Most loudspeaker designers don’t spend much time debating open versus closed the way headphone enthusiasts do. Cabinets are part of the equation for a reason, offering control, efficiency, and predictable performance. That’s the accepted playbook. But like any good rule in audio, someone is always trying to break it.
At AXPONA 2026, La Dolce Audio showed what happens when you ignore that playbook and lean into experimentation. Founder Terry Gesualdo isn’t approaching amplification or speaker design from a traditional standpoint, he’s part of a growing group of builders exploring open designs and current drive amplification as an alternative to the usual voltage driven norm.
I met Gesualdo on the shuttle ride over to the show, which feels about right. This isn’t a polished, corporate origin story, it’s the familiar path of someone who started by modifying gear, then building his own tube amps for himself, then for friends and family. The difference here is that he didn’t stop at tweaking circuits. He kept pushing until the results looked and sounded like something entirely his own.
Having built a few tube amps, I’m always curious to see what others are doing, and Terry Gesualdo is not following the usual path. Most of his designs are single ended pentode circuits, not triodes, and not push pull designs chasing more voltage swing. That choice alone puts him in a different lane than a lot of tube builders.
Where things really diverge is the move to current drive. Most amplifiers are voltage driven. That’s the standard approach across both solid state and tube designs. Current drive shows up more often inside DACs where signal levels are extremely small, and occasionally in headphone amplifiers, but rarely in loudspeaker systems where current demands are far higher.
The idea behind current drive is fairly straightforward. By controlling current instead of voltage, the amplifier reduces the impact of back EMF from the driver. That back EMF is the voice coil behaving like a generator as it moves through the magnetic field, feeding energy back into the amplifier. Reduce that interaction and, in theory, you reduce distortion and improve control over the driver.
It’s not a new concept, but it’s one that almost nobody is applying to loudspeakers in this way, especially with tube amplification. That’s what makes what La Dolce Audio is doing worth paying attention to.
Circling back to that idea of ignoring the usual playbook, another aspect that reinforces how La Dolce Audio is taking a different path is the near exclusive use of pentode tubes instead of the more common triodes. Triodes are the simplest form of amplification with three active elements, anode, cathode, and grid. Fewer parts in the signal path is why many listeners and designers gravitate toward them. The assumption is less complexity means lower distortion and fewer unwanted artifacts.
But that’s only part of the story. Harmonic distortion doesn’t disappear just because the circuit is simpler. It just changes character. And not all harmonics are a problem. A lot of what people describe as tube warmth comes from second and third order harmonics, which many listeners actually prefer.
Terry Gesualdo leans into that reality rather than trying to avoid it. By using pentodes, which add additional control elements beyond what a triode offers, he can shape those harmonic structures instead of accepting whatever the circuit gives him. That includes adjusting the balance between second and third order harmonics and even their phase relationships.
It’s a different mindset. Instead of chasing the lowest possible distortion number, the goal is control over how that distortion presents itself, and giving the listener a way to fine tune the result.
Some will find that approach a bit sacrilegious. There’s a large part of the hobby focused on removing as much of this behavior as possible, chasing lower distortion numbers and cleaner measurements. That’s not the goal here.
La Dolce Audio leans into a different philosophy. “If it sounds good, do it” is more than a slogan. It reflects the idea that listening is subjective and that not every system needs to be locked into a single interpretation of neutrality. By giving users control over harmonic structure, the design puts some of that decision making back in the listener’s hands.
La Dolce Audio offers two amplifier paths built around the same core ideas but with different roles. The UA2.5 is a dual channel amplifier rated at roughly 3 to 5 watts depending on tube selection, and it’s where most of the flexibility lives. With 24 possible sound signatures, it gives the user direct control over how the amplifier presents harmonic content and overall character.
The UA2.5M monoblocks step things up in output, delivering around 9 watts per channel, but they take a more focused approach. They are designed to be paired with the UA2.5, which handles preamp duties and sound shaping. As a result, the monoblocks do not include the same tuning controls, focusing instead on providing additional power while maintaining the same underlying design philosophy.
Alongside its amplifiers, La Dolce Audio offers the HPA2.3 headphone “amplifier,” although that label needs a bit of clarification. It’s not an amplifier in the traditional sense. The HPA2.3 is a passive device designed to work with the UA2.5, relying on it for signal processing and gain. In practice, it converts the UA2.5 into a headphone amplifier rather than operating as one on its own.
That means the HPA2.3 can drive a wide range of headphones depending on how the UA2.5 is configured, but it cannot function independently. No preamp, no sound.
Pricing reflects that modular approach. The UA2.5, which serves as the foundation of the system, runs between $1,799 and $2,499 depending on configuration and tube selection. The UA2.5M monoblocks are $1,999 each, and the HPA2.3 adds another $599. A full system lands in the $3,500 range, depending on how far you go down the rabbit hole.
La Dolce Audio isn’t trying to fit into the usual mold, and that’s the point. In a category where a lot of designs feel like small variations on the same theme, this is a reminder that there are still different ways to approach amplification and system building.
Beyond the amplifiers, the partnership with ABX Audiophiles on Discord to offer open baffle speaker kits adds another layer. It invites listeners to get involved, not just as buyers but as participants, with a community that shares ideas, solves problems, and pushes designs forward together. We’ll have more on that ABX side of things in a forthcoming article.
It won’t be for everyone. If you want plug and play simplicity, this isn’t it. But if you’re the type who likes to understand what your system is doing and shape it to your preferences, La Dolce offers something most companies don’t. A system you can actually interact with, not just listen to.
For more information: ladolceaudio.com
The Grafana data breach was caused by a single GitHub workflow token that slipped through the rotation process following the TanStack npm supply-chain attack last week.
In the ongoing Shai-Hulud malware campaign attributed to TeamPCP hackers, dozens of TanStack packages infected with credential-stealing code were published on the npm index, compromising developer environments, including Grafana’s.
When the malicious npm package was released, Grafana’s CI/CD workflow consumed it, and the info-stealer module executed in its GitHub environment, exfiltrating GitHub workflow tokens to the attackers.
The company explains that it detected malicious activity resulting from compromised TanStack packages on May 1, and immediately deployed the incident response plan, which included rotating GitHub workflow tokens.
However, one token was missed in the process, and the attacker used it to gain access to the company’s private repositories.
“We performed analysis and quickly rotated a significant number of GitHub workflow tokens, but a missed token led to the attackers gaining access to our GitHub repositories,” reads Grafana’s update.
“A subsequent review confirmed that a specific GitHub workflow we originally deemed not impacted had, in fact, been compromised.”
Previously, the company confirmed that the intruders stole source code, assuring there was no customer impact, and stating that the hackers would not receive a ransom payment.
The continued investigation revealed that the intruder also downloaded operational information and details Grafana uses for its business.
“This includes business contact names and email addresses that would be exchanged in a professional relationship context, not information pulled from or processed through the use of production systems or the Grafana Cloud platform” – Grafana
The company stresses that this was not customer production data, and according to the latest evidence and investigation, no customer production systems or operations have been compromised.
Grafana Labs also noted that its codebase was not modified during the incident, so the code users downloaded throughout the events is considered safe, and users are not required to take any action.
If that evaluation changes based on new evidence from the ongoing investigation, Grafana Labs promised to notify impacted customers directly.
Automated pentesting tools deliver real value, but they were built to answer one question: can an attacker move through the network? They were not built to test whether your controls block threats, your detection rules fire, or your cloud configs hold.
This guide covers the 6 surfaces you actually need to validate.
Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue. Photo credit: Re/Code
Cannes Lions is honoring Apple Services chief Eddy Cue after Apple turned its once-questioned Apple TV push into a credible prestige entertainment business with growing influence in Hollywood.
Cue will receive Cannes Lions’ Entertainment Person of the Year honor during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which runs June 22 through June 26 in Cannes, France. Cue is also scheduled to appear in a keynote conversation with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose “F1” became one of Apple’s highest-profile theatrical films.
Cannes Lions is recognizing Apple’s growing power across entertainment, advertising, and subscription services as much as it is honoring Cue himself. The festival focuses heavily on marketing, audience engagement, and platform influence instead of traditional Hollywood prestige.
Cue fits naturally into that environment because Apple controls both the devices people use and the services delivered through them.
Apple launched its Apple TV streaming service in November 2019 after years of speculation about whether it could establish itself in Hollywood. Instead of trying to match Netflix or Disney in sheer content volume, Apple leaned into prestige projects, high-profile talent deals, and awards campaigns.
Critics questioned whether Apple could compete seriously with a much smaller catalog and no Hollywood track record. Many also doubted the company would stay committed to such an expensive business before the strategy started producing major awards and prestige hits.
Apple has built a credible position in Hollywood since launching Apple TV in 2019. “CODA” became the first streaming film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and shows like “The Studio” helped the company collect major Emmys.
Earlier hits like “Ted Lasso” also helped establish Apple TV as a serious awards contender. Those wins gave Apple a reputation for prestige programming without forcing it to match the scale of larger streaming rivals.
Cannes Lions focuses far more on advertising, branding, audience engagement, and media technology than traditional Hollywood awards do. Its emphasis on platform influence helps explain why Apple services chief Eddy Cue received the honor instead of a studio executive or filmmaker.
Simon Cook, as reported by Variety, said Apple has “redefined how audiences engage with culture” through the company’s platforms and experiences. His comments reflect how Apple uses entertainment to strengthen a much larger business built around hardware, subscriptions, payments, and software services.
Eddy Cue will receive Cannes Lions’ Entertainment Person of the Year honor. Image credit: VarietyCue oversees Apple’s services business as the company’s senior vice president of services and health. Apple had a record year for Services in 2025, giving products like Apple TV, Apple Music, and subscription bundles a larger strategic role within the company.
Recognition from Cannes Lions also arrives during a period when technology companies are exerting more influence over content financing, theatrical distribution, streaming rights, and sports programming. Apple, Amazon, and Netflix now compete directly with legacy studios across much of the entertainment business.
Apple’s entertainment business now carries more industry credibility than it did at launch. Executives have repeatedly framed the service around quality programming instead of massive content libraries.
Prestige programming doesn’t guarantee the kind of mass-market subscriber growth larger streaming rivals chase, though the strategy fits Apple’s preference for tighter curation and premium positioning. Cue’s honor signals that Apple’s strategy earned real credibility within the entertainment industry.
AI + ML
Staff protest overhaul and mouse tracking at ‘Employee Data Extraction Factory’
Meta’s massive role reshuffle begins today, with thousands of staff being transferred to AI-focused teams and their managers reportedly laid off.
The tech giant is reassigning 7,000 workers to AI projects, eliminating around 10 percent of its current workforce, and closing 6,000 open positions, according to Reuters, which saw copies of the internal memos.
The workforce changes, the latest in a series of moves that started 2022, will affect roughly 20 percent of Meta’s approximately 78,000 employees.
Janelle Gale, Meta’s chief people officer, penned the memos to affected staff. Some have already begun their new AI-related duties, while the rest will be told of their fates today, she reportedly said.
“As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI-native design principles into their new org structures,” Gale’s memo read.
“We’re now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership.”
This flatter structure will involve, in part, managers being either laid off or moved into roles where they are producing work instead of overseeing teams.
Previous memos sent to staff in April stated that top engineers – those who represented the company’s “strong software engineering talent” – were being “selected” for brand-new divisions within the business.
Among these were the Applied AI Engineering and Agent Transformation Accelerator units, as well as Central Analytics.
Once famed for letting its staff pick and choose their projects, Meta said those selected for this new AI mission had no say in the matter.
Responding to an employee’s question, Maher Saba, VP of AAI Engineering, wrote: “AAI is one of the company’s highest priorities and we’re resourcing it by moving our strongest talent to address it. Therefore, the transfers aren’t optional.”
Both AI units were established for engineers to develop AI agents capable of automating and taking over duties previously undertaken by human employees.
Those transferred to Central Analytics will work on ways of assessing productivity and analytics for agent development.
According to Gale’s memo, another new unit called Enterprise Solutions will soon be established, but Meta has not yet revealed details. The Register asked Meta for a statement, but it did not immediately respond.
Gale’s language regarding “flatter structures” echoes chief Mark Zuckerberg’s wording from Meta’s January earnings report, promising to flatten teams over the coming year.
“We’re elevating individual contributors, and flattening teams,” Zuck wrote in a post-earnings note on January 28. “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.
“I want to make sure as many of these very talented people as possible choose Meta as the place they can make the greatest impact – to deliver personalized products to billions of people around the world. And if we do this, then I think we’ll get a lot more done and it’s going to be a lot more fun.”
Reports surfaced around the same time about a major round of job cuts at the company, equivalent to 20 percent of its workforce, or around 15,000 roles, but it was unclear when or if this would materialize.
Meta’s latest round of layoffs follows a smaller-scale round in March, affecting 700 roles across Reality Labs, the social media division, and recruitment.
The changes come against a backdrop of Meta investing heavily in AI, with the company saying it plans to spend between $162 billion and $167 billion this year, up from $118 billion in 2025.
The company has reportedly also tried tempting top AI talent to join its ranks with nine-figure pay packets, and ex-OpenAI players with $100 million sign-on bonuses.
Meta slashing roles to embrace AI replacements has led to protests across its Menlo Park HQ and internal Workspace comms platform, Reuters reports.
First announced in April, Meta said it would be tracking mouse clicks and keystrokes to train AI rather than assess staff productivity.
A company spokesperson told the BBC: “If we’re building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them.”
They said the data is not used for any other purpose, and there are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content.
But Meta staff have expressed their disdain for the changes in various ways, including by setting up an online petition – which now has over 1,000 signatures – and plastering flyers all over US offices referring to the company as an “Employee Data Extraction Factory.” ®
Last week, the crowdfunding platform introduced new rules on the subject of adult content that were meant to give creators more clarity up front before launching projects. Instead, the revised rules had the opposite impact and reportedly clouded the category with more confusion.
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If you’ve been searching for the best VPN to protect your mobile device, a fresh and highly secure contender has just entered the chat. Obscura VPN has officially landed on Android, bringing its unique flavor of privacy to the world’s most popular mobile operating system.
Previously limited to iOS and macOS, the provider is now available to download on Google Play and the open-source app manager Obtainium. It marks a major milestone for the privacy-focused company, which aims to shield the vast amounts of personal data and location history stored on our smartphones.
“Your phone holds more of your personal life than almost anything else you own,” the company stated in a blog post announcing the release. “You carry it everywhere, which means apps and other services can build up a detailed record of your location. That activity deserves to stay private, which is why we built Obscura.”
To celebrate the Android launch, the provider is offering a 25% discount to all users for a limited time. You can secure the deal by using the promo code ANDROID26 at checkout.
The development team noted they are currently working on bringing the app to other alternative Android storefronts in the future. A company spokesperson also told TechRadar that native apps for Windows and Linux are officially in development, though no firm release date has been set.
In the meantime, those on unsupported platforms don’t have to miss out completely. Users on Windows and Linux can still connect to the network using a manual WireGuard guide provided by the company, ensuring they can benefit from its top-tier encryption while they wait for dedicated software.
If you aren’t familiar with Obscura VPN, the provider burst onto the scene in early 2025, promising to be “private by design” and to “outsmart internet restrictions.” The goal was to fix the inherent trust issues found in the wider cybersecurity industry.
Its standout feature is a two-party relay architecture. Traditional VPNs act as a single middleman, meaning the provider theoretically knows both your real identity and your browsing history. Obscura promises to solve this by splitting the journey into two.
HUGE RELEASE: Obscura VPN is now on Android 🥳To celebrate, we’re offering 25% off any Obscura subscription or top-up with code ANDROID26👇 Links below for Google Play or Obtainium (more stores coming) pic.twitter.com/gIlAiqWlC6May 19, 2026
Obscura manages the entry hop, encrypting your traffic using the widely trusted WireGuard protocol. Your data is then passed to an independent exit server operated by the highly respected Mullvad VPN, which ultimately connects you to the internet.
“This splits ‘who you are’ from ‘what you do,’ meaning neither party can tie your identity to your browsing,” Obscura VPN founder Carl Dong previously told TechRadar.
Beyond its unique server setup, Obscura asks for zero personal information at signup; no name, no email, and no credit card details. It also leverages the QUIC protocol to bypass strict internet censorship. This newer technology helps to disguise VPN connections as regular web traffic without the performance drops associated with older methods.
The service’s strict privacy claims aren’t just marketing speak, either. Late last year, Obscura VPN passed a comprehensive independent audit conducted by leading security firm Cure53. The auditors spent 20 days probing the source code and confirmed its architecture had “no major security vulnerabilities”.
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OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy has joined rival AI lab Anthropic. “The hire is a major coup for Anthropic in the high-stakes competition for elite AI talent — and another sign the company is emerging as a magnet for some of the industry’s most respected technical minds,” reports Axios. From the report: Karpathy will start this week on Anthropic’s pre-training team, which is responsible for the massive training runs that give Claude its core knowledge and capabilities, according to Anthropic. Karpathy will help launch a new team focused on using Claude itself to accelerate pretraining research — an increasingly important frontier as AI companies race to automate parts of AI development. “I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D,” Karpathy said in a post on X.
Karpathy is a rare AI figure with credibility across research, industry and education. He was a founding member of OpenAI before serving as Tesla’s director of AI, where he led the computer vision team behind Autopilot. Karpathy coined the term “vibe coding” and recently described himself as being in a “state of AI psychosis” since December — embracing “tokenmaxxing” and aggressively stress-testing frontier models.
The researchers noted that this marks the first time any technology has achieved 100Gbps-class wireless communication beyond 420GHz, potentially opening a new frontier in high-frequency wireless communications and paving the way for 6G cellular networks, which promise extremely high speeds, ultra-low latency, and massive network capacity.
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Identity has long been the load-bearing wall of cybersecurity. The logic was simple: verify the employee, secure the access. But as professionalized threat actors weaponize AI and sophisticated phishing kits, that wall is cracking. Identity is being forced to carry a structural burden it was never designed to support.
While identity isn’t obsolete, in ecosystems defined by SaaS sprawl, BYOD, and hybrid work, a valid credential is no longer a guarantee of a safe connection. The real danger is not authentication failure, but whether the right signals are being verified. Without real-time device checks, a legitimate login could just as easily be a compromised session.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) was supposed to close this gap. However, phishing kits now let attackers sit between a user and the real login portal, proxying the authentication in real time and stealing the session token that gets issued after MFA succeeds. The victim completes every security check exactly as intended. The attacker walks away with the cookie that proves it.
NIST Special Publication 800-207, the foundational framework for Zero Trust architecture, anticipated this problem. It warns against relying on implied trustworthiness once a subject has met a base authentication level, and specifies that access decisions should account for whether the device used for the request has the proper security posture.
In practice, most organizations still treat authentication as a one-time check. Identity is verified, MFA passes, a session begins, and trust holds until the token expires. But a session token in an attacker’s browser looks identical to the same token in the user’s browser. Traditional authentication logs cannot tell them apart.
Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report found stolen credentials are involved in 44.7% of breaches.
Effortlessly secure Active Directory with compliant password policies, blocking 4+ billion compromised passwords, boosting security, and slashing support hassles!
Most Zero Trust implementations have ended up heavily identity centric. They focus on strengthening authentication, enforcing MFA, reducing password reliance, and introducing risk-based sign-in policies. Device verification, meanwhile, is inconsistently applied. It often stops at the point of login, or it applies only to browser-based workflows inside modern conditional access frameworks. Legacy protocols, remote access tools, and API integrations tend to inherit trust implicitly once identity has been established.
The result is a fragmented model. Personal and third-party devices may be loosely controlled or entirely unmanaged. Session trust persists even if device posture degrades mid-session. Identity signals and endpoint signals sit in separate tools with limited integration. Identity gets scrutinized heavily at login, and then access is rarely reassessed in any meaningful way.
A stolen password used from an attacker-controlled laptop should not be treated the same as the same password used from an enrolled, encrypted, compliant corporate endpoint. Yet that is exactly what happens when identity alone governs access.
Device posture answers questions identity cannot. Is the device encrypted? Is endpoint protection active and healthy? Is the operating system patched? Has the configuration drifted from policy? Is this approved hardware?
More importantly, those answers have to stay current beyond the initial login and across the entire session. An update can be delayed, endpoint protection can be disabled, unapproved software can be installed. Conditions at login are not conditions at hour three of a session. Continuous device verification reduces the value of stolen credentials and intercepted tokens, because access becomes bound not just to an identity, but to a trusted, healthy endpoint.
A more defensible approach combines identity with continuous device verification. In practice, that looks like this:
Solutions like Specops Device Trust operationalize this model by extending trust decisions beyond identity and maintaining enforcement as conditions change. It authenticates users and verifies their devices continuously across Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile platforms, not just at the point of login.
Identity still matters. It just can no longer carry the full weight of an access decision on its own.
If you’re looking to evolve your identity security strategy to include device trust, contact Specops today or book a demo to see how our solutions could work in your environment.
Sponsored and written by Specops Software.
StitcherAI, backed by $3 million in pre-seed funding, launched today with an unusual approach to help companies get a handle on AI and cloud spending before the bills get out of control.
Founded by a pair of Seattle enterprise tech veterans, the startup is avoiding the traditional FinOps dashboard, instead pushing real-time cost data directly into apps and services where engineers — and increasingly AI agents — are making spending decisions.
The idea is to catch spending problems before they happen. AI agents, in particular, often have no context for the company’s budget or existing contracts. For example, an agent might choose an expensive AI model when the company has already prepaid for a cheaper alternative.
“It’s really important to get that context into the places where the decisions are happening, whether it’s human or the agent,” said StitcherAI CEO and co-founder Udam Dewaraja.
The 10-person company emerged from stealth Tuesday morning with the announcement of the general availability of its product. Its $3 million pre-seed round, raised last fall, was led by Founders Co-op with participation from Sunshine Lake VC, Ascend, and Plug & Play Ventures.
Dewaraja built the global IT finance practice at Citi, one of the world’s largest technology spenders. He also co-created the FOCUS open billing data standard now used by AWS, Microsoft, and Google, which StitcherAI also uses as part of its system.
Co-founder Varun Mittal is an AI researcher and natural language processing specialist who previously ran NLPCore, a Seattle-based NLP platform company, for eight years.
Dewaraja and Mittal previously worked together at Apptio, the Bellevue-based IT financial management company that was taken private in 2019 and acquired by IBM in 2023.
Apptio is one of the companies StitcherAI will be competing against in the broader field of tracking IT spending. Dewaraja led engineering for Cloudability, Apptio’s cloud cost management product. Other established players in the space include Flexera and VMware’s CloudHealth, along with many startups focused on cloud and AI cost management.
Dewaraja said he saw the limitations of the dashboard approach firsthand when he moved to Citi and became a buyer of the tools he’d helped build. Engineers are too busy juggling security, performance, and deployment issues to check a financial dashboard.
“Cost becomes a forgotten part,” he said.
StitcherAI’s platform pulls in cost data from across the different services used by a company, including cloud providers, AI services, SaaS subscriptions, and PDF invoices. It then creates a unified cost model with information on different products, teams, and revenue streams.
The platform presents the data in whatever tools the organization uses, including data platforms like Snowflake, business intelligence tools like Tableau, or workplace apps like Slack and Jira. It can also feed financial context into AI coding tools like Cursor and OpenAI’s Codex, so agents making technical decisions have visibility into the budgets and contracts.
The company says it is already working with several large customers, including nine-figure cloud spenders with rapidly growing AI budgets. One early customer is a Fortune 500 employment marketplace. StitcherAI says those beta customers reduced the cost of building and maintaining internal IT finance infrastructure by 80% on average.
Dewaraja said the startup plans to use the funding to grow the team and continue developing its platform, with the FinOps X conference in San Diego in June as its next major milestone.
Huy Vector turned a childhood obsession with the Fallout games into a working smartwatch that looks and feels like it came straight from the vaults. The finished piece sits comfortably on the wrist with a simple leather strap, yet every detail echoes the classic Pip-Boy design from the series. Green text scrolls across a small screen against a black background, vital signs appear in the familiar retro font, and the whole thing runs on everyday parts anyone can order online.
Vector used the Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 board for the Vector project, which crams a microcontroller, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi into an extremely compact device that fits beneath the display. He chose a 1.54-inch LCD for the panel, which replicates the green-on-black image that gamers fondly remember. A MAX30102 sensor is nestled into the back to monitor heart rate and blood oxygen levels in real time, which is ideal for keeping an eye on things while playing. The entire system is powered by a small lithium-ion battery that is discreetly hidden. It’s all held together with copper tubing and some clever brass hardware that also serves as controls.
Vector’s assembly requires some careful soldering and a few simple tools. Vector constructed the frame with 0.8 millimeter copper wire, a handful of M2 brass screws, and some short parts of brass tube. Once he had tidied up the wiring and ensured its stability, the screws served as touch points. To prevent accidental triggering, the bases of those screws are encased with heat-shrink tubing. There’s a little switch that allows you to turn on and off the unit without having to reach for your phone. If you’re curious about the parts list, Vector lays it down on his website and links directly to the vendors, even the solder and flux, so if you have basic abilities, you should be fine.
Vector programmed his own code to extract data from the heart rate sensor and send it to the Pip-Boy interface, using the Adafruit GFX library for visuals and the SparkFun MAX3010x library for readings. The program can be downloaded onto the ESP32 board via a typical USB connection. Once it’s running, you’ll see live heart rate and SpO2 data in a clean, game-accurate interface. Toggling the brass points navigates between the various panels, and the wireless functionality is still in the works, waiting for future upgrades that may include notifications or other data.
He also made the complete list of parts, wiring schematic, and code file available on his website for free. There aren’t any kits for sale currently, but if you’re the sort to tackle a project like this, you can get the individual parts and make one yourself. Just be aware that it may be one-of-a-kind, but that’s all part of the excitement.
[Source]
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