This Hack Has a Good Ring to It

The extra technically inclined a person is, the extra doubtless they’re to take an in depth take a look at any digital gadget they purchase and take into consideration the way it could possibly be made even higher. {Hardware} hacker Aaron Christophel definitely matches into this class. Now we have reported on Christophel hacking away at Disney MagicBands, ePaper shows, and even toothbrushes just lately. Not everybody needs to tear aside their very own {hardware} and threat damaging it, so it’s all the time good to have the ability to watch another person that’s keen to do the soiled work for us.

Christophel’s newest buy is an affordable COLMI R02 Good Ring discovered on AliExpress. For only a few bucks, this ring can repeatedly monitor health metrics and stress ranges, and that information will be wirelessly synced to a companion smartphone app. However what when you have higher concepts for a way the machine’s {hardware} will be put to make use of? It has a reasonably first rate Arm M0+ microcontroller, in addition to acceleration and coronary heart charge sensors. Possibly good house management duties? Or probably even edge machine studying?

The concepts could also be coming quick and livid, however with out an understanding of the {hardware}, you’ll not get very far. Christophel did a teardown of the COLMI R0 to get an concept of the way it labored, and the way it could possibly be repurposed as one thing greater than a elaborate step counter and coronary heart charge monitor. For the reason that producer was type sufficient to encase the parts in a transparent epoxy, there was not likely a lot want for a standard teardown. As a substitute, Christophel might simply look by way of the epoxy and discover the datasheets for the corresponding parts.

Because it seems, the ring is powered by a BlueX RF03 system-on-chip. Additional analysis revealed that the machine’s firmware is upgraded by way of over-the-air updates. So, it was potential to obtain the firmware from a distant replace server and skip the step of dumping it from the ring. As an added bonus, the firmware isn’t encrypted or signed, making it straightforward to switch. An evaluation of this firmware might give many insights into how the ring could possibly be repurposed, however Christophel left that work for one more day.

After monitoring down the datasheet for the BlueX chip, the SWD interface pin was discovered. Utilizing this interface, one can learn from or write to the microcontroller’s reminiscence from their laptop, so Christophel chipped away on the epoxy with a knife to show the pins. Wires have been then soldered to the pins earlier than a UV-curing materials was used to seal the ring again up.

These wires can be utilized to load any customized firmware that one wish to use onto the ring. Christophel thought-about utilizing it as a sensible house controller, possibly with faucet and twist gestures to regulate music or different capabilities across the house. Nevertheless, you get what you pay for — the ring may be very naked bones and doesn’t provide many options. Notably, it’s missing suggestions within the type of a buzzer, exterior LEDs, or in any other case. Because of this, Christophel determined to not spend any extra time growing for the ring.

In the event you occur to have some artistic concepts for a sensible ring that prices little greater than seven {dollars}, take a look at the video to study how one can program it with your personal firmware.