Connect.JS 2015: Prototyping Wearable Devices Using Javascript

Prototyping wearable devices used to be something that required specialized skills in electrical engineering, embedded development and mechanical engineering. Today, thanks to the maker revolution, we can combine our deep knowledge of programming with basic electronics/soldering skills and access to a 3D printer to create useful devices. More importantly, there are now boards that give us as Javascript developers the ability to interact with them without needing to create our own custom Bluetooth Drivers, and writing firmware in C++.

In this session, we’ll take a quick tour of some of the options and then do a deep dive into creating a wearable prototype writing only Javascript code using the Metawear board. This will be a hands-on session where we show working demos everything from how to connect with the board, to accessing the onboard sensors and maybe even how to storing data on the device for offline tracking as we build our own running application.

by Lance Gleason

Lance Gleason has been a computer nut ever since his dad bought him a computer when he was a kid. After nearly a decade as a Java developer for companies like Kodak, CNN, and GE, he decided to end his addiction to heavy inheritance, static typing, and coding without tests. These days, he practices clean Ruby living with lots of well-tested code, class composition, and fun dynamic languages as a developer/startup CTO for hire with extensive experience in data science and committer on open source projects such as the Passbook-iOS, Asari and Active Asari Gems. He is known to practice interspecies pair (purr) programming with his orange tabby, Allie, and when he's not writing code, you will find him diving with sharks, trekking through Chernobyl, sampling wine, cheering on the Springboks or perfecting his biltong recipe.