Mukesh Sanhkla’s Enhiker Delivers a Climate-Based mostly Go/No-Go Choice for Mountain climbing Journeys

Software program engineer and maker Mukesh Sanhkla has turned a DFRobot UNIHIKER single-board laptop into a transportable gadget designed to offer go/no-go for climbing actions based mostly on native climate situations — and it doubles as a datalogger and emergency powerbank, too.

“Enhiker is a compact, 3D-printed gadget designed to help outside fans in making knowledgeable choices about their surroundings,” Sanhkla explains of the hand-held venture. “Powered by UNIHIKER from DFRobot, it integrates environmental and GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] sensors to evaluate real-time climate situations and site information. Enhiker supplies customers with a transparent advice on whether or not it is protected to arrange camp or proceed outside actions based mostly on well being and security parameters.”

As Sanhkla says, the center of the venture is a DFRobot UNIHIKER — an all-in-one single-board laptop with touchscreen show launched in June final 12 months, that includes a Rockchip RK3308 system-on-chip with 4 Arm Cortex-A35 cores and a GigaDevice GD32VF103 RISC-V microcontroller co-processor behind a 2.8″ 240×320 touchscreen panel. To this, Sanhkla has added a variety of additional sensors: a multi-sensor breakout supplies temperature, humidity, barometric strain, ambient gentle, and ultraviolet index sensing, whereas a separate GNSS receiver can choose up GPS and different positioning satellite tv for pc indicators.

The thought behind the venture is straightforward: the UNIHIKER, in a snazzy 3D-printed case, accompanies Sanhkla on hikes, operating a Python program that polls and data information from the native sensors whereas additionally utilizing Wi-Fi — the place out there — to tug down extra info from different sources. Utilizing all of this, a “decision_maker.py” program decides whether or not it is protected to remain put — or, if needed, warns of points together with extremes of temperature or strain, excessive UV radition ranges, or excessive elevations. “This manner,” Sanhkla says, “the operate helps you make knowledgeable choices about whether or not it is protected to remain outdoor in particular climate situations.”

As an added bonus, the Enhiker has a hidden bonus function, which may assist get a hiker out of a bind: the 2 18650 battery cells used to maintain it ticking over within the discipline may also be used as an emergency energy financial institution to cost exterior gadgets, like a smartphone or satellite tv for pc telephone, and may themselves be charged by way of an non-compulsory photo voltaic panel.

“Enhiker is probably not a groundbreaking innovation within the quickly evolving world of smartphones and superior expertise,” its creator admits, “nevertheless it serves a singular objective by providing invaluable classes in IoT [Internet of Things], communication, and offline performance—options that many fashionable gadgets usually overlook. This venture stands out for its capability to function independently of the web, making it a dependable companion for many who enterprise into the nice outdoor the place connectivity is restricted.”

The venture is documented in full, together with supply code and 3D print information, on Instructables; the supply code and CAD information are additionally out there on GitHub below an unspecified license.