart of Arvind is the RideSmart car controlling mobile app. It uses a new kind of interface generated on the phone of the user in the form of a normal application. “The app gives the user all the features that he would like to access without even entering the car. The phone along with the custom hardware module installed within the car enables the driver to access features like air conditioning, engine start, parking lights, central locking, power windows, music players, boot access, etc all from within a 100 metre distance from the car,” says Arvind. The system does not demand any additional service charges or maintenance, it is a one time - fit and forget system. RideSmart is still in the research stage and it is being fine-tuned for the Indian automotive sector and will be released soon.

“After completing BTech in Electronics and Communication from TocH Institute of Science & Technology in 2013, I worked on my own startup company ARS Devices, and had also assumed the role of CTO for RHL Vision for a brief stretch. To motivate the students in our country, I have initiated a platform named DIY Hacking. DIY Hacking serves as a front to tutor students, hobbyists, etc about the latest technology development,” says Arvind.  “It aims at providing a more practical knowledge about modern technologies to the Indian students. It consists of comprehensive step by step guidelines on how to do several projects centered on the modern realm of technology and has tutorials ranging from $80 head-mounted displays to the Internet of Things (IoT) and smartphone-controlled robots, he adds. Arvind is also planning to publish books regarding DIY Hacking to help students.

 According to Arvind, the open source hardware would help today’s enterprising youths, especially start-ups in a big way. The website is http://diyhacking.com/

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