Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

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Chapter 14, How to Build a Wearable Computer

Commercial Wearable

Computers

A number of companies manufacture

wearable computer systems. These

complete solutions can be expen-

sive and are often built for specific

applications, and of course it is much

more fun to build your own. Still,

here are some links to these compa-

nies, if you’d like to check them out:

http://www.xybernaut.com/

newxybernaut/home.htm

http://www.flexipc.com/

http://www.tiqit.com/

http://www.charmed.com/

These boards require a special interface cable to bring out all of the interface

signals. Such connectors often can be as large as the CPU board itself.

PC-card-size 486 computer

In the late 1990s, the SMOS company offered a PC-card-size 486 board called

the Cardio PC. SMOS is no longer around and the Cardio PC is no longer

made, but you can still find them on eBay and at surplus computer parts

stores.

Palmtop computer

The Compaq iPaq runs a fast ARM processor, has PC-card slots (depend-

ing on the model), IR, and wireless I/O, runs for quite a while on its inter-

nal batteries, and has a Linux distribution available for it.

Power system

Your wearable computer system will require a power source. You can carry

a battery to store energy and recharge it from a wall outlet, or you can look

at alternative sources of energy, including harnessing power from the per-

son who is wearing the system. If you are interested ...