How to Write a Simple Android Wear OS Hello World Application

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A few months back I treated myself to a new watch, and I decided to finally try a smartwatch. I haven’t thought that I’d use it as much as I ended up doing, but I noticed that the Android device lacks a few features that I’d previously found on the Apple Watch, most notably a native stocks app that helps keep track of my portfolio. Granted, I don’t know why I’d like to see my life savings disappear in real-time, but I decided to try and write a simple stock tracking app for Wear OS devices just for the sake of it. However, this article discusses how to get started with writing a custom program for Wear OS devices.

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A Brief Introduction to Analog Signals on Arduino Boards [shorts #5]

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Some Arduino boards, like the MKR Vidor 4000, come with built-in digital-to-analog converters (also often simply abbreviated to DACs). With other popular development boards, for example, the Arduino UNO, you’ll have to live with a PWM pseudo-analog output. Or do you? This short article investigates the difference between true analog outputs and PWM pseudo-analog signals, and what you can do to get a true analog signal without having to own one of the more expensive Arduino boards.

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2021: Christmas greetings from nerdhut.de

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Dear readers,

It’s almost Christmas again, so it’s time for the annual nerdhut.de Christmas letter and stats report. You may have noticed that I broke this tradition last year as I honestly didn’t want to look back at 2020. At that point, I and many others have hoped that the corona-virus pandemic would be over by 2021. Unfortunately, that was a bit too optimistic, as it turned out. Either way, let’s focus on the positive things and have a look back at the stats of 2020 and 2021!

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How to get the current time from an NTP Server using an Arduino, ESP32, or ESP8266 [shorts #4]

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Arduino-based clock projects are a staple in the maker and DIY community, and I’ve built a few ones myself. Such projects typically incorporate a real-time clock (RTC) module that keeps track of the time. However, once the battery on the RTC module runs flat, it forgets the previously set time. Another option involves adding a few push buttons to allow users to set the time. The Arduino itself keeps track of the time as long as it’s plugged into a power supply, and it forgets the settings once you disconnect it from the power source. This short article discusses a third option that allows you to make your clock projects much more user-friendly by automatically setting and adjusting the time when necessary.

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The best and worst Simpsons Halloween specials

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As some of you might know, the Simpsons are among my favorite TV shows, and I’ve featured the show on this blog before. While I mostly prefer watching the older episodes, I sometimes check out the newer ones as well. So, in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to watch every single Simpsons Halloween special and give you a rundown of my favorite episodes.

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A simple custom I2C character LCD interface for Arduino projects

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Character LCDs are a fantastic and cost-effective option when your project calls for a user-friendly output method. Besides being cheap and easy to use, these displays often offer enough usable screen real-estate for displaying simple status messages and interactive menu screens. However, the standard 16-pin interface can be quite a hassle to work with, and all the wires quickly clutter up your previously simple Arduino project. While there are some I2C character LCDs out in the wild, these models are often more expensive and sometimes difficult to work with. Therefore, I decided to build a simple-to-use alternative that allows you to control pretty much any standard 14 and 16-pin LCD display with only four wires.

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A look at various simple dithering algorithms in C++ [shorts #3]

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The previous short article investigated a simple method for scaling images using standard C++. In that article, I mentioned that I was working on a way to shrink images for displaying them on the Mac Classic CRT. I also mentioned that, to display the images on the Mac’s CRT, I’d also need to employ a dithering algorithm to prevent losing too much detail. Therefore, this article takes a look at three simple and popular dithering algorithms implemented in C++.

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