Glone - the glove phone

http://trotmaster.blogspot.com/search/label/glove
The idea was initially to build an "inspector gadget" phone, i.e. one that can make calls using the thumb and pinkie. This then expanded to include the ability to text using one hand.

The buttons 0-9, call and end call were soldered and the wires routed to the fingers which then had push buttons positioned (3 on each finger), so that they could be operated by the thumb. The speaker and mic are added to the base of the thumb and the tip of the pinkie.

The phone board and the battery were mounted to the back of the glove

Finally the screen was attached with copper wire to the glove so that it stands up and can be moved around.

In all, I spent about 50GBP on materials (including the phone). It could probably done cheaper if you have these bits lying around.

You'll need a basic knowledge of soldering and plenty of patience.

Step 1: Dissasembling the phone

I used a Samsung x640 as it was old and therefore easy to get hold of a cheap one, plus it was a clamshell layout, so the screen could be easily separated from the rest of the phone.

Once separated the keypad was cut up. I wouldn't be trying to move the D-pad or the # and * keys, so they remained on the phone board. The rest had 2 wires soldered to their contacts.

The Samsung was rather odd with how it shared earths, so each connection was tested before soldering to a small push to make button.

The battery was also soldered in place. This may have been a little dangerous to do in hindsight, as the phone always had power during the soldering process, but I believed it necessary so that I could simply double check the connections as I made them.

Comments

[spartan1996]

havnt read the ible et but wouldnt a touch screen phone work better as the you could make as you put it an "inspecor gadget phone"

[PikeMinnow]

It would probably be possible, but it's really hard to mess around with touchscreens.

[funwithmickey]

Dude, its a Great Idea!!!
but, how did u wire up the screen? I am stuck there!

[trotmaster]

The screen was never detached from the handset. Because it's a clam shell style phone, the screen part is free to move around and position as you like

[Risuji]

Maybe if you added the buttons to the bottom of the fingers you could use them in a sort of typing manner. Any phone's locking keypad mechanism should stop normal activity being an issue if you use small pad buttons. You could put the typing buttons left, right and centre of each finger, also keeping the navigation buttons down the finger so you can reach them with the thumb (try pressing your thumb to each finger bone in its hand). Adding the screen to the wrist and hiding the wiring could really make this a great everyday use idea!

[Maroc]

this is an interesting idea personally I think that this is a good idea but what I would do in version with the mk2 would be to have the phone mounted on the wrist/forearm area with some kind of cover to protect the screen when not in use next i would find a way to keep the vibration feature to notify you of an incoming call. At this point you can do two things one is to set it permanently on loud speaker and the other option would be a blue tooth headset. I'm actually working on something similar to this idea only it uses a mp3 player and it's being built into piece of armor

[trotmaster]

Thanks for the ideas Maroc. Oddly enough, that is pretty much what I am working on at the moment. A wrist mounted design with enclosures for the circuit board and LCD screen.

I am keeping track of it all here: http://trotmaster.blogspot.com/search/label/glove

[moviemagicman33]

Using one of the flip-open phones, is it still possible to disconnect the screen and keypad while still keeping them functional? I may be working with an LG phone, and was also looking to see if I could keep the camera operational as well.

[trotmaster]

The power and control comes from the keypad via a ribbon cable to the screen and camera. I guess if you can work out the interface to the camera then you could do away with the keypad part but that would require some pretty clever interfacing, probably a PC or PIC interface.

[crampedyogapositions]

I'm building a version that has nano-sensors in them, that way when its connected to my Iphone it wiil interpit all off my movements as commands.....what do you think would make it better?

[PKM]

This then expanded to include the ability to text using one hand.

I can text with one hand by.. holding my phone in one hand. Can't blame you for doing it though, the "data glove" model holds a strange fascination.

Now if you did the thumb/finger thing with a bluetooth handset, you could put it in a much more unobtrusive glove... if my phone had bluetooth I think I would, actually. Imagine the looks you'd get answering calls on it :)

[crapflinger]

yeah....using a bluetooth headset to do the thumb/pinkie deal would be pretty easy...just desolder the mic and speaker and put them in the thumb/pinkie of the glove

[mikeasaurus]

Great job, looks like you put some effort in this! I think you should try to complete the original idea of the Inspector Gadget phone as well, as a thumb/pinky phone would be pretty awesome!

[trotmaster]

Well I never pretended that this device would replace the standard cell phone!

As for the bluetooth idea, it's being looked in to by both Nokia and Apple. Apple's idea looks something like this:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1351/1322381531_b911d0e2cd.jpg

I'd like my next version to have more of a steampunk look. That would excuse the bulkiness.