A Box that can SAVE YOUR LIFE....and get you out of awkward conversations! (GPS/SMS/Call Thingy)

[@greatscottlab]

The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/greatscott12211

[@Hajdew]

7:20 phone number leak?

[@Purple431]

Lol

[@hamzakhan-mo4bv]

After clicking in START YOUR FREE TRIAL they are asking for credit card details.

[@pcbden]

@@hamzakhan-mo4bv IT IS FOR CHARGING YOU 0.00 $

[@daviddavidson2357]

@@Hajdew I tried it. Didn't work.

[@69iqtutorial]

As an introvert myself, the calling feature is a lifesaver , thanks

[@greatscottlab]

You are welcome ;-)

[@richardbottom9843]

don't know if this is still a thing, but on an older samsung phone I saw you could just press a button to receive a fake call and it was a factory built-in feature

[@MrCh0o]

@@richardbottom9843 Yep, had the same thing on my old Symbian Nokia too

[@notaname8140]

@@richardbottom9843 I have a Fossil hybrid smartwatch that has a "find my phone" button that makes it ring, very useful lol, I imagine a lot of smart watches will have something similar

[@sarjitkaur2205]

@@notaname8140 Yes cheap smart bands of mi etc also find my phone feature which rings my phone

[@ItalianRetroGuy]

Would be good to store the last known GPS location so if you're indoors it sends out the latest known (provided there's signal indoors)

[@greatscottlab]

Good idea for an improvement

[@archivushka]

Or a series of gps location

[@iwantitpaintedblack]

@@greatscottlab Airtag and co would make everything obsolete

[@sensiblewheels]

I was looking for this comment! Glad Scott saw this

[@ItalianRetroGuy]

@@iwantitpaintedblack Airtag has no GPS, this little device isn't really that convenient anyway, but at least it's probably cheaper. Keep in mind though that any message sent via this device cannot be misunderstood: the receiver will know exactly what is going on. Most other systems require that you manually decide to check out the tracking information rather than providing an "alarm" button

[@TheBigBigBlues]

Very nice. You could include an accelerometer also and then use the signal from that to trigger a call, giving you a security system you can buy on your bike!

[@santopino2546]

I used the interrupt pin from the Gyro to wake the Arduino, that checks if there is costant movement, then in turn controls the PowerEN pin on the GSM to switch it on and send a message, then everything goes back to sleep.

[@angelorondini5835]

He could do that with the GPS (more ineffectively but for free)

[@ninovitaliano7943]

he did just this but with a text message a while ago

[@transistorbrains]

I realize that this is essentially a prototype, but you might want to consider putting a tactile bump on one end of the switches. Presumably you would be using this without looking at it (you don’t want those you are trying to escape from seeing it), and you wouldn’t want it in the wrong mode when you are actually using it

[@app0the]

> (you don’t want those you are trying to escape from seeing it) I mean, considering how it currently looks more like a bomb trigger than a sophisticated cellphone you might not even need to activate it

[@peterbrown172]

Nice to see someone making the thing I made back in 1995. I tried to sell it but, I was told by marketers and security companies that I had made a useless device that nobody would be prepared to buy it. I think I was just too early with the idea! I also did a GPS vehicle tracking system and alarm also rejected as “far to advanced for anyone”! Good ideas need to be at the right time! 26 years later seems to be about the right time.

[@gblargg]

Back in 1995 the monthly cost of the cell service for it would have been pretty high.

[@peterbrown172]

@@gblargg while that is true, the products were rejected because the car recovery companies of the era felt the GPS functionality was overkill. Their words “nobody would want to put a complicated GPS into their cars” ha ha. Famous quotes not withstanding. ;)

[@ianhayden2839]

How did you build this before arduino?

[@peterbrown172]

@@ianhayden2839 I used the PIC 16 series of chips. I did the first one on assembly language then converted it to ME Labs PIC Basic compiler. The first chip was the 16F84 then I went to the 16F877 for bigger memory. It was about the time when China started making mouse shaped magnetic mounted GPS units that had serial communication IO and were much cheaper. The first one had a very expensive GPS module. I used a Nokia phone as the GSM interface as they had the easiest IO on their edge connector. Later I used the Siemens phone because it was cheaper , then a company came out with a modular GSM device that was a bit cheaper but more importantly, was able to be mounted to a case far easier. I forget what the company name was but I still have one of them in my “junk box”. I had fun making it & the spin-off projects too. Spin-offs we’re a house alarm that would notify you about power failures and any alarms. You could patch zones and reset the unit. You could also switch to audio communications & listen to your house to see if there were unusual sounds coming from there & trigger the siren , call the police or a combination. Another spinoff was a weather station that could be polled by anyone using SMS. I called it REMWEX. PIC BASIC PRO was the enabler. If it was to be assembler for the later projects, it would have been far too tedious. There were C compilers but they weren’t aimed at the hobbyists so they cost more. I didn’t have too much free cash back then so I was constrained. When the Arduino showed up, I resisted a bit because you couldn’t read protect the firmware. Now I just don’t bother about that. I’m old enough now to know that Karma will need to be the one that sorts out those that steal firmware. I just don’t have that fight anymore. I hope this has been informative. So many people here have no idea what others are capable of doing that they simply tear down the poster because, from their limited experience, the claim appears outrageous. As I said before; I’m too old now to care about uninformed opinions of people that haven’t the skills to do the things I’ve done. Thanks for asking @ianhayden2839. Regards Peter ~ not knowing has never stopped anyone from doing anything. That’s my own saying that I’ve lived my life by.

[@MakeItHackin]

new intro is great, and this project is fantastic as always.

[@greatscottlab]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@PyroRob69]

Every time I watch your videos, I am amazed at the perfboards you build. So neat, apparently quick, and they never seem to have any issues.

[@ESCcrasci]

Pyramid schemes. I simply could not hold my laughter in when I heard that. And now that I think of it, Itll be extremely useful for just doing that!

[@jamess1787]

Love conversations about triangles, especially ones built upon 💰

[@melody3741]

If you're going to be using this as a safety product, I would really recommend adding some kind of cue for the SMS messages that automatically sends them every 10 seconds or whatever in case the signal is bad

[@RMquickbit]

You know what, I really think the intro is great! It’s got a mysterious yet intriguing audio track and the animation is fun & quick. It’s perfect for the channel my guy 🤙🏻

[@greatscottlab]

Thanks mate :-) There are debates about the music. But I think the animation and music turned out great :-)

[@vijayshriequipments1]

@@greatscottlab no man please change the music

[@lieblingsfarbe4453]

How is this comment 3 days old ?

[@DEtchells]

@@greatscottlab I actually think the music is fine - but the animation is *brilliant*!

[@RMquickbit]

@@lieblingsfarbe4453 magic

[@ChrisHalden007]

Having such a huge box in your pocket will likely be more awkward than the conversation itself 🤣

[@skinkebuen]

Do you have a huge box in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?

[@HMFIC1]

Now building this for my grandmother, she is 93 but still hikes, but refuses to carry a cellphone, “too complicated” but this, this is a solution. So it gets GPS data, is there any way to send out information over the sat. Network, without “subscription” service roadblocks. I’m afraid sms won’t work where we live as cell coverage is spotty. Great build. Really on to something with this. Got me playing back in the shop again! Thanks for the inspiration!

[@thetruthserum2816]

I love taking COTS boards and piggybacking them on to a custom PCB for small scale production. Then to go full scale production, you'd have to take all those boards and make it into one "auto pick and place" capable design so it could be mass produced and sent through an oven by the hundreds... Also to make it more like credit card sized and lower power consumption, and a sleep mode on the GPS until the button is pressed, etc...

[@Asu01]

Can't get into awkward conversation when you don't have any social life. _> insert taps head gif_

[@mohammeddamirchi4687]

You can use the ai thinker a9g board and program the board directly and the whole circuit would be assembled in one module and the battery would be connected directly to the board.

[@tomatexelon]

You can put this in a car in case it gets stolen and send you or police the gps location. The only small issue is that SIM cards do cost a monthly subscription to use, around $12.00 US dollars a month. But I do enjoy all your videos!

[@jonashofler590]

You can get a prepaid and only pay for each sms (~29ct in my country)

[@needsmorecoffee]

Another option would be to use the "free" sim cards some ISPs provide to their costumers. Depending on your contract, they mostly come with a very small amount of data/free SMS (like 200 MB or 50 SMS/month) but this would be more than enough for this project.

[@guyincognito.]

I have exactly this in my car, it updates every 15 seconds when moving and every hour when stationary. It displays the position in a browser with a script I created using the google maps API. I only pay for the GPRS data which is a couple of dollars per month.

[@andrewhamop6665]

I'm really loving the new intro! That music is very interesting, and you can actually see what the LEDs spell out. It was actually somewhat difficult for me to read your intro the first time I saw one of your videos. This new one is awesome!

[@CAHSR2020]

Awkward conversations killed my mom and dad and left me a orphan. If only we had this box back then.

[@Nathan0A]

The new intro is FIRE! awesome to see one of my favorite YT'ers leveling up

[@GGLiEx]

Wow man havent checked into your channel for a while. Your English has inproved significantly! Respect man. Now your content is even more enjoyable 😁

[@SpaceCatCat]

The new Intro is simply amazing! Way better than the old ones!

[@sundjinnkari]

Hey Scott, long time viewer of your channel, I was watching this video and thought to myself, man this will be great, it will be tiny and everything will fit in the palm of your hand, then I saw the printed box was the finalization and understood, 'small' is relative. If you ever revisit the topic, I'd like it if you talked about the miniaturization of prototypes in the development process, including what challenges you came across while attempting to miniaturize this project. Thanks!

[@purerizzo]

This!!!

[@purerizzo]

It's really hard for makers such as myself that have limited electronics experience, are used to using dev modules, to even know where to start scaling down their big, fat prototypes!

[@anthonyzeedyk406]

He didn't do much for miniaturization. Taking those circuit designs and combining them into a custom PCB with optimization for every component could easily make that fit in your pocket, probably small enough for a dog tag. Your cell phone has the same functions plus 10 million more and it fits comfortably in your pocket. He basically built a cell phone from 2010. Those have always been much smaller than that boxy thing he built.

[@NickyNiclas]

Just a note, GSM is about to be phased out and the network is going to be shut down in many countries in the near future. Keep this in mind.

[@jg374]

I was surprised to hear that GSM is still around. In Australia, GSM is long since gone and even 3G is starting to be wound down in the next few years.

[@tbyoda9475]

yup here in the US ATT’s 3G network will be shut down in February 2022.

[@jemand771]

over 100 dollars for a bluetooth button seems waaay overpriced. thank you for making this! (even standalone)

[@imranahmad2733]

You can get $20 all in one devices that do the same thing in a much smaller footprint.

[@GRBtutorials]

@@imranahmad2733 Or just use your phone, nowadays both iOS and Android come with emergency call, and if there’s no native function, you should be able to download an app. You might also be able to fake a call with an app.

[@imranahmad2733]

@@GRBtutorials The device has its qualities over the phone, it's alot more easier to use and smaller, I've used one to keep an eye on my dad when he had alzheimer's, I know smart phones can do it but the device could be used as a necklace, a phone would have just got tossed.

[@Geniusinventor]

We can all agree on this this man is a true genius And makes some very impressive things 👏

[@EltonLauring]

Just a though - combine best of both worlds from your idea and the necklace solution: Have a more flat design of the main box stored in the handbag or backpack (in the size and exterior of for example a battery bank for added safety) & have 2 small buttons somewhere more accessible with some low energy bandwidth wireless system to be powered of a 3.3v cell.

[@tarrySubstance]

I really enjoy your videos Scott. Keep up the great work.

[@greatscottlab]

Thanks, will do!

[@rymafyr]

The whole, push a button for a call to get you out of awkward conversations, is something I've needed too many times to count.

[@binukselectronics5207]

Nice new intro man!! Much better than the old ones. And, as always, the video was exceptional...

[@oscar-bc9yk]

That was so good! more like this please. Also love the channel re-brand. maybe you coud do a video on the different types of communication protocals boards like this use, spi i2c CANbus etc...

[@greatscottlab]

Thanks for the feedback :-) I actually already did a video about pretty much every communication protocol ;-)

[@RoboIoT]

I don't know if it is a coincidence or reality. Whenever I try to make a project and then I fail in that making a project, then I see your channel and in. 2 months or 3 months of time another video comes which is directly related to my project. It really helps my project and. Actually you have a great timing of sending the videos. I really get the use of those videos because I. I was recently working on such a device and your video really helped me. Actually I started to make that device like. 3 months ago and now I saw your video and that's really really helpful. Thanks.

[@wunderwaffeyt4077]

Comedy has been improving over the years. Keep it up man!

[@mrxllone]

The new intro is as great as this project itself! Thanks!

[@giannirusso9639]

i have been watching your videos for a while and love them! they are very informative and interesting. i wish you had a better system to share your hardware and software in more detail, as a mechanical engineer myself its always great to see if i can make my own home project based on yours!

[@RomanoPRODUCTION]

GreatScott is my favorite social introvert.

[@robinsattahip2376]

Leaving your phone at home is the best way to avoid awkward conversations or interruptions.

[@PhG1961]

Awesome video that my come in handy... Btw, at 7:16.. is this actually your own number ? No the whole internet can give you a call ?! Might be stressfull when people from other time zones want to have a chat...

[@wichuras]

phone number - View Cafe, hamburg ;)

[@PhG1961]

@@wichuras :-0

[@tisaconundrum]

just imagine taking off all the components resoldering it all to a single board and getting it even smaller!

[@EasyElectronics2412]

intro to end everything was incredible!

[@greatscottlab]

Thank you so much :-)

[@Coolrogers90]

I use a small gsm tracker for my garage door, really cheap, small and useful. (RF V13)

[@TheHandOfFear]

I think one of the main ideas behind the neckless is the ability to send an SOS without alerting your attacker that you are doing so. Clutching a neckless is a common "comforting" action someone might instinctively do when experiencing anxiety and/or danger. So an attacker might not recognize the victim is calling for help. So maybe there is the possibility of some projects involving miniaturization and/or concealment of devices like this. Cool project, I learned a bunch.

[@TheRealDrae]

Necklace. What is it with people not seeing the difference between, for example, your and you're, or were and where? And it's almost always native speakers.

[@TheHandOfFear]

@@TheRealDrae If YOU’RE trying to criticize my use of YOUR, then YOU just had an epic fail because YOUR is correct in the above post. 😜

[@bpbrainiak]

I became a patreon because your videos inspire me, thanks for the generosity =)

[@pauljackson2126]

Damn!!! That's a very useful project.... I'll build it and keep it in my sister's purse which she can use in case of emergency while traveling to her college Great video as always and that's a noice intro...

[@adityashukla7849]

I wasn't really interested until the point I saw that amazing way to get out of a conversation.

[@greatscottlab]

My favourite as well ;-)

[@askforever2022]

i wasn't gonna watch this video until I hovered my cursor over and saw someone kidnapped (Obviously i wasn't sure if I saw it correct and watched the video till the end) Great job !

[@laberkoop]

5:41 - You were not removing the Simlock, but PIN authentication I presume. The Sim-Lock is normally installed in a phone to prevent the using of foreign providers.

[@PresJPolk]

Using the terminals seems like a much nicer way to do this than your usual rats' nest of mid-air soldering :)

[@dan-nutu]

It's almost like 3D chess

[@ElectricGeckos]

Finally a usefull device to get out of conversations politely.

[@chemicalcorrosion]

Loving the new intro! Familiar, yet fresh and very stylistic.

[@amyslivets]

You can get rid off power slide Button and keep only one push button. Push it > arduino wakes up > and keep power by logical output and transistor. When everything done - arduiono turns off transistor and it’s power (completely)

[@badraa7838]

i love the intro!

[@pranavramesh4888]

The new intro is really cool!

[@Angel_Bob_]

Can't tell you how much easier building circuits is now that I've found your channel

[@renxula]

Cool project! But I think everyone agrees that "as small as possible" was a bit funny 😄

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

It really is a shame that there isnt much of a choice for 4 & 4.5G mobile daughter boards, as here in Australia the 2G is turned off and 3G will soon be gone too. Great project though!

[@David_Ladd]

Yeah here in the USA 2G is off as well and some are also starting to turn off 3G support now too. So I guess might need to find a 4G/LTE version of this module.

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

@@David_Ladd Ive done a little research and there are some new (very new) 5g boards coming out now but as always these young boards are buggy & I dont know enough programming to do the early hard yards to assist.

[@Alacritous]

Just FYI. If you're in Canada, you need to know that the only GSM provider, Rogers Wireless, is stopping GSM services at the end of 2021. After that there won't be any GSM service in Canada and the other carriers dropped support for CDMA in 2016, So the cheap GSM and CDMA cell boards won't work anywhere here anymore. You'll have to get an HSPA+(3G or higher) board, which will be more expensive.

[@LeWebslinger]

I would upgrade the software so that it logs every 10 mins the gps position and save them to give with timestamps, so that it could be still usefull if the emergency is occurring indoors.

[@jamesmor5305]

Thanks, that you explain the Code. Really helpful

[@Joeleo]

Awesome build man!

[@ArmandtFourie]

The new intro is really cool! Excellent video as always

[@greatscottlab]

Thank you very much!

[@electronic7979]

Excellent project

[@salimbenjelloun3689]

You basically created your own whole simplified cell phone, i’d like to see you build a smartphone from scratch!

[@jeffspaulding9834]

I just imagined Ben Eater building a smartphone from breadboards. It'd be the size of a phone booth.

[@salimbenjelloun3689]

@@jeffspaulding9834 true, but that’s still a start

[@lowrads3653]

That seems way harder than making a smartwatch app. Good stuff!

[@Spelter]

True, but your Smartwatch has no GPS and GSM module most of the time and is using the Smartphone as a proxy

[@johankorten2797]

Wago terminals are very useful for rapid prototyping, I use them too, even voor development kits for students.

[@PhilipStubbs]

I want one! Don't know why as I know I wont ever use it, but still want one. Brilliant. Great video.

[@matthewsylvester9103]

That's craaazy, I know the girl who made that company she's a computer engineer from UMass Lowell. No idea her startup got that big

[@cthomas254]

nice though I think I'm going to take your work and port it to my doorbell project. thanks!

[@JjMn1000]

New intro and channel icon. Like it! Very cool video also!

[@Gold63Beast]

ANYTHING TO AVOID ONE OF THOSE MLM/Pyramid Scheme PITCHES!!!

[@patrikkopejtko4716]

That new intro is amazing! The video as well, of course^^

[@greatscottlab]

Thanks! 😄

[@tyvaughnholness1985]

First video I've seen in a while, I like the new intro, fun little project too, good to be back cheers

[@greatscottlab]

Hey, thanks!

[@KnaufL]

That's a rather large necklace 😅. If you want to make it compact you're going to need a 2 or 4 layer custom PCB with bare camponents on either side. Also, minding the power usage, all those small regulators would need to be replaced by a single psu circuit

[@dan-nutu]

I was thinking he just built himself one heck of a necklace medallion, all he needs to do now is find a strong enough necklace so he could "inconspicuously" wear it :) Joking aside, this was way easier to follow for me than his usual electronic circuits. I was amused hearing him say "ZIM" card :)

[@electrohardik8497]

Wow sir your efforts really deserves to be appreciated 👏

[@greatscottlab]

Thanks a ton

[@sinpi314]

The new intro is awesome!

[@Leroys_Stuff]

You come up with the coolest projects that’s awesome

[@EsotericArctos]

This is a cool project. Unfortunately we have no 2G services in Australia at all now and 3G are even being turned off soon

[@Psychx_]

Excellent - I'll build such a box myself and use it to bash in the kidnapper's face in case of emergency!

[@20002000l]

You can also do indoor positioning, based on (known) wifi signals. So it works inside as well.

[@Postbus22]

Idea: take this project and build it into a car with a hidden switch. When the system is armed, it sends the GPS location every 5 minutes.

[@bertoid]

Those vero boards, interconnecting pins and headers take up quite a bit of room, but there are so few actual interconnections required (maybe a dozen wires - tops?). So the modules could just be joined with short direct wires from module to module, with all the modules packed together at whatever arrangement gives the smallest volume, with some thin sheets of soft flexible insulating material keeping them all from shorting out. I think it could be made considerably smaller without much trouble... PS: Maybe lay it all out in a thin flat, and even slightly flexible arrangement, it would be much easier to carry around

[@theR6969]

I love A-ha's "Take on me" music video, loved your old video intro, I don't think combining the two is such a great idea.

[@RoseKindred]

Huh, this video was interesting. It was very similar, right down to the necklace idea, that I pitched at my community college about 6 years ago. Basically, you pre-program a command, such as sending a GPS location, to a list of phone numbers. If one doesn't respond to the text it goes to the next and cycles down the line before restarting with the first person. I initially thought of the idea because of spiked drinks. If you knew you were going to a party you could pre-program a simple script on the computer and later send it out when you press a button or at a specific time, say 10 PM, and ask the people to make sure you are okay by calling or checking on you. I even wanted people to be able to reply for approved options such as sharing live GPS tracking. I could never figure out how to connect a button to my phone to send the command outward.

[@Spb2005]

Dein neues Intro is sick. Gut gemacht!

[@greatscottlab]

Thanks

[@lpt2606]

nice intro, love the classic music but feels soo much different

[@309electronics5]

Those companies trying so hard to make him buy it instead he makes his own btw nice intro

[@rustbeltrestoration]

Woah a lofi feeling intro. Sweet!

[@itamarcohen6868]

WOW, the new intro, as I said, still remember the blue one!

[@williamhuang8309]

New Intro! Nice

[@kennethlazo940]

Love it 😅😅😅 specially the "get the heck out of here mode"

[@greatscottlab]

My favourite too ;-)

[@santopino2546]

I used a A6 GSM module that has level shifters and power EN pin, excellent for battery powered projects. I was able to send 1200 SMS every 3 minutes on a 1200mA LiPo battery, by adding an extra capacitor on the GSM power lines, I'm sure I could go further. I had to put the Arduino and the GSM to sleep when not needed and used interrupt to wake the Arduino that in turn would switch the GSM on when needed.

[@robelengida6211]

This is awesome. Amazing as usual

[@gabriele7361]

You could consider swapping the Arduino for an esp to enable location indoor matching wifi with hard coded locations if you wish so

[@system8988]

I really happy to know you your videos gives me happines

[@MatrixRage]

I feel like you could get the footprint down quite a bit by doing a pcb - could be a good way to get jlcpcb to sponsor it, and then you could sell the boards to support the channel. I think it is a very worthwhile project. I Always enjoy your videos

[@fehmimlaouah7072]

The project is very interesting ( and the final build is Savage, as you say hahaha)

[@devanshtangri]

New intro is great scott!! 👍🏻

[@greatscottlab]

Glad you like it!

[@joshfixall7938]

I don't think this name is really Scott

[@devanshtangri]

@@joshfixall7938 of course it isn't, do you not know where Great Scott is used?

[@joshfixall7938]

@@devanshtangri I thought it was a catch phrase from Back to the future

[@grrr-ou9oc]

LOVE the new intro, heck yeah

[@runforitman]

stacked boards is such a cool method

[@orlinchirinos1981]

Very creative, entertaining, and useful